Nothing

Devotion for the week...

Today I'm sharing one of the devotions from the Roman Adventure QAL and Devotional Journey. This truth might be one of my favourites 💖 

Nathan used to love building with Lego and every now and then he’d come to me with pieces that were stuck together so tightly he couldn’t get them apart. Since I have longer nails, I could usually get them apart and he’d quickly be on his way back to his project. There were times, though, when it was almost impossible to wedge a fingernail into that barely visible line between the pieces and pry them apart. I’d have to try from one angle, then another, and from this side, then the other, trying to find the one spot where I could get in between the two pieces just a tiny bit in order to separate them.

There are plenty of things in this life that we might worry could potentially separate us from God’s love, but Paul assures us it’s not possible. “I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).

We might worry that something we do, some sin we commit, could make God stop loving us, but Paul points out that not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. Any sin in our lives needs to be dealt with, obviously, but there’s no sin that would make God stop loving us.

We need to let this truth get down deep in our souls - nothing can separate us from His love. Nothing. He holds onto us more tightly than any two Lego pieces could ever be stuck, and there’s no angle or side from which something could get in between us.

My First Quilt with Joanne Kerton

It's the last Friday of the month, which means it's time for a My First Quilt interview 😊 Today Joanne Kerton shares the story of her first quilt.

A self-taught quilter who has been quilting for almost 25 years, Joanne enjoys learning about design through quilt-making.  Her designs are a little bit modern, a little bit traditional, appealing and accessible to quilters of all skill levels.  She firmly believes that quilting should be a joyful endeavor.

You can connect with Joanne at her blog, on Facebook, and on Instagram.

And now, here's Joanne (circa 2002) and her first quilt!

What year did you make your first quilt? What prompted you to make it?

I started my first quilt in late 2000, prompted by my brother's engagement. I wanted to give a wedding gift, of course. I also wanted to learn to quilt. Money was too tight to do both. What if I used the gift budget for quiltmaking tools and supplies? I'd learn to quilt AND have a handmade wedding gift for my brother and new sister-in-law. It was a perfect plan. It was rather more time-consuming than I had expected, especially while pregnant and running around after a one-year-old. The quilt was finished and gifted in 2002, a year after the wedding, but it was appreciated and was the start of my quilting obsession.

What techniques were used in that first quilt? Did you quilt it yourself?

The blocks were foundation paper-pieced from patterns in a book by Carol Doak that I found at my local library. I traced all the foundations onto tissue paper. I think my husband helped trace some as well. I pieced the quilt in fits and starts, setting up shop on the kitchen table, putting everything away for meals then hauling the machine out again for the next sewing session. I finished the top a few months before the wedding, relieved that I'd be done on time. I then tried machine quilting, was thoroughly frustrated by it, and decided to hand quilt the quilt, resigned to delivering the gift a little later than planned.

Who taught you to make the quilt?

My friend Carol dabbled in quilting but found quilting rulers confusing. She assured me paper piecing was the way to go because cutting didn't need to be terribly accurate. She directed me to books at the library, and I taught myself from there. I used books and trial and error to figure out the hand quilting. I'm grateful the owner of the local quilt shop kindly took the time to teach me how to bind the quilt, because the books weren't terribly clear about that part!

Are the colours you chose for your first quilt ones you would still choose today?

I still like the colours, but I would probably vary the scale of the prints more today. I also would probably choose a block background with some texture instead of a true solid.

Did you fall in love with quilting right away? Or was there a gap between making the first quilt and the next one?

I have had at least one quilt in progress since that first one, though in the early years the production rate was very slow, on the order of one finish every couple of years.  Quilting edged out other crafts very quickly.  To be fair, my toddler had a close encounter with a knitting needle that could have turned out very badly, so knitting needles disappeared for a while.  Without that incident, knitting might have edged out quilting, or competed for equal time.

Where is the quilt now?

I'm fairly certain my brother and sister-in-law still have it.  I saw it on the back of their living room couch during a visit a couple of years ago.

Is there anything you wish you could go back and tell yourself as you made that first quilt?

First, check the block placement!  I had a layout planned to alternate block patterns and colors.  Somewhere along the way I messed it up and didn't notice until after the whole thing was quilted.  Seeing the blocks in the "wrong" place still bothers me, more than 20 years later.  How on earth did it not bother me enough to notice before I started the quilting? 

Second, no one else will see or care about your mistakes.  Do your best, but don't obsess about perfection.   I think we are all our own worst critics.  Those blocks in the "wrong places"?  Paul and Shona don't care!  At least they've never said so...

Anything else you want to share about your first quilt?

It was really, really hard to give it away!  It was always meant as a gift, but I was so proud of that first effort that I very nearly kept it for myself. 

Thank you for sharing your first quilt with us, Joanne! I think we can all relate to wanting to keep an intended gift quilt for ourselves 😆

You've Got This! and TGIFF

Welcome to the Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday party 🎉 I have a small finish to share this week.

A friend is battling breast cancer. Thankfully it was caught early at a routine mammogram (consider this your reminder to schedule those routine medical checks!), so her prognosis is good. Still, 2025 has been "a ride," as she put it. I decided to make her a mini quilt I'm describing as a fist bump in quilt form for when she needs it.

I was on a roll making this little mini, so much so that I was almost finished the quilting before I realized I hadn't paused to take a single picture. Oops! 

Orange is her favourite colour, so I coloured the text with orange crayon. I have a tutorial here for how to do that. It's a quick and easy way to add text to a quilt.

Then came the fun part - quilting it! I started by outlining each letter with Aurifil 1133 (Bright Orange).

Then I used Aurifil 1133, 2390 (Cinnamon Toast), and 2135 (Yellow) to add some freehand flowers. They're all perfectly imperfect, just like real flowers. I didn't really plan out their placement, I just started adding them and stopped when it felt like there were enough. Then I finished off the quilting with a dense stipple in Aurifil 2024 (White).

I usually use a solid for the back, but went with this fabric from Island Batik for its oranges, instead. I also added a couple of folded triangles at the top in case she wants to hang it.

When putting on the binding, I must have been distracted. I usually put it on the back first, then fold it over to the front and stitch it down by machine. You can see my full machine binding tutorial here. This time, I put it on the front first, then had to fold it to the back. Last time I did that (a couple of years ago), I hand stitched the binding to the back. I really didn't want to do that this time, though, so I clipped the binding in place all around the quilt and stitched at the edge of the binding from the front, hoping to catch it on the back. It worked, except where it missed a little bit at the bottom. Since it's just a mini quilt, I declared that to be good enough!

I can't do anything about the medical side of things for my friend, but hopefully this quilted fist bump reminds her that she's strong. 

That's my finish this week. What have you finished lately? Link it up below, then be sure to visit some of the other links and celebrate their finishes, too!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Strong Enough?

Devotion for the week...

Have you ever watched an adult arm wrestle a preschooler? When the adult inevitably loses, it's obvious to everyone except the preschooler that the adult lost on purpose. The preschooler, though, thinks they were strong enough to overpower the adult and gets so excited about their win! This past week, as we approached Easter, that image was all I could see when I thought about Jesus going to the cross.

Jesus wasn't surprised by the cross. He wasn't ambushed and dragged there unwillingly. He wasn't fighting to get free or resisting in any way. His death on that cross was planned ahead of time and He was simply following the plan. He even told Pilate, "You would have no power over me at all unless it were given to you from above" (John 19:11).

Satan, though, didn't know about the plan. He didn't understand the power of God, so he thought he was overpowering Jesus. Can you imagine how excited he was when Jesus died on the cross? How he must have celebrated God's defeat? He actually thought he had outmaneuvered the omniscient God! 

But then came the moment of truth. As Peter explained in his sermon to the crowd on the day of Pentecost, "God released [Jesus] from the horrors of death and raised him back to life, for death could not keep him in its grip" (Acts 2: 24). Death wasn't strong enough to hold Jesus! 

Satan thought he had defeated Jesus on that cross, but in reality, Jesus had let him win. Then, while Satan was likely still celebrating, God revealed His true strength as He raised Jesus back to life, claiming the ultimate victory.

Pinwheel Irish Chain Pattern Release

Today's pattern release has been a long time coming! I'm excited to say that the Pinwheel Irish Chain pattern is now (finally!) in my shop.

I made my first Pinwheel Irish Chain quilt in 2019 as an Island Batik ambassador challenge. I made the top and donated it to Victoria's Quilts Canada, a group that makes comfort quilt for people receiving cancer treatments, and who only accept quilt tops rather than finished quilts.

Every few months since then, I receive an email asking where to buy the Pinwheel Irish Chain pattern, but there wasn't one. There also wasn't a finished quilt for me to put on the cover of a pattern. I put it on my mental to-do list, but with no deadline it just kept getting pushed further and further down the list.

Then I realized it would be a perfect Stash Artists pattern. That meant it had a deadline, so I made another quilt (finished this time), wrote the pattern, and released it to Stash Artists members last March. Now, a year later, it's available to quilters outside the membership. (By the way, if you love scrappy and stash-friendly patterns like this, Stash Artists doors will be opening for new members next month. You can get on the waitlist here to be notified when doors open.)

This quilt is like a collection of my favourite things - blues, pinwheels, an Irish Chain, and it's scrappy! I made the throw size for the cover quilt, and the pattern also includes instructions for baby and queen sizes.

What colour scraps would you use for the Irish Chain in your Pinwheel Irish Chain quilt? While the blues will always have my heart, I keep thinking it would look great in Christmas reds and greens, too. Whatever colour you'd choose, you can get the pattern now in my Etsy shop!

Judas

Devotion for the week...

I was looking for a different post when I stumbled across this series I wrote leading up to Easter 2019. As we approach Easter again this year, it seems like a good time to share it again. Here's the last of the series, with links to the previous two.

_______________________________________________

Over the past two weeks, we've looked at Pilate and the chief priests and their parts in the Easter story. Today I want to look at Judas' betrayal of Jesus.

"Then Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve disciples, went to the leading priests and asked, 'How much will you pay me to betray Jesus to you?' And they gave him thirty pieces of silver. From that time on, Judas began looking for an opportunity to betray Jesus." (Matthew 26:14-16).

The Bible doesn't tell us anything about why Judas betrayed Him, though people have speculated that Judas was looking for a king who would overthrow the Romans, who had conquered Israel. When it became apparent that Jesus wasn't going to do that, Judas betrayed him. Whatever his reason, I think it's interesting to note that it was Judas who approached the chief priests, not them coming to ask him to betray Jesus. Judas took the initiative to get rid of Jesus and even to make a profit from doing it.

When the time came, Judas brought "a crowd of men armed with swords and clubs...sent by the leading priests and elders of the people" (v. 47) to arrest Jesus in Gethsemane and "had given them a prearranged signal: 'You will know which one to arrest when I greet him with a kiss.' So Judas came straight to Jesus. 'Greetings, Rabbi!' he exclaimed and gave him the kiss." (vv. 48-49).

The next morning, "When Judas, who had betrayed him, realized that Jesus had been condemned to die, he was filled with remorse. So he took the thirty pieces of silver back to the leading priests and the elders. 'I have sinned,' he declared, 'for I have betrayed an innocent man'....Then Judas threw the silver coins down in the Temple and went out and hanged himself" (Matthew 27:3-5).

What I can't help but wonder is what did he think was going to happen? He hanged himself upon realizing that Jesus was going to die, so obviously that wasn't his intention, but what did he intend? Was he aiming to have Jesus discredited, so people would stop following Him? Did he hope Jesus would be arrested and put in prison? Did he never really think about what would happen to Jesus, instead only focusing on what he stood to gain by turning Jesus in to the chief priests? We don't know what he expected to have happen, but when he realized that Jesus was going to die, he was so crushed by his guilt that he committed suicide.

I remember once hearing someone lament that because he committed suicide, Judas never got to experience Jesus' forgiveness. It was the first time I ever thought about how Jesus would have reacted to meeting Judas again after His resurrection, had Judas still been alive. Can you picture Judas, trying to make himself invisible, so Jesus wouldn't notice him? Or maybe falling on his knees, apologizing over and over for all the pain his actions caused, cringing from the anger he expected? Never in a million years would he have expected the love and forgiveness we know Jesus would have given him.

No matter how big our sins are, God's grace is always big enough to cover them. Even Judas' betrayal would have disappeared under the covering of His grace and love. That goes for all of our sins, too.

He Sees Us

Devotion for the week...

I hope you enjoy this devotion that was originally published in April 2015 😊

_______________________________

I love to read. Lately I haven't been reading as many books because I'm spending so much time quilting or reading quilting blogs, but I still love a good book. Right now I'm reading The Strangled Queen, an historical fiction written by French author Maurice Druon. The book is number 2 in a series of 7, and is set in France in the 1300s. The series chronicles the end of the Capetian kings, about whom I know absolutely nothing.

When I was reading a couple of weeks ago, this lined jumped out at me: "He had governed men from so high a position and for so long that he had lost the knack of looking at them." The he mentioned in the quote was in charge of the treasury and daily made decisions that affected the lives of everyone in the kingdom, but he had stopped really seeing the people. He had stopped thinking about how his decisions affected them and he had stopped caring about individual people.

I sat for a few minutes, reading the line over and over, before finally getting up and typing it into my laptop for use in a devotion. The contrast was just too great to ignore. There is, after all, no position higher than God. There is no government that is responsible for more people and no politician who has governed longer.

But God hasn't lost the knack of looking at us. He sees every detail of our lives and cares about our well-being. Consider these verses:

"What is the price of two sparrows—one copper coin? But not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows" (Matthew 10:29-31).

"O Lord, you have examined my heart

    and know everything about me.

You know when I sit down or stand up.

    You know my thoughts even when I’m far away.

You see me when I travel

    and when I rest at home.

    You know everything I do.

You know what I am going to say

    even before I say it, Lord.

You go before me and follow me.

    You place your hand of blessing on my head" (Psalm 139:1-5).

He sees us. Really sees us. He cares about us so much that He is always aware of where we are, what we are doing, what we are thinking and what we are feeling. No one could possibly see us more clearly than God sees us, and nothing could ever change the fact that He cares enough to really look at us.