Stitches Tell Stories

Every quilt has a story. I began this quilt in Tulsa, OK. We were preparing for the mission field and David was in school full-time, so my fabric budget was pretty limited. The best way to keep enjoying my new hobby and learning new skills was to do those $5-$10 block of the month clubs at the fabric stores. I did them all  - three different stores – simultaneously. One of those was this quilt.

We moved to Florida, then Missouri. In each place I worked a little on the quilt top but never finished. Other quilts took priority because they were gifts for other people. Eventually we moved to Quebec, Canada to attend French language school. We had to fit everything we owned for a family of five into a mini-van, which called for some serious paring down, but I managed to fit my sewing machine and quilt blocks! While we were there, I finally completed the top. I packed her up and took her to Africa, thinking that I would quilt it there.

We only have power about 30% of the time in Kinshasa. When the electricity is on I find myself racing to get laundry, school stuff, baking, bill paying, blogging, correspondence, etc done before it goes off again.  I began to wonder if I was EVER going to finish it. David suggested I send it back to the states and have someone quilt it for me. When our son came to visit for Christmas, I did send it back with him, but it went into storage for a while, waiting for me to decide what to do with it.

During our time in Florida, a friend from our college days was going to be nearby for a conference and asked if we’d like to drive up to see him and meet his family. We had not seen Darren in over fifteen years and were very excited. I liked his wife Marcia instantly. It was so fun to discover how much we have in common and we parted feeling like we had been friends for much longer than just an evening. We’ve kept in touch ever since. Once I made the decision to have my quilt done by someone else, Marcia was the obvious choice. I trusted her and I had been admiring her work for some time via her blog.

This quilt has journeyed across the U.S. and the ocean with me and I have a lot in common with her. We are both a work in progress, a slow progression getting a little closer to being useful and beautiful at each stop along the way. Neither of us are the same as we were seven years ago when I began working on this quilt.

I named her “Je me souviens,” which means “I remember,” because she reminds me that through the years I spent finishing her I made new friends, reconnected with old friends, learned new skills, travelled to new places, learned a new language, lived at seven different addresses, encountered two new cultures, faced several challenges, and said many goodbyes. She’s even more special now because of the love and talent stitched into her by my friend Marcia – a constant reminder of our friendship even though we both worked on her at different times and in different places. 

Here is a pic of the back of my quilt. It's almost a quilt all by itself! The photo really doesn't do justice to all the detail and colors. 

Marcia also graciously allowed me to use her photos. 

You can read her blog and see some of the other work she has done by clicking HERE.

You can shop in Marcia's store by clicking HERE.

Stitches tell stories, and this quilt has a lot of both!

Cookies and Other Treats

We finally made it to Missouri! We spent a few days with my family and had a lot of fun catching up with each other. We visited an old family friend who still lives on the street where I grew up. That's the house I grew up in above, except that when I was there we had grass instead of wood chips.

We visited a few of our favorite places from when we were growing up, including our favorite mom and pop pizza place, our favorite frozen custard place, and a cookie company, which I was happy to see is still in business. They still sell cookies by the pound and wrap them in brown bags tied with twine. And the cookies still taste great, especially dipped in coffee or milk.

There is so much to do in St. Louis and so many people we love there that we will have to go back more than once, I'm sure. Daniel has never been to the Arch or the zoo and I want to go to a Cardinals game.

We drove to Kirksville to see Josh!

The next day, we went to a reunion at the Truman State University Baptist Student Union. The friendships we found there during our college days are priceless and many of those friends still keep in touch. I had a blast and it was a real treat to see so many dear friends. The only downside was that there was too little time. 

We were told to get some rest, and we have been. We are enjoying sweet reunions with loved ones and still have lots more folks we want to see. We are staying with friends who love us and want to pamper us and make sure we go back to Africa refreshed and ready.

As if all of that wasn't already wonderful enough, to top it off, my friend Marcia brought my quilt for me, so now I have it in my hot little hands and I love it! More about that in the next post.

Almost a Graduate and Almost a Quilt

Remember this quilt top? There's a story to tell that I will share later, but I am just about jumping up and down with excitement because my top is finally getting quilted!

This is my fifth quilt (you can see the other four by clicking on the My Quilts tab at the top of this page). I quilted the first four on my own, one by hand and the rest on my traditional sewing machine. I never seemed to have enough time and electricity to get to this one though, and it is the first one I decided to keep for myself so it got put on back burner. I guess I could have hand quilted it but I just didn't want to. I would pull it out and look at it longingly because I love the batiks and this quilt kept calling me. Finally I caved and decided to take it back to the states when I took Josh back for college and hire a quilter. It got stored for another year partly due to cost and partly because I was nervous about putting my quilt top in the mail.

Ultimately I chose my dear friend Marcia, of Little Pink Rose Quilting and Sewing to be my quilter. Marcia and I have been friends for several years, and her husband has been friends with David and me even longer - we went to college together.

You can get a sneek peak at Marcia's work on my quilt by clicking HERE. It goes without saying that I will post about this quilt again when it is finished and then I'll share why it is special to me.

Meanwhile, we are busy packing and preparing for furlough. Tonight our daughter graduates from high school. We are so proud of her!

I have a glitchy camera and unfortunately will probably have to rely on my friends for good photos and it will take a few days to round them up and post about it. So I wrote a post a while back and scheduled it to publish tomorrow automatically. The blog posts will probably slow down quite a bit after that until we get to the states.

Languishing Brownies

Brownies (Photo credit: yum9me)

This could be an interesting post because I am so distracted. We HAD power today, so I made up a batch of brownie batter. I decided to be a cool mom and used the last of our Heath bits in the brownies. Popped them into the oven. A few minutes later the power went off. David went out to check the box since all of the neighbors have power and he has been gone awhile, which means something burnt up and we can't even run the generator. MY BROWNIES ARE LANGUISHING!!! 

This week I ordered limes from Papa Joseph. In French, lemons are "citrons" and limes are "citrons vertes (green)". This is a photo of locally grown produce. The little one is a lime and the big ones are lemons. See the problem with calling limes the green ones? They are ALL green. Papa Joseph misunderstood and I ended up with a bag of lemons. Lemons aren't as tasty as limes in my Coke, but they made good lemonade so we are just rolling with it. Interestingly, oranges here are also green, and yet they are still called oranges an no one seems to think that is weird.

Here's an update on our house. Yes, we are STILL working on the house. When we moved in, the plumbing in the kitchen had been repaired/replaced and there was a section behind the sink where the tiles were busted out; and there was a gap between the concrete wall and the countertop that I could put my hand into - which meant unwelcome guests could crawl through from the other side. This week we hired Leopold to fix the wall and I am very happy to have a whole wall in the kitchen now.





I managed to get some more sewing time and made some progress on Daniel's quilt top. I am using a pattern called Blissful Dreams that I purchased too many years ago from Down Home Quilting. I still have to add borders to it. Daniel asked me to hand quilt it instead of machine quilting it, so when I finish the top it will get packed away until after furlough. I don't plan to haul it across the ocean and then add backing and batting and haul it back. Apologies to my facebook friends who have already seen this.


***Here is a brownie update, because brownies are important. They are a little funny looking but I think they will taste just fine. Hooray for brownies! The neutral line in our box keeps burning up and we keep replacing it. This time it burned a bunch of stuff and David got it going temporarily but says he pretty much has to replace everything.

Clothes don't make the man,

(65) paper doll (Photo credit: crackedmoon)

but what we wear each day might say a lot about who we serve. Recently I received an email with a subject line that read: "Do you dress like your quilt?" My first thought on that question was "gee, I hope not," as I mentally pictured myself dressed like a paper doll in quilt tops I have made. Hmmm, there was that one that had a three dimensional cat with a tail made from a boa. No way. I have loved every quilt I have made, but honestly has anyone ever looked at a quilt and thought "that would make an awesome dress!?" You get my point. 

We get up every day and get dressed, and we do it with our audience and our planned activities in mind so that our dress is appropriate for the occasion. We want to put forth the best image we can because we know our reputation is at stake. People notice what we wear, whether we like it or not, and they form opinions of us based on their impressions. 

People also notice what we as Christians are "wearing." Romans 13:14 says we are to "put on the Lord Jesus Christ."  Isaiah 61:10 says the Lord "has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness." As a believer, my Savior's reputation is at stake and I want to present well an image of Him. People's opinions of Christ, and maybe their eternities can be at stake. I don't dress like my quilt, but I hope and pray that each day I dress like Christ.

"Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity." --Colossians 3:12-14

Projects

I finished it! And he likes it! This quilt took WAY too long and it's my fault. But it has a history that Josh appreciates. It began as a block of the month project at Hancock's in Tulsa in 2005. I started it for Josh because the theme is Lewis & Clark and in our home school, that was one of his favorite topics of study. I didn't even get to finish all twelve months in the club because we moved halfway through the year, so a friend had to mail each month's block kit and instructions to me. Since I began it, we have moved to Florida, Missouri, Canada, back to Missouri, Idaho, and Africa; went back to school, became missionaries with MAF, raised ministry support, driven all over the U.S., "learned French", and adjusted to new cultures. Emily owns the very first quilt I made. Daniel gets the next one. I told him he could choose the pattern and colors but I'm tired of appliqué!
Josh also finished a project this week. He built a fort for Daniel. He cut the bamboo himself with a machete. Our guard Jacques showed Josh how to split the bamboo with the machete and helped with the digging. He (Jacques) told me that in his village people place sticks in the ground like Josh's bamboo, then pack the walls with mud to build their homes, or they make their own bricks out of mud. The roofs are thatched, whereas Josh recycled a piece of plywood from the crate David built for our shipment over here.

Finishing

I finished another quilt! Well, just the top, actually. But that's the hardest part. This one only took about 5-6 years - LOL. I had too many quilt projects going at one time and relocated three times, so this was a project that I started and stopped many times, with a lot of time between each "restart". This is my fourth completed quilt top and it will be the first one I keep for myself. I know I won't need a quilt in Africa, but just having it there to look at will make my house feel like "home" to me, so it is going. And who knows, maybe one day we will purchase a window A/C and if so, I will want a blanket. I love the batik fabrics in this one and since I have worked on it in three states, one province and two countries, it's kind of special to me.

David and I completed our final exams today. We graduate tomorrow! After that, we will be cleaning and packing like crazy and then we'll begin our voyage back to the U.S. Our first stop will be Wisconsin. Then we'll head south. I'd like to write something profound, or even interesting, but I'm tired. Anyway, here's a photo of my not-quite finished quilt.

Photo perspectives

Before I write here, I often review the previous entry so I can sort of pick up where I left off. Since the last time I wrote, we took the kids to Coaticook Gorge, home of the world's longest pedestrian suspension bridge. We are actually going there next week with our language school, but David and I wanted to take the kids on a day when we could take our time and go at our own pace as a family. It was a good thing we did, because Josh's ankle was still sore from his rugby injury and we ended up not completing the entire 3 kilometer trail. We did, however, cross the bridge - twice. Emily and I had to muster up our courage, because we aren't fond of heights, but it was well worth it for the beautiful view from the middle of the bridge. David and I went on a field trip with our French language school to the Village Québécois d'Antan (Quebecois villiage of former days) in Drummondville. There are 52 buildings, all dating back to the 1800's and the very early 1900's. They aren't all from Drummondville originally, some have been moved, but the effect is that you feel as though you have stepped back in time. There were residential homes that showed what life was like for the average family, an apothecary complete with a garden of medicinal herbs, a fromagerie (cheese shop), general store/post office, blacksmith, printer, farm, soap makers, candle makers, car museum, etc. As I was reviewing my previous post and looking through my photos of our excursions, I found it interesting that I had written about treasures. What I treasure emotionally and materially sure did seem to come to light through my photos. Most of my photos were of people I love, such as the one of the kids here, or things that I am very enthusiastic about, such as the antique sewing machines, quilts, and the gardens from the village. I took only a few photos of the antique cars and the other things we saw. My pictures are more than just my life through the lens of my camera, they show my bias, my interests and passions. I wonder then, what picture other people have in their minds when they think of me? Do my children see in their minds a pair of hands preparing a meal or putting a bandage on their skinned knees? Do they see a pair of arms wrapping them in a hug? Do they see a face with an impatient or angry expression, or do they see a warm smile? I want to be a blessing. I want my family and friends to smile when they picture me in their minds. That is my prayer.

A Quick Catch-up

Ok. Learning a foreign language when you are an adult with a family to take care of and two kids still homeschooling is a WEE bit time-consuming. And where there is time, there is no energy. SO - I have neglected all of my hobbies, including my blog. We have completed the beginner and intermediate level courses as of two days ago. On Monday, we will begin the conversation course. This course is not quite as intense as the others, so I am hoping to be able to communicate better with my family and friends and maybe even deal with a few photos or do a little quilting. Here is the best rapid-fire catching-up I can give you. In August, on our way from Missouri to Québec, we spent some time with my parents and I gave her the quilt I had been working on for the last five years.


We began school the first week of September. In Canada, Thanksgiving Day is in October, so while our loved ones in the U.S. were observing Columbus Day, we were having our Thanksgiving feast with the other missionary families.

For Christmas, a couple from our church here invited us to spend the day with them. They treated us like family and we had a wonderful time. They can speak English well, but they make us practice our French as much as we can. It is a huge blessing to have friends like them here while we are far from our own families.

In January, we began the intermediate course, what our professor calls "the true French". It was quite a bit more challenging than the beginner course. God blessed us with more friends and more opportunities to practice conversing in French, which seems to be the most difficult part of learning French. Reading and listening skills came more easily.

"Spring break" for us came the first week in March, while it was definitely still winter here. We took a day and drove to Québec city, the capitol. We walked all through Old Québec and toured the parliament building. Québec is the only fortified city in North America.

After exams were over this week, six of the language school students graduated. We have developed close friendships with some of them and are very sad to see them go.

Calm and Chaos

We've been busy, busy, busy! We are still speaking to churches, groups, individuals, anyone willing to listen to us, about our ministry with MAF and what God is doing in our lives and in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where we will be serving. Language school begins soon and we'll be packing up and driving to Canada next month. We are sorting through our stuff and deciding what goes to Canada (very little, thankfully), what goes to Africa, what goes in storage, and what goes AWAY. We have been purchasing things we need and we have a dear friend who is working on planning a shower for us to help with that. We are taking care of legal stuff, insurance, paper work, tying up loose ends. Getting vaccines, helping our dog get to know her future owner, visiting friends and family. You get the idea. I always enjoy my morning cups of coffee, one with God and one with my hubby, and now that peaceful time of day before the chaos begins is even more important to me. This week for a break I scrapped another page. This is an older photo but one I had never scrapped before, and I wanted to get it done for Emily. I hope you like it. I used a kit called Pinkalicious, designed by Kristi Cakebread. You can purchase it at www.scrapbookmax.com .