Oblivious

 Devotion for the Week...

I find my devotions here are often triggered by my morning Bible reading, so you can almost trace my progress though the Old Testament by which book I'm sharing from on a Monday morning. This week I moved into the book of Esther and one particular moment stood out for me in light of current social justice conversations.

Some quick backstory from Esther chapters 1-3 - King Xerxes had a beautiful queen and in a drunken moment he commanded her to appear before his guests wearing her crown (I have heard that some scholars believe the command meant she should come wearing only the crown), and when she refused he deposed her as queen. Some time later he was lonely and decided to hold a beauty pageant of sorts to find a new queen. There's a whole issue there on the treatment of women, but that's not today's post. A young Jew named Esther was chosen as the new queen, though she kept her Jewish ancestry a secret. Then King Xerxes promoted a man named Haman to be the most powerful official in the kingdom and everyone bowed down to Haman. Everyone, that is, except Esther's uncle Mordecai. Haman flew into a rage over Mordecai's disrespect and he decided that punishing only Mordecai would not be enough. Instead, he convinced the king to issue a decree that on a specific day anyone at all could kill all of the Jews in the land with no repercussions at all.

"When Mordecai learned about all that had been done, he tore his clothes, put on burlap and ashes, and went out into the city, crying with a loud and bitter wail. He went as far as the gate of the palace, for no one was allowed to enter the palace gate while wearing clothes of mourning. And as news of the king’s decree reached all the provinces, there was great mourning among the Jews. They fasted, wept, and wailed, and many people lay in burlap and ashes" (Esther 4:1-3). The Jews everywhere were justifiably upset by the king's decree. Can you even imagine the talk and the panic that spread through the Jewish communities?

When Esther learned that Mordecai was dressed in mourning clothes and sitting at the palace gates, she sent one of her servants "to go to Mordecai and find out what was troubling him and why he was in mourning" (v. 5). And that was the moment that stopped me in my tracks. Esther, tucked away in the safety of the palace, was completely oblivious to what was going on in the rest of the kingdom. 

How often are we oblivious to the plight of others? We may not see the difficulties of the poor because we've never had to wonder where our next meal will come from. Or maybe we don't know the worries the homeless deal with because we've always had a safe place to live. Maybe we can't see the complexities that make it hard for a person to leave an abusive relationship because our relationships have always been healthy ones. Certainly those of us who are white do not understand the hardships faced by people of colour purely because of the colour of their skin.

Esther didn't know about the threat facing her people because she was separated from them, just as keeping ourselves apart from others prevents us from knowing what they face. Getting to know their situations is the first step in helping fix the problems. That has to be a conscious choice, though. 

In the following chapters, Esther steps up and pleads her case to King Xerxes, thereby saving the Jews (that's the super simplified version). There are three factors to her being able to save them: first, she was aware of the problem; second, she had the position to be able to do something about it; third, she did what needed to be done.

How can we be like Esther? There's no shortage of problems to be fixed in our society. While not many of us hold political office or have the funds to make huge donations, there are ways to use the positions and influence we do have, however small we may think they are. So the question becomes, will we do what needs to be done?

2020 Temperature Quilt

It's finally finished! I am so thrilled with how my 2020 temperature quilt turned out, even if it did take almost all of 2021 to get it finished 😂 

This post from January 2020 has all the details about how I planned the quilt and made the blocks, if you're curious. The only change I made from the plan was to add a border on all sides so the binding wouldn't be covering any of the circles on the edge. And if you'd like to make your own temperature quilt, check out my How to Plan Your Temperature Quilt post.

For the record, my husband is tucked away behind that quilt! I didn't think it was possible for him to hide behind it, but he managed it. The quilt finishes at 30" x 31". I really didn't want a throw size temperature quilt, so this wall hanging feels perfect to me. I tell you, whenever I finally have a sewing room, I'll have plenty of things to decorate it with! Did you see my A Stitch a Day frameable print? It's just waiting for a chance to look great on a shelf in that sewing room and the temperature quilt will look great on the wall. Someday!

As usual, I spent a lot of time thinking about how I would quilt this quilt. I thought about quilting something in each of the circles, but they're quite thick because of how they're appliqued on, so I decided against that. Plus, that would have been a lot of starting and stopping, to do a year's worth of circles. I love how Ali of Exhausted Octopus quilts her Tiles quilts, but her tiles have more space around them than my circles do, so I decided against that, too. In the end, I decided to quilt around each circle and do a tiny stipple in between them, all with Aurifil 50 wt in white. I love, love, love the result!

Just look at how puffy those circles are! Yes, they do feel every bit as amazing as they look and I love running my hands over them.

I stitched around the letters for the monthly markers and the numbers for the year, too. They're all embroidered with Aurifil 12 wt 2785 (very dark navy). I was worried I'd stitch over the embroidery with the quilting, but I was able to keep the quilting just a little away from the embroidery, which gives the letters and numbers a little bit of puff, too.

I wasn't nearly as good at going around the circles. Oops. The first time I nipped up onto the circle, I thought about ripping it out, but then I just kept going. I figured it would probably happen on more than the one circle, but I also figured it probably wouldn't be that noticeable when I wasn't so close to it. I was right on both counts, lol. I have no idea how many circles have a few quilting stitches on their edges, but there are quite a few. You can see a couple of them in the picture above.

The quilting looks so good on the back, too. 

I went with a simple white binding so the temperature circles wouldn't have anything competing with them and I like the simplicity it gives to the back, too.

It has been interesting to compare last year's temperatures with this year's. For example, for 2020, our first day with a high above 0℃ was February 23rd. This year it was January 6th and there were 6 days above 0 in January.

I had to use one circle representing -13 to -15℃, but this year I wouldn't have had to use that fabric at all. Yet, obviously, but I don't think it will get that cold before the year is over. That's more a February/March kind of temperature.

December of 2020 was unusually warm, which is why there are so many circles representing warmer temperatures right up to the last column, which represents the 14th to the end of the year. There are 5 circles in that last column representing above 0℃ temperatures, one for 1-3℃ (the 21st), one for 4-6℃ (the 25th), and three for 7-9℃ (the 22nd, 26th and 27th). Since I can't yet compare this year's December temperatures, I looked back to 2019 for the same dates. That year December 15th was 8℃ and then every day to the end of the year had a high temperature that was 0℃ or colder. For 2018, the 22nd and 23rd were both 5℃, but the rest of the column was 0℃ or colder.

A temperature quilt needs a label that explains what all the fabrics mean, so I made one to put on the back, but you may notice there's nothing actually written on it yet. That's because I've put in a request to Santa for fabric markers for another project, so I'll wait and write the temperatures and our town on it with a fabric marker after Christmas before attaching the label to the quilt.

There are a few fabrics I would move, looking at the gradient put together like this. There's one purpley-pink that should be closer to the purple that is for 0℃ and the blue that represents -1 to -3℃ is darker than the next couple of blues that represent colder temperatures. I'm not sure why I didn't pick up on those when I planned the gradient, but it's much too late to change it now!

A temperature quilt was a fun project and I'm glad I made it. I'm also glad it's finally finished! I'm not sure if I'll ever make another one or if this is more of a one-and-done sort of thing for me. Looking at this one does make me very happy, though.

A Stitch a Day

You know how there are some things you know, but you still have trouble actually putting them into practice? Well, getting myself to actually work on my WIPs was one of those things for me. I knew that if I worked on my dragon cross stitch a little bit every day I would make progress. Getting myself motivated to get it out and do those stitches was an entirely different manner. The WIPS-B-GONE challenge has given me the motivation I needed and that dragon is really moving along 😊

I created a fun printable as a reminder to get those projects out and work on them! A Stitch a Day is now available in my Etsy shop. Yes, I did colour the thread spools orange in honour of Aurifil 😊

A Stitch a Day fits perfectly in a 5x7 frame; I picked mine up from the dollar store. Now if only I had a sewing room to display it in!

Since this is a printable, you simply download the file after purchase and print it on your home printer. That means you can print as many as you want to give as gifts for your quilting friends - personal use only, though. No selling them, please.

Go to my Etsy shop for the A Stitch a Day printable. If you display it in your sewing room, and share it on social media, I hope you'll tag me so I can see it!