Following His Example

Devotion for the Week...

Jesus tried to teach His disciples to serve rather than seeking to be served. He even told them straight out, “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28), but they tended not to get the point. Instead they argued over who was the greatest among them.

When the opportunity presented itself, Jesus served them to demonstrate what He meant. When there was no servant around to do the job, Jesus “got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, and poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash the disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel he had around him” (John 13:4-5). 

People in those days wore sandals, they walked everywhere and the roads were dirty. Not only was there actual dirt, there would also have been animal droppings on the road, since animals were used both for transportation and to carry goods, so I don’t even want to think about how dirty their feet were. No wonder it was customary to wash your feet after entering a house! I can almost see the disciples sitting there, realizing no servant was coming to take care of their feet, nervously wondering who would have to do the job, and then going a little wide-eyed when Jesus stood and started getting ready.

Then, “After washing their feet, he put on his robe again and sat down and asked, “Do you understand what I was doing? You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and you are right, because that’s what I am. And since I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you” (vv. 12-15).

Jesus is our example in so many things, but this is a big one and it’s possible we are still more like the disciples than we would like to admit. How often do we sit, looking around for someone else to do the job we don’t want to do? How often do we think, “Not my job” and wait for someone else to step up? Even worse, how often do we think a particular job is beneath us, so we don’t even consider doing it?

Jesus told us to follow His example and do as He did. That means being willing to step up to do the lowly jobs regardless of our status or position and to serve others by doing the work no one else wants to do. 

My First Quilt with...Me!

Today is the first in my new monthly interview series, My First Quilt! Today's isn't really an interview, though, since I'm the one sharing about my first quilt. Next month it'll be an interview, though, and I'm really looking forward to sharing the stories of how some of my quilty friends got started quilting 😊

Side note, I should update my picture one of these days!

I decided to make my first quilt as a wedding gift for my friends Michelle and Brian. At the time I had been cross stitching for a few years and quilting magazines started catching my interest whenever I stopped at a magazine rack to look at cross stitch ones. It's  true that one crafty interest can often be the gateway to another one!

The wedding was planned for September 1997, so my mom put a quilting magazine in my stocking for Christmas 1996. The magazine included a pattern by Judith Hughes Marte called Love & A Little Lunacy that Mom thought would be good for the wedding gift. Except when we looked more closely at the pattern, it was for a 25" mini quilt, which wasn't exactly what I had in mind.

Mom and I took the applique shapes from the pattern, added a few of our own, plus some hand embroidery, and came up with a personalized quilt that was almost double bed sized. Nothing like diving right in for your first quilt, right? 

Mom has a few pictures from the day I basted the quilt together, so I had her take pictures of the pictures to send to me. The applique shapes on this block are all the original shapes from the pattern. I fused them in place and then hand stitched the edges with a blanket stitch using black embroidery floss. Mom has always been crafty, so she taught me how to sew and do embroidery, and the fabrics for the appliques all came from her craft stash. I still love a good scrappy quilt!

The Love Is... cartoon was a newspaper clipping Mom had collected as a teenager. She has a whole box of them, so we selected two for the quilt. Everything stitched in the cartoon in this picture is hand embroidery and the blue lines for their bodies were eventually quilted with black thread.

The applique shapes in this next block are some of the ones we added. The building blocks came from a colouring book, I think, but I can't remember where the teddy bear came from. In the center I embroidered Michelle's full name and birthdate, along with her birthplace. This was one corner block, with a block with Brian's info in the opposite corner, diagonally. The Love Is blocks were in the other two corners. The center block is embroidered with their wedding date and place. The appliques for that block are wedding bells and double hearts, but I don't remember where either of those came from.

I worked on the blanket stitching and the embroidery while I was at university that semester, then sewed the top together at home after the semester ended. Here I am with the top, batting and backing ready to be thread basted. All the white lines in the red border and sashing are where the hand quilting would go.

And here's me doing my first bit of hand quilting. I spent a large portion of that summer sitting under that hoop, quilting. We didn't have air conditioning, so I'm not sure how that didn't turn me off quilting entirely!

The only pictures I have of the finished quilt are from the wedding, when I gave it to Michelle and Brian.

What doesn't show in this picture is the incredible number of ripples in the back of the quilt and the very rough binding job. I remember we bought double fold bias tape for the binding and I wrapped it around the edge of the quilt and stitched both sides at the same time, except the stitching missed on the back many, many times. Not knowing what else to do, I just went over those areas a second or even third time. My binding skills have certainly improved since then!

I have no idea what I was saying here, but I recognize the look of of a quilter excited to share what she made 😊 Never mind the mistakes and that sketchy binding, I was so proud of that quilt and I still am! 

I'm so glad I dove into making this huge quilt with so much hand stitching, even though I had no clue what I was doing. I certainly had no idea where it would lead, but it sparked a love for quilting that is still going strong after more than 25 years! 

I'll have another My First Quilt post on the last Friday of each month. I hope you'll enjoy reading the stories of those first quilts!

Jelly Roll Twirl Top

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I have a new quilt top to share today! I've been sewing with Fat Quarter Shop to help share their new Jelly Roll Twirl pattern. It's a free pattern and you can get it here.

Before I share my full Jelly Roll Twirl quilt top, would you like to prepare to celebrate Easter by growing in wisdom while making a beautiful quilt? The Women of Wisdom QAL and devotional journey is a quilt along, plus 40 days of devotions delivered to your inbox, all focused on the wisdom of biblical women. While we learn from their stories, we'll also be making our quilts together 😊 The fun all starts on February 22!

Learn more and register here

Now on to the Jelly Roll Twirl quilt!

I don't usually use precuts, but I have to say it was super fun to be able to start sewing right away, without needing to cut anything first! I used a jelly roll of Simply Delightful, by Sherri and Chelsi for Moda. Aren't the colours...well...simply delightful? 😄 I think the flower print might just be my favourite. Because I had navy Bella solid for the accent, I removed most of the dark blue strips so they wouldn't blend into the navy. I don't mind at all that this means I have a few beautiful blue strips to use in some future project!

The Jelly Roll Twirl pattern starts by sewing strip sets and I decided to colour coordinate my sets as much as possible, to help highlight the large shapes created by the piecing. Sewing the strip sets together was the perfect bit of mindless sewing on an evening I wanted to sew, but didn't want to have to think about it. We all have those times, don't we?

I love how bright and cheery the quilt top is!

The quilt top is 48" square, which is a perfect baby quilt size, and it'll make a great donation quilt once it's quilted (eventually!). I haven't decided how I want to quilt it yet and I seem to have accidentally started a collection of quilt tops waiting to be quilted. Oops! I think my WIPS-B-GONE 2023 might have to focus on quilting up at least some of those tops.

If you want to make your own Jelly Roll Twirl quilt, head over to FQS to get the free download! If you start with a jelly roll, the quilt top comes together quickly so it would be a great gift or donation quilt.