Hello!
This summer has been a different kind of summer - a relaxing summer! It's been quite a while since we've had one of those.
2011 was the summer of packing our house, jumping at the call of a realtor to show it and last but not at all least - morning sickness.
2012 was the summer of...um...well...the reason we started this blog.
2013 was the summer of adjusting, testing the waters of normal life as a family of 6.
2014 has become the summer of - "Ok, is everyone fed and safe - great. Mommy is going to sit down and learn how to quilt." :)
My 4-week crash course and learning curve of quilting has been a wonderful experience. I've found great meaning in what started out as just wanting to make a blanket for Julia's bed!
Let my helper explain for you:
"First you take all this different fabric and you cut them up. All the little individual pieces alone don't look like something that will look that great, but when you step back and look at them all together you see the big picture. Kind of like when you can't make sense of one particular event or season in your life but when look at it as a whole - it fits."
"Then you take it all and you sew it all together with something called thread. The thread can't be weak or cheap or immitation thread. It has to be the good stuff. Just like our faith is the only thing that really holds our lives together, none of that pretend stuff that we think makes us happy."
"Then you have to smoooooth it all out so you can put it all together. I find that a hoola hoop works great for this. Nicccce and steady."
"A little bit more..."
"Wait, let me just get that corner there...yep...got it."
This picture didn't come out that great but I wanted to try anyway. If you look where the fabrics intersect, where the "T" comes together - you can see a couple tiny white threads, like two little lines that are going left to right. See it? That was one spot I found when I was checking - I accidentally didn't sew all the way to the end in that case and had to close it up by hand. As I slowly stitched it closed, I tried to focus on how thankful I was that Ellie's little holey heart got closed up and she's doing so great. It was a moment of prayer and gratitude instead of frustration that I'd made a mistake. On the grand scale of things - closing up this hole is nothing!!!
Now, if you are wondering how I'm spending hours a day doing this, here is the reality of what our four children look like. Thanks to a used video game store having a football game for our system - they too are having a "relaxing" summer. Sure there's been golf, swimming and some bike riding...but at 3:00 in the afternoon with 98 degree temperatures, this is where you will find them. I could have told them all to change their faces a bit for the photo but as a service to you moms who ever feel like your kids look like zombies when they watch tv/play games, I thought I would actually post the picture where the are all looking like - zombies.
And some more excitement in our lives this summer - we got a piano! It's well-loved and close to 100 years old but it works! Stay tuned for a picture of that next time! That is if I can get the kids away from the video game long enough to sit down and play it.
