First Mystery Block
Linda Poole has a great article on her blog about traditional New Years Day celebrations. We started one ourselves in 2000 – the New Years Day mystery!
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Each year, I like to present a mystery that teaches something new – a new technique or ruler. This year I tackled Paper Piecing. It’s my most challenging mystery yet – join us at http://quiltbug.com/Free/crossed.htm!
Mary Nelson Zadrozney put together an excellent article on this subject. There are many ways to help others with your talents and so often these things don’t take much time. Her article lists the organizations that can use a variety of handmade items to offer comfort to babies, children, men, women, and animals in need, along with links to their websites. Don’t have time but still want to help out? Many of these organizations can use donations of supplies. Don’t forget your local animal shelters too; many of them have a continual need for soft blankets for the animals, cage covers, etc. You can read her article here: http://www.justimaginedesigns.com/helpothersarticle.html
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For those who like the challenge concept, there is also http://www.29gifts.org/ – creating positive change in the world by giving away your gifts of time, money, handmade items, smiles, kind words, etc.
First Clue
Here are directions to the first clue: http://quiltbug.com/Free/crossed.htm. Finish all these blocks and the rest will be easy!
The Road Less Traveled
STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING
By Robert Frost
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Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
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My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
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He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
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The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Inklingo is giving away fabric!
Fabric Prize "Gothic Arch"
Check it out at http://www.lindafranz.com/blog/
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And…
The Prairie Grove Peddler is giving away Cross Stitch Charts.
Finished Christmas Cross-Stitch Ornaments
For more information, visit http://www.prairiegrovepeddler.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG3Fvi1pJh4
And so it was in front of this hotel
Our angel did finally arrive
And standing at one corner was a young man
Who caught the angel’s eye
He had a small group of children
Gathered round him there
Who all were quietly listening
Which for children is quite rare
He was telling them christmas tales
And each one brought more children near
Where they nestled round him on those steps
So each word they could clearly hear
He then told them a christmas story
About how all men are brothers
And when that story had ended
The children clamored for another
“where does christmas go
When its day is through?
Where does christmas go,” they asked,
“and what does christmas do?”
Now children have such simple requests
Their wishes are so small
That the young man saw no reason why
He could not grant them all
They liked his stories so much
They begged him not to let it end
So he told them about the wizards of winter
Whose winter ball they must attend
How these wizards decorated their whole world
With icicles, frost and snow
And how with the dreams of this night beneath it
It all would magically start to glow
And the snow seemed to obey the young man’s every gesture
In the cold december’s air
And as for the wizards’ imperial ball
Well, they were already there
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cP26ndrmtg
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas
The hope that he brings
The hope that he brings
The hope that he brings
The hope that he brings
This night
We pray
Our lives
Will show
This dream
He had
Each child
Still knows
We are waiting
We have not forgotten
On this night
On this night
On this very Christmas night
The yellow shirt had long sleeves, four extra_large pockets trimmed in black thread and snaps up the front. It was faded from years of wear, but still in decent shape. I found it in 1963 when I was home from college on Christmas break, rummaging through bags of clothes Mom intended to give away.
‘You’re not taking that old thing, are you?’ Mom said when she saw me packing the yellow shirt.. ‘I wore that when I was pregnant with your brother in 1954!’
‘It’s just the thing to wear over my clothes during art class, Mom. Thanks!’ I slipped it into my suitcase before she could object. The yellow shirt be came a part of my college wardrobe. I loved it.
After graduation, I wore the shirt the day I moved into my new apartment and on Saturday mornings when I cleaned.
The next year, I married. When I became pregnant, I wore the yellow shirt during big_belly days. I missed Mom and the rest of my family, since we were in Colorado and they were in Illinois . But, that shirt helped. I smiled, remembering that Mother had worn it when she was pregnant, 25 years earlier.
That Christmas, mindful of the warm feelings the shirt had given me, I patched one elbow, wrapped it in holiday paper and sent it to Mom. When Mom wrote to thank me for her ‘real’ gifts, she said the yellow shirt was lovely. She never mentioned it again..
The next year, my husband, daughter and I stopped at Mom and Dad’s to pick up some furniture. Days later, when we uncrated the kitchen table, I noticed something yellow taped to its bottom. The shirt!
And so the pattern was set.
On our next visit home, I secretly placed the shirt under Mom and Dad’s mattress. I don’t know how long it took for her to find it, but almost two years passed before I discovered it under the base of our living_room floor lamp. The yellow shirt was just what I needed now while refinishing furniture. The walnut stains added character.
In 1975 my husband and I divorced. With my three children, I prepared to move back to Illinois . As I packed, a deep depression overtook me. I wondered if I could make it on my own. I wondered if I would find a job. I paged through the Bible, looking for comfort. In Ephesians, I read, ‘So use every piece of God’s armor to resist the enemy wheneve r he attacks, and when it is all over, you will be standing up.’
I tried to picture myself wearing God’s armor, but all I saw was the stained yellow shirt. Slowly, it dawned on me. Wasn’t my mother’s love a piece of God’s armor? My courage was renewed.
Unpacking in our new home, I knew I had to get the shirt back to Mother. The next time I visited her, I tucked it in her bottom dresser drawer.
Meanwhile, I found a good job at a radio station. A year later I discovered the yellow shirt hidden in a rag bag in my cleaning closet.
Something new had been added. Embroidered in bright green across the breast pocket were the words ‘I BELONG TO PAT..’
Not to be outdone, I got out my own embroidery materials and added an apostrophe and seven more letters.
Now the shirt proudly proclaimed, ‘I BELONG TO PAT’S MOTHER.’ But I didn’t stop there. I zig_zagged all the frayed seams, then had a friend mail the shirt in a fancy box to Mom from Arlington , VA. We enclosed an official looking letter from ‘The Institute for the Destitute,’ announcing that she was the recipient of an award for good deeds.
I would have given anything to see Mom’s face when she opened the box. But, of course, she never mentioned it.
Two years later, in 1978, I remarried. The day of our wedding, Harold and I put our car in a friend’s garage to avoid practical jokers. After the wedding, while my husband drove us to our honeymoon suite, I reached for a pillow in the car to rest my head. It felt lumpy. I unzipped the case and found, wrapped in wedding paper, the yellow shirt. Inside a pocket was a note: ‘Read John 14:27_29. I love you both, Mother.’
That night I paged through the Bible in a hotel room and found the verses: ‘I am leaving you with a gift: peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give isn’t fragile like the peace the world gives. So don’t be troubled or afraid. Remember what I told you: I am going away, but I will come back to you again. If you really love me, you will be very happy for me, for now I can go to the Father, who is greater than I am . I have told you these things before they happen so that when they do, you will believe in me.’
The shirt was Mother’s final gift. She had known for three months that she had terminal Lou Gehrig’s disease. Mother died the following year at age 57.
I was tempted to send the yellow shirt with her to her grave. But I’m glad I didn’t, because it is a vivid reminder of the love_filled game she and I played for 16 years. Besides, my older daughter is in college now, majoring in art. And every art student needs a baggy yellow shirt with big pockets.
