Imitating

Devotion for the Week...

I often call the childcare littles by various endearments. Boys are usually Mister Man or Buster and girls are often Chickie or Missy Moo. I hadn't realized just how often I do this until recently.  Rebecca just turned 2 and she's always here a bit earlier than Nora. She gets very excited when Nora arrives in the morning and has started greeting her by yelling a very enthusiastic, "Hello, Missy Moo!" Well, it's not nearly that clear, but you can tell what she's trying to say, lol.

If you've spent any time at all around toddlers, you know that you have to watch what you say because they will repeat everything, especially anything that slips out that you don't want them to hear! Of course, it's not only our words that they repeat. They also imitate everything they see us do and the more regularly we do something, the more likely they will pick up on it. Whether it's pretending to talk on their phone, doing 'homework' at the table with paper and crayons like their older siblings or copying the exercises they see us doing, toddlers are born copycats.

This makes perfect sense, since toddlers are beginning the slow process of learning how to be functioning members of society and we are the models God has given to them. They imitate us to try on various behaviors and learn how to act in different situations. As adults spending time around littles, it's a humbling thought, isn't it?

But what about us adults? The littles in our company don't realize that we don't have everything all figured out, but we sure know it. We're still learning how to behave in different situations, too. Not only that, but sometimes we're trying to behave better in situations that bring out reactions that are less than our best. Fortunately, we have models to follow, too.

Paul understood this and wrote to the Corinthians, "And you should imitate me, just as I imitate Christ" (1 Corinthians 11:1). Paul had spent time living among the Corinthians. They had watched how he lived, how he talked, how he dealt with frustrations and with other people and with himself. They could draw on those memories to figure out how to behave themselves. What people have been part of our lives that we can use as models for our actions and for our words? How did they face frustrations or challenges? How did they react when other people received bad news? Or when others received good news? Imitating people with godly character will help us become more godly ourselves.

Even more than imitating godly people, though, we can imitate God Himself. Paul wrote in Ephesians 5:1-2, "Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children. Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ." We won't always get it right, but the more we practice imitating Jesus, the closer we'll get to His character. It's like Rebecca's "Hello, Missy Moo" - the first time she said it, it was so garbled I could hardly pick it out, but as she practices, her words are getting clearer and soon everyone will know what she's saying.

How are we practicing imitating Jesus?

Considerate

Devotion for the Week...

I walk almost every day with the kids I babysit. As long as the weather cooperates, we walk for about an hour in the morning. It's the only thing that keeps me sane most days! During one walk last week, we stopped in to the grocery store for a couple of things. I was pushing the 1 year old in the stroller and the two 4 year olds were walking behind me. There were two ladies chatting in the aisle and as we went past, the two 4 years olds said, with great enthusiasm, "Gooood moooorning!" which absolutely charmed the ladies, of course. One of the ladies said, "They're such lovely children," to which one 4 year old responded, "Yes, we are!" You can imagine the laughter that followed that!

Adults are always charmed by little kids that use their manners, whether that's saying good morning to someone or remembering to say please and thank you. Really, there's not much that's cuter than hearing an unprompted 'tank ou' from a 1 year old! 

The thing is, those manners don't become less valuable as we get older, we just stop noticing them because they're expected. In adults, we don't notice when someone has good manners, we notice when they don't! 

In Philippians 4:5, in the midst of a series of instructions for how to live, Paul wrote, "Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do." The Bible is very good at giving us commands that lack wiggle room, isn't it? Did you notice the two words that take away all of our wiggle room? Let's look at it again: "Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do." It's really hard to get around words like everyone and all. 

Everyone includes the people we like, and the people we don't. It includes the people who treat us kindly, and the ones who don't. It includes the people who share our political views, our religion and our culture, and it includes the ones who share none of those. It includes the people who grate on every last nerve we've got and the ones who ignore us completely. It also includes the people who don't have the capacity to understand what is going on around them, whether because they're too young or because of dementia or disability. Everyone includes...everyone.

And 'in all you do' includes every single task and interaction that makes up our days. Waiting in the long line at the grocery store, dealing with the annoying customer, client or family member, putting up with delays and frustrations, even reading social media posts we don't agree with. I know you could make up your own list of things you have to do that you'd rather not be doing. Our consideration for others extends to those situations, too.

It's easy to be considerate when we're around people we like and who treat us well. It's a lot harder when the people around us are challenging. Likewise, it's easier in situations where we're doing what we want to do and things are going our way and harder when the circumstances are less than ideal.

"Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do." I still have plenty of work to do before I get to that level! I'm remembering what the lady at the grocery store said about the kids, though, and striving to earn the same kind of description. I'd be good with being called "such a lovely person."

How to Plan Your Temperature Quilt

Are you thinking about making a temperature quilt? I made one in 2020...well, okay, my temperature quilt represents 2020, but it wasn't actually finished until almost the end of 2021.  Even though it took me much longer than I thought it would, it was a lot of fun to make and I'm really glad I decided to go for it. Even more, I love how it turned out and plan to soon hang it up in my new sewing room.

Since we're nearing the start of another new year, I have a few tips to share if you're thinking about diving in to make your own temperature quilt. And, I have a free workbook you can download to help you keep track of everything you decide. 

Enter your email address here to have the workbook sent to your inbox.

Data source

First things first, where will you get the daily temperature information you're going to use? Look for government agencies or weather apps or websites that show historical weather (meaning just weather before today, lol, not necessarily from what we'd consider History). This is important so you can check to see what the high temperature actually was yesterday and so you don't have to worry if you forget to check for a day or two while on vacation or if you fall behind - you can just go back and look it up. Also, I recommend you have a backup plan for getting the temperature. I used Environment Canada for my temperatures, but there were a few days throughout the year when some kind of glitch happened that meant the temperature wasn't listed and I had to use a second source.

Which temperatures and which shape?

These next two decisions kind of go hand-in-hand. Will you track both the high and low temperature for each day or only one of them? And, what shape will you use to display the temperatures? Some shapes, like HSTs and flying geese, naturally lend themselves to tracking two daily temperatures, though they could certainly be used with a background fabric instead if you want to track only one temperature. Other shapes, like the circles I used, are only one fabric, so they work better for tracking one temperature (the high, in my case). I've seen people use hexagons to track the daily high temperature, and I've also seen half-hexagons used to track both. All of that to say, choosing what to track and what shape to stitch are both entirely personal decisions and there's no right or wrong answer. 

Another part of choosing which shape to use is how they will be stitched. By machine or by hand? If by machine, is your machine always set up for piecing? Or do you sometimes switch it over to machine quilt something that will take a while to finish and it would be a pain to have to constantly switch back and forth to stitch your temperature blocks? Or are you okay with making the blocks in batches, once the machine is set up for piecing again? In my case, I decided to go with hand appliqued circles because my free motion quilting can often take a week or more for a quilt, so I didn't want to fall that far behind on my blocks, since I intended to make a block a day (for the day before). The joke was on me, though, since I fell way, way, waaaay behind and didn't actually finish making my 2020 blocks until the fall of 2021. Good thing I could go back and look up what those high temperatures had been!

What size for the blocks?

Once you know what shape you'll be using, it's time to figure out what size the blocks should be. Keep in mind, there will be 365 of them, so you probably don't want to go too big! Start by thinking about how big you want the finished quilt to be, just in general terms. Do you want a throw size? A baby quilt? A wallhanging? Each one will require a different size for the blocks. Graph paper would be a great way to help you visualize how the finished quilt would look with different size blocks.

I knew I didn't want my temperature quilt to be big, so I decided my blocks would finish at 1 ½". When you're planning what size to cut your blocks, don't forget to account for the seam allowances! My blocks are arranged in a 19 x 20 layout, which gave me a 28 ½" x 30" quilt center. That layout also left me with some leftover blocks, which I distributed so one was at the start of each month and two were at the end. I embroidered the initial for each month and the year on those leftover blocks.

How many fabrics?

How many fabrics will you need? This is going to be determined by two factors: the variation in temperature over the course of a year (just how low and how high do your temperatures go?) and how many degrees each fabric will represent. Here in Newfoundland in 2020 our daily high temperatures ranged from - 15°C to 29°C. I had each fabric represent 3 degrees, except for the fabric that only represented 0°C, which means I used a total of 16 fabrics. 

Which colours?

Now the most exciting part! Which colours will you use? Keep in mind that the colours you choose for the temperatures in the middle of the year will be more prominent in the finished quilt than the ones for the temperatures in January or December. When I was planning my quilt, a lot of the ones I looked at used a colour range from blue-green-yellow-orange-red. That meant the middles of the quilts had a lot of yellow and orange, which really didn't appeal to me. I much preferred the ones with a blue-purple-pink-red progression, so that's what I went with.

In hindsight, I could have done a better job arranging the fabrics into the gradient. There are a couple that are not quite right and should have been moved to slightly cooler temperatures to make the gradient flow better. I would caution you to take your time here and make sure you get that nice flow between fabrics.

Sticking with it

A year is a long time to commit to a project! It helps to have a plan for when you'll stitch your blocks. One a day? A week's worth every weekend? A dedicated day now and then to get caught up? In order to stick with it, you have to design the project in a way that fits into your life and the way you like to work. There's no sense in designing something that you won't be able to keep up with or that you won't enjoy. We want this to be fun, after all!

That being said, there will probably be times when the plan goes awry. Life will get in the way no matter how well you design the project because that's just what life does. It's good to go in knowing that disruptions will happen so you don't beat yourself up when something does come up. Then, it's just a matter of deciding if you need to adjust your plan going forward or if it was just a brief disruption that won't impact things once you get caught up.

And if, like me, you end up so far behind schedule that you stop working on it entirely, know that the blocks will be there waiting when you're ready to come back to them. And you can always join me for WIPS-B-GONE to get it finished! WIPS-B-GONE is my annual project finishing challenge, the first of which was exactly what got me to finish my own temperature quilt. Now I'm hosting the challenge for the second time and working through some of my other WIPS.

Have fun!

Make sure your download the How to Plan Your Temperature Quilt worksheet so you can keep track of all of your decisions and your fabric gradient. Whatever shapes and fabrics you decide to use, I hope you have fun planning and stitching your temperature quilt.