The Planks vs The Sawdust

Devotion for the Week...

I am a huge fan of Bonnie Hunter's scrap quilting and I love her Instagram feed. I also enjoy motivational/inspiring quotes, so I love that Bonnie recently started posting inspirational quotes each day, including this one by H. Jackson Brown Jr. : “Let the refining and improving of your own life keep you so busy that you have little time to criticize others.”

There were immediately two things that came to my mind. First was the simple fact that we are not perfect, which means there will always be room for improvement. As believers, our goal is to become more and more like Jesus. John wrote, "We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did" (1John 2:3-6).

Until I live as Jesus lived, there will be room for refining and improving in my life. Now, I don't know about you, but I fall far short of that standard!

The second thing that came to mind was another Bible verse. "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye" (Matthew 7:3-5).

We sure do like to point out faults in other people, don't we? We don't like thinking about our own faults nearly as much, even though we all know those faults exist. We just like to think our faults are more like harmless foibles, while other peoples' faults are glaring character flaws. And yet Jesus calls us hypocrites if we ignore our own faults (the planks in our eyes) while focusing on the faults of others (the sawdust in their eyes).

The challenge is in looking ourselves square enough in the face to recognize our faults and then having the courage to do something about them. The amazing thing is, if I work on removing a certain fault from my own life, I'm then more qualified to help someone else overcome that same fault. I'm also more likely to be more compassionate and less judgmental.

Make no mistake, there are times when we are called to talk to others about the sin in their lives. Matthew 18:15 says, "If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you." There's a difference, though, between confronting a person about a sin and criticizing them. Often when we criticize it's more a case of nit-picking, of finding fault with the way a person does something because it's different from the way we would do it. In that case, it's better to be more concerned with dealing with your own faults than with nit-picking about someone else's.

Denim Days - Log Cabin Placemats

Welcome back for week 4 of Denim Days!

 

Can you believe it's the last Friday in February already? Time sure does fly when you're having fun, and I've been having so much fun deconstructing jeans and making things from all that recycled denim. Click on these links to see my projects from weeks 1, 2 and 3.

I made placemats for us over three years ago and they've been looking rather stained and ugly for a while. I couldn't decide what I wanted to make to replace them, though, so we keep using the old ones. I've always thought denim placemats would look nice, so I finally decided to go for it.

I wanted to use both denim and regular quilting cotton, to reduce the number of bulky all-denim seams, so I chose these two prints, both from Connecting Threads (affiliate link). I love Connecting Threads fabrics (and prices!), so I'm a little disappointed with the current state of the Canadian dollar, which is making cross-border shopping more difficult.

I decided to use a log cabin block, but to make some of the side strips wider so that the placemats would be a rectangle rather than a square. These finish at 12" x 18 1/2".

My intention was to have the placemats finished before my parents arrived for their visit this week, so we could use them, but that didn't work out. Though I  have all 8 tops finished, only 2 are quilted and bound. But hey, at least I had 2 done so I could get pictures for today, right?

I've been having fun experimenting with quilting designs, so for these I tried the swirl hook, using Angela Walters' video tutorial. I'm trying to work on scale when I quilt since I have a habit of quilting really, really small, which is fine when you're working on a wall quilt or a mini quilt. I'm planning to make a quilt for our bed, though, and I don't want the quilting to be really dense since that tends to make the quilt stiff rather than nice and soft. So, with the first placemat, I concentrated on making each swirl hook larger than I would normally. It took a fair bit of my attention to keep myself from quilting smaller and smaller, and this is still smaller than I will want to quilt the one for our bed. Then, with the second placemat, I forgot to pay attention to the size...and reverted right back to the smaller scale. Ooops! At least I have 6 more to practice with :)

Now, on with the tutorial!

Gather Your Supplies

*Strips of denim from old jeans in a variety of colours. I would recommend not using thick denim. I had one pair of men's jeans that was noticeably thicker than the rest and it made for bulkier seams. You can read about how I deconstruct my jeans in this post.
*Quilting cotton in two coordinating prints
*Batting - 14" x 20" for each placemat
*Backing fabric - 14" x 20" for each placemat
*Binding Fabric - 2 strips 2 1/4" x WOF for each placemat

Cutting 

 

**For each placemat**


Black print - 1 square 2 1/2" x 2 1/2"
                     2 rectangles 3" x 8 1/2"
                     2 rectangles 1 1/2" x 13 1/2"

Yellow print - 2 rectangles 1 1/2" x 4 1/2"
                       2 rectangles 1 1/2" x 6 1/2"

Denim - 2 rectangles 1 1/2" x 2 1/2"
              2 rectangles 1 1/2" x 4 1/2"
              2 rectangles 1 1/2" x 6 1/2"
              2 rectangles 1 1/2" x 8 1/2"

              2 rectangles 3" x 10 1/2"
              2 rectangles 1 1/2" x 18 1/2"

Unfortunately, I completely forgot about taking pictures for this tutorial, so we'll just pretend these pictures were taken in progress, okay? Thankfully, log cabin blocks are easy to take step-by-step pictures of after the fact.

At first I tried pressing all the seams towards the quilting cotton, but I found that at the corners of each border there were a lot of layers of denim, which made for a large bump. Pressing the seams open made for a much flatter block.


Stitch one denim 1 1/2" x 2 1/2" rectangle to each side of the black 2 1/2" square. Then stitch one denim 1 1/2" x 4 1/2" rectangle to the top and bottom. At this point, you could trim to make sure everything stays perfectly square. I forgot to trim, which means my lines are not quite perfect, but they're pretty close. Whether you trim or not is entirely up to you.

 

Stitch one yellow 1 1/2" x 4 1/2" rectangle to each side. Then stitch one yellow 1 1/2" x 6 1/2" rectangle to the top and bottom. Trim if you want.

Stitch one denim 1 1/2" x 6 1/2" rectangle to each side. Then stitch one denim 1 1/2" x 8 1/2" rectangle to the top and bottom. Trim if you want.

Stitch one black 3" x 8 1/2" rectangle to each side. Then stitch one black 1 1/2" x 13 1/2" rectangle to the top and bottom. Trim if you want.

Stitch one denim 3" x 10 1/2" rectangle to each side. Then stitch one denim 1 1/2" x 18 1/2" rectangle to the top and bottom. Trim if you want.

Layer the placemat top, batting and backing. Baste, then quilt as desired. Free motion quilting on the denim worked quite well, even over the bulkier seams. I did find I had to go slower over those seams, but other than that there was no difference compared to quilting over regular cotton fabric. I used my regular needle and Connecting Threads 100% polyester thread (affiliate link).

Join the 2 1/4" binding strips, then use them to bind the placemats.

Repeat to make however many placemats you need :)

And that's it for Denim Days! I hope I've given you some ideas for using the denim stashed in a closet. After all, recycled denim is almost like having free fabric! I still have more denim ideas floating around in my head, so we may have to revisit Denim Days again sometime.

In the meantime, don't forget that my Just the Basics mystery quilt-a-long starts next Wednesday, March 2nd. The basics are anything but boring! To make sure you don't miss a post, you can follow by Bloglovin, feedly or by email. The links are all on my sidebar.



* This post contains affiliate links. That means that if you click the link and then make a purchase I will receive a small commission. This does not affect the price you pay.

Everything is Relative

Devotion for the Week...

Albert Einstein said, "Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity." I thought of this one day last week when I was having issues with one of the boys I babysit. The non-nap portion of the day seemed like it would never end, while the nap seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. Have you ever had days like that?

In the Bible, Peter tells us, "But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day" (2 Peter 3:8). I thought about the verse while trying to get through that day that felt like it was approaching a thousand years. I couldn't help thinking, "Has God ever had what felt like a thousand-year-long day because of my disobedience? Like me with the little guy, I wonder if God ever watches us and thinks something along the lines of, "I have had to discipline her for this so many times. I wish she would just learn the lesson and change her behavior." Does He ever think, "Again? I just dealt with you about that sin." Or maybe there's a little more exasperation in His tone as He thinks, "Just give it up already! You know better than that!"

That's not actually what Peter was talking about, though. In 2 Peter 3:3-7, Peter is talking about the 'last days' when people will make fun of those who believe in God's promise that Jesus would return. These scoffers, as Peter calls them, would claim that ever since the beginning of time, life has gone on as usual, so where is this coming that was promised? Of course, Peter tells us, these people are forgetting God's power and that He is different from men.

Then Peter reminds his readers, and us, "But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day" (v.8). In other words, you might think it's taking a long time for Jesus to come back, or that it has been so long that God has surely forgotten about the promise, but that's not the case at all. Peter is reminding his readers, and us, that, since God is outside of time, time has no meaning for Him and therefore trying to hold Him to some sort of man-made schedule really doesn't work.

Then comes one of my favourite verses in the whole Bible. "The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance" (v. 9).

God isn't slow. He hasn't forgotten about His promise. He will come back, but He is waiting, not wanting to lose anyone for eternity. There are many, many people who have not yet accepted Jesus as their Savior. Many, many people who, if Jesus comes back now, will perish for eternity. God is being patient, giving those people time to realize how much they need Him.

 

God's patience, and His perfect timing, might look slow to us, but that's only because we're still thinking in terms of time. God is looking at all of eternity, and a thousand years of waiting means nothing to Him when compared to the people who will come to Him in that time.