Japan Quake Appeal - Raffling Japanese Fabric - CLOSED

*** This raffle is now closed. Thank you so much to everyone who donated! ***

Here in Western Japan the earthquake and tsunami have not affected us at all. Obviously I am so thankful that my friends and family are all safe, but at the same time there is a certain guilt connected to carrying on as usual when so many people are suffering. I feel so helpless here, especially as local governments in the affected area have asked individuals not to donate goods since sorting and distributing those goods increases the burden on an already overloaded system. So, cash donations it is, and if you too would like to chip in, here is one way you can help...

As I wrote yesterday, Jo at A Bit Of This And A Bit Of That is encouraging bloggers in Japan and around the world to hold raffles and auctions to raise money for the relief effort. For my part, I'm offering...

25 Fat Quarters of Japanese Fabric

That's over 6 metres/yards of material in total! This photo is just to give you an idea of the sort of lovely fabrics you might win. All the fabrics will be chosen by me from my shop stock (including some that have yet to be listed there) in consultation with the winner. So if you're particularly interested in traditional Japanese fabrics, or prints suitable for boys, or florals, or a particular colour, or kawaii cutesy designs... I'll pick out a bundle that'll make you smile. Have a browse through the shop if you'd like to see more of the sort of thing you could win.

How to enter:

Go to GlobalGiving.co.uk (United Kingdom) or GlobalGiving.org (United States) and make a donation.

• Every $5 donation or 3 pound donation entitles you to one raffle ticket.
• After you have made your donation, come back and leave a comment on this post, telling me how much you donated (ie how many tickets you have bought) and your receipt number.
• Don't forget to leave your e-mail address in the comment too - you can write it as name 'at' yahoo 'dot' com if you are worried about spam.
• If you make a mistake or need to change your comment, please go back and delete your first comment and rewrite it.
• Open to anyone, anywhere in the world!
• The raffle will close at mid-day Japan time 26th March and the winner will be drawn at random and contacted by email. However, there is a risk that I will be, ahem, giving birth that day, so please forgive me if I'm a day or two late in posting the results here.

For help with the donation you can refer to this post http://jojoebi.blogspot.com/2011/03/how-to-make-donation.html

The raffle being held on this blog, and others around the blogosphere, is held in conjunction with A Bit of This and A Bit of That. We are in no way affiliated with global giving, that's just our chosen method of getting funds safely to the affected area.

Later this week Jo will be putting up a list of all the blogs involved in this appeal, each of which will be hosting their own raffle or auction, each requiring separate donations. So if you're not interested in fabric, there will be lots of other things to tempt you. Do please check out the others and enter as many as you can afford. Let's do what we can to help those in need. And if you blog, or Facebook, or Tweet, or have friends in real life, please do spread the word!