Friday, April 29, 2011

Day Without Hate

It bears repeating- we need less hate and violence and much more love in our world.

Today is the Day Without Hate here in Littleton, Colorado. The kids are all wearing white t-shirts to show solidarity and remembrance for the victims of school shootings. This is a county-wide project now, started a few years back Standley Lake HS in Westminster, CO, and was then adopted by Columbine HS and the rest of the county.

Here are some past photos, to show you an example of what the high school looks like leading up to today. I am hoping to have a chance to get up to the high school today to take some photos of this year's event.

You can- and should- click on any photo to see it larger- then you can read what it says. This first one is a list of school shootings. There are so many... it just makes me cry.



But the kids and this whole community- and communities across this country and Canada- are all working at stopping this madness. Raising awareness, focusing on being a little kinder to each other- just small changes in everyone's attitude and behaviour can make a huge difference.












So today, why don't we all share a smile, do a random act of kindness for someone, be extra nice to someone who seems to need it.
And while we're at it, why don't we keep this attitude going not only today, but every day.

Let's make EVERY day, a Day Without Hate!

Friday, April 15, 2011

Wanna see???

You have seen the gifts I have made- now you get to see the beautiful little girl I made them for:


Little Aria (Ar'-ree-ah) was born on Wednesday morning (April 13) at 10:01 am. She weighed 5 lbs 4 oz, and has been unanimously voted the cutest member of our family!

She and mommy are doing really well, trying to rest and get ready for all of us to descend on them for a visit.

We can't wait!

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Baby Quilt and Birthday scarf

Hi all!

My work lately has still been mostly on gifts for others. Just that time of the year!

We just attended a baby shower on the weekend for my stepdaughter, and our gift to her was a crib quilt I made.

I really wish I knew how to properly photograph my work, but alas, I don't really. So the photos of my work are mediocre, I know. But hopefully you will get the gist of it. Click on any photo to make it larger, maybe you can see the details better.

Here it is, kind of stretched out so you can see it all. Rail fence blocks in the middle and on each end. Two panels in between.


I really wanted to meander quilt this area, but for some reason my thread would not cooperate. I finally settled on a simple geometric design- but done in rainbow variegated thread.


A closer look at the quilting in the panel area. I quilted around the bigger shapes like the fish and the whale and the sun. I used a bit of sparkly thread in the ocean waves and for the whale spout. The rest I just tried to match what I was quilting. I did the cloud shapes in the sky to make sure there was enough quilting in that area.


The two small sashings have these words: 
"golden slumbers fill your eyes- smiles await you when you rise" ~ The Beatles
I used to sing that to my kids when they were babies.
This is in variegated rainbow thread too. 


Showing the other end of the quote.
I love to write on quilts, and it's one thing I can do fairly well on a machine.


I think she likes it!


The other item I have made recently is a fibre scarf for my sister Becky's birthday in March.

She hasn't received it yet and doesn't even know it's coming- but she follows my other blog, not this one, so I think I am okay in posting it for you to see:

 Close up so you can see the different yarns and ribbons I used


And hanging so you can see it as a scarf.


This was made with Sulky Solvy. I cut two long pieces, as long as I wanted the scarf to be (minus the fringe), and laid one on my work table. I arranged all of the fibres the way I wanted them, covered it with the second piece of Sulky Solvy, and pinned it. All the fibres were laid horizontally.
So when I sewed it, all of the stitching went vertically, in wavy lines.
Super easy to do on the machine.

When I was finished the stitching, I tore away as much of the plastic as possible, then rinsed the whole thing in warm water to get rid of the rest of it, and make sure it was clean. Wrung it out carefully.
I laid it out to dry overnight since it was heavy, and hung it in the morning to finish drying, since it was only a little damp by that time.

And that's it for today's show and tell!