Mini Love - Spread the Love

The fabrics for the project in this post were given to me by Island Batik.

This post is very much a two-for-one 😊 When Bernie at Needle and Foot announced her mini quilt drive, Spread the Love, I really wanted to participate. How could you not want to when the quilts will go to A Doll Like Me? Amy, at A Doll Like Me, makes dolls with limb differences so that kids can have a doll that looks just like them. The mini quilts are perfect for wrapping the dolls up and giving an extra level of joy to these kids.

But, with a bunch of deadlines looming, I wasn't sure how I could fit in another quilt, even if it was just a mini quilt. And then I remembered that the second February challenge for the Island Batik ambassadors was called Mini Love, and the task is to make a mini quilt.

AHA!

Make my doll quilt out of the Island Batik fabrics and it would qualify for both 😊 The funny thing is, I made two doll quilts, since it's almost just as fast to make two identical quilts as it is to make one, so I guess I did have time to make one for each thing separately.

For the doll quilts, I dove into the stash builder rolls in my box from Island Batik, along with a couple of the prints from the Galentine's bundle and made these two bright, cheerful doll quilts. They're sure to chase away any dreary winter doldrums you might be feeling.

 Today one of the kids I babysit brought a doll, which made the perfect  model.

The quilts both use the same 8 fabrics, but the fabric placement is different in each one, so they're not quite identical. I worried that they'd be too wild and crazy, but I'm happy with them. I think they're perfect for kids.

The pinwheels finish at 8". The top and bottom borders are 4" wide and the side borders are 3" so the quilts are just barely rectangular.

Aren't these fabrics gorgeous?

This loopy quilting has become my go-to design lately. I love the look of it and it's super quick too! I quilted it on these with Aurifil 2600, which looks great on all of the different colours of the batiks.

I usually prewash all of my fabrics, but since the stash builder rolls are pre-cut and I needed the full 5" width for the HSTs, I couldn't wash them. Talk about making me nervous! I washed the finished quilts with two colour catchers, just to be safe, but there were no problems. All of the colour stayed exactly where it was supposed to and the quilts look just as beautiful as in these pictures, just they're now wonderfully crinkly too 😊

Thanks, Bernie, for giving us the opportunity to serve these kids! And thank you, Island Batik, for giving me such beautiful fabrics to work with.

When Thank You Isn't Enough

Devotion for the Week...

Have you ever noticed that saying 'thank you' often feels inadequate for the gratitude we feel? We hear people saying things like, "Thank you just doesn't seem like enough, but it's all I have, so thank you again." And when one isn't enough, people say, "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

While reading the book of Ruth a few weeks ago, I found a beautiful way to say thank you when 'thank you' just isn't enough.

The book of Ruth is the story of two women. Naomi is an Isrealite widow. Ruth is Naomi's daughter-in-law, also widowed and from the country of Moab. When Ruth's husband died, Naomi urged Ruth to return to her own family, but instead Ruth insisted on staying with Naomi, even leaving her own country and moving to Bethlehem when Naomi decided to return to her own people.

As widows with no men in the family to care for them, Naomi and Ruth had few opportunities to support themselves, but Ruth went to work gathering grain that was left behind after the harvesters passed through the fields.

The owner of the field came to check on the harvest and he noticed her immediately. When told who she was, he said to her, "Stay right here with us when you gather grain; don’t go to any other fields. Stay right behind the young women working in my field. See which part of the field they are harvesting, and then follow them. I have warned the young men not to treat you roughly. And when you are thirsty, help yourself to the water they have drawn from the well." (Ruth 2:8,9). This is significant because he was offering his protection to her even though she was a foreigner.

Surprised, she asked what she had done to deserve such kindness. He said he had heard all she had done for Naomi, finishing with, "May the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge, reward you fully for what you have done" (v.12).

Isn't that beautiful?

May God reward you fully for what you have done.

My resources for thanking someone are finite. No matter how big the thing someone has done for me, there is only so much I can do to thank them. Only so much money to give them or use to buy them something special. Only so many cookies or other treats I could make. Only so many quilts I could give them. And as I've already said, very few words that really convey that feeling of incredible gratitude.

But God's resources? They are so infinite we can't even understand them!

Psalm 24:1 says, "The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to him."

Everything belongs to God, which means that anything is possible if we ask Him to repay people for the good they have done. There are no limits to the blessings He could bestow on them.

Isn't that exactly what we would wish for them when 'thank you' is not enough?

A (Belated) Galentine's Gift

The fabrics for the project in this post were provided to me by Island Batik.


The first Island Batik ambassador challenge for 2018 was to make a Galentine's postcard or mug rug. I had never heard of Galentine's Day before, but apparently it was invented on the show Parks and Recreation, setting February 13th as a day for women to celebrate their female friends.

That sounded like fun! I picked one particular friend I wanted to make for, designed something especially for her and then waited for my box to arrive. And waited. And waited. And Galentine's Day came and went and I was still waiting for my box. Darn postal service!

The box finally arrived on the 15th. Did you see all of the goodies that were in it? I'm still amazed 😊

At that point, I could have skipped this challenge, since I had missed the deadline anyway and there's a second Island Batik challenge in February. But I really wanted to make this little surprise, so I did. Better late than never, right?

Connie is one of the most cheerful, enthusiastic and positive people I know, so this quote seemed to fit her perfectly. And when I saw that yellow in the stash builder rolls in my box, it made me think of sunshine, which I know she's longing for as she's not a fan of winter.

The batik I chose for the background has a gorgeous, subtle print that is really hard to capture in a picture. Here are a couple of close ups to give you a glimpse of it.

After doing Mom's dragonflies with simple backstitch, I wanted to try it for the letters and I found it worked beautifully. Jenny of Elefantz Designs recommends using tiny stitches to make the smoothest lines and it makes a big difference. The letters are stitched with Aurifil 12 wt number 2145.

All while I was stitching those letters, I wondered how I would quilt this little mug rug. I knew I'd stitch around the flower and then echo around it, but beyond that I wasn't sure what to do. After I had finished quilting the flower (with Aurifil 2600), I sat and stared at it for a few minutes, still pondering. In the end, though, I decided I liked the simplicity of the unquilted background.

A quick machine binding with more of that sunshiny yellow and it was done! I decided to mail it to Connie, even though we live only 5 minutes apart, because surprises in the mail are so much fun. And boy, was she ever surprised 😊 Don't you love planning surprises for friends?

Thank you, Island Batik, for this fun challenge and for the gorgeous fabrics that made it possible. That's one challenge down, 12 more to go, lol. I'll be back next week for the second February challenge, so stay tuned. It's a pretty bright and crazy one!