Sunday Quilt Inspiration: Palms and Holy Week

For my Christian readers: I hope you had a good Palm Sunday. It's the strangest of Easters, but we can do this. Watch mass on EWTN, which is what Rich and I did this evening. Do you best to walk with Christ this week.  I have planned something each day of this week to help us in our walk. 

Sunday—Palm Sunday mass on EWTN.

Monday—confession. Father is accepting one person at a time and is hearing confessions in the open pavilion, with at least six feet of distance. It's going to be strange, but we'll do what we must.

Tuesday—family altar. Rich and I have been making a small altar in a corner of the living room. (Pictures to follow.)

Wednesday—Way of the Cross. We will go to church and read through the Way of the Cross, taking turns leading the Stations.

Thursday—The Passion of the Christ movie. 

Friday—Cemetery visit. It's the anniversary of Rich's Dad's death, so it seems especially fitting. I've invited his mom to come for lunch to help her get through the day.

Saturday—Easter Vigil mass on EWTN.

Sunday—Easter celebrations with the kids via video chat. 

    

    

Sunday Quilt Inspiration: Memorial Day

Today's post is entirely about the American holiday we call Memorial Day. This is a special day on which we honor those in the armed forces who lost their lives while serving our country. 


Honor and gratitude to the veteran's who died while in the military for our freedoms. Their love of country went well beyond what any person should have to give. 

While the day is truly about the soldiers, I cannot but help to remember and pray for their families who suffer and grieve that loss every day. 

Also in celebration of Memorial Day, according to the comment sections that accompany the photos, these quilts were presented through "Quilts of Valor."

Have a wonderful Memorial Day by remembering all who gave their lives for American freedom.

The pictures above which depict soldiers receiving are all in a new board called "USA, country." I pinned only a few pins there and would love some help. If you want to contribute to this board, just let me know. I'll gladly make that happen!

All other quilts are in my "heart, quilts" board. Enjoy!

What Is It? A Finish!

Anyone know the name of this applique pattern?

Some time ago, while going through yet more boxes of stuff from my mom's sewing room, I ran across a couple of odd blocks that obviously were her UFOs. This was one of them. I first tossed them into the trash, because really, doesn't it scream ugly 80s? Anyone sill have a blue fabric goose sitting around?

No matter your taste, this will not fit the decor. Sorry. 

But I do have a heart and my heart said, "Momma made this." And the next thing I knew the blocks were in my UFO bin. They languished there for a couple of years. Then I needed some handwork to take along with me while we traveled the Northwest. I decided to pack it, a little afraid it would taint yet another bin. We were almost home before I pulled it out.

Mom's zigzag edges are pretty raw, so
I let my own stitches do whatever they wanted.

Using embroidery thread from last century (much of it also from my mom) I hand-quilted it in big stitches. I decided early on that nothing could make the block worse, so there was a chance of making it better. 

The pinks of the 1980s...
there's no mistaking them!

I finished the stitching and put it aside to trim out and bind when I got home. It got forgotten. The poor, ugly little thing reappeared last week. And while I don't participate in the One Monthly Goal at Elm Street Quilts, I did push myself to get this finished. It's time, after all. So I'm going to put it in the next OMG linky party. (Assuming that I catch it in time.) Edited: I did it!

Afraid that the rotary cutter, might take out a few stitches, I trimmed it with scissors, found some red gingham, which matches in color but not in size, for binding. 

So it has a warped corner and there are several stains, but I'll hand wash it and maybe it will go on a wall somewhere. Somehow it's grown on me. See, I said there was a chance of making it better. Finished is always better!

Link Ups!

AHIQ
One Monthly Goal at Elm Street Quilts
My Quilt Infatuation (NTT)

Crazy Mom Quilts (Finish It Up Friday)
Busy Hands Quilts (Finished or Not Friday)

Confessions of a Fabric Addict (Can I get a Whoop! Whoop!)

A Camper for a Camper and other Christmas Stories

What family, temporarily living in campers, would give the one permanent camp child a camper? This. One. of course.

Poor child. Her own personal Barbie/baby doll camper as small as Grandmay and Poppa's. She's living in a camper the size of her new (in process of being built) house. And her dolls will have to share the smallest camper available to dolls. Wait, it's the size of the camper I'm sleeping in tonight. 

It's been a while since we've had a baby to open gifts. What fun! Doesn't the look on her face tell the story?

At some point we were finished opening all the gifts and moved on to supper. One of the advantages of having Will and crew living in the house is that they did the cooking. And it was delicious!

Earlier in the day Richard and I attended mass and spent some quiet time before the chaos began. When the kids arrived in the afternoon, we took photos in a sleigh that Will made just for this purpose. It started out a two-dimensional drawing, but he kept adding to the idea until it became a three-dimensional sleigh with a bench for sitting and two crazy log reindeer. 

Rich's parents were with us for gift-giving and supper, but it began "getting late" as soon as we served dessert. We love to play family games, so I made a few plans for after they left. Unfortunately they can't handle the noise and chaos of family games. Two of the games we played are below. The first was a hoot! Everyone wanted in on this game!

Treasure Chase
Necessary items: plastic wrap (Saran or Cling); small tokens, such as pony tail holders, candies, gum, lip balm, and so on. I also gathered a few odd things from around the house: safety pins, bobby pins, paper clips, zip ties, coins, ribbon. Anything small will work but avoid sharp, pointed objects.  

Start with a medium-size prize and wrap it in a wad of plastic wrap to form a ball. Then add more "sheets" of wrap around that to add to the ball. Cutting the wrap into sheets means the players will have to pick at the wrap to find the beginning of each. With each piece of wrap, add tokens enclosing them and pressing down to make the wrap stick to itself. It takes hours to use up a 300' roll of wrap. Several hours. Eventually I had a ball of tokens and wrap about the size of a volley ball. 


To play one person races to unwrap the items while the next player throws a die. We had already decided that the number to switch on would be three. When the player rolled a three, he took the ball and began trying to get items out while the next player tried to roll a three. It was such fun to see how the kids played. Some of us, it turns out, cheat. I loved trying to keep Lane from getting the ball from me. He's 6' tall, so reaching over me was not a concern. 

For the most part our games have no rules, and everyone just plays for fun. Some of our prizes were useless. For example, I included a sewing machine foot from an old machine. The idea is that no one knew what to expect, but it was fun to find out. I hate to admit but had any of the prizes been expensive, someone may have been hurt.


Candy Cane Catch
To play this game, you'll need candy canes, ribbon and prizes. Divide into teams of two players. One player (standing on a chair) drops the candy cane to the second player (sitting on the chair with back to player one). The player holds the ribbon out-stretched and tries to catch the candy cane on the ribbon. They may communicate but may not touch each other. The first team to catch the candy cane wins the prize.

You can find directions to both of these games on the internet. I found the first one here.  And though I don't remember where I found the Candy Cane Catch (my title), there are many holiday family games at Happy Home Fairy.

Fire Saga Update: Friends, Housing, and lots of Love

If you've been following along for the last few days, you may remember that a fire started in the home of our oldest son. By the time the fire was extinguished, everything in the house was lost. However, the only truly important news is that everyone is okay. No one was home when the faulty wiring caused the smoke and flames. 


The other thing that I want to mention is the unbelievable love and support our whole family has received. People have been stopping by for days now, to deliver items, clothing, and money. It seems that our little community is actually quite big. 

Will's family lives in Chicot and their friends jumped in to help. We live in Evergreen; it didn't surprise us that people from our small town have done the same. However, people from other towns--Bunkie, Cottonport, Plaucheville, Hessmer, Marksville--have pitched in and donated and so much more. It's a bit overwhelming, actually.


For example, a woman who went to school with my sisters and me (40 years ago) sent a Christmas card and a check. Absolute strangers have donated money to them via a GoFundMe account. Others have bought Christmas gifts to replace the ones that burned with the house.

A great example of how  considerate people are came from the school the grandies attend. The principal gave permission for our kids to wear "street clothes" to school because their uniforms were lost in the blaze. Believe me, it's much easier to put your kid into a pair of donated jeans than to find uniforms over a traumatic weekend. 

But the principal was worried that the Marcottes, as the only ones in regular clothes, might feel like they stand out. To avoid that she took the regular clothes idea a bit farther and had a fundraiser. The high schoolers could donate money which would allow them to wear jeans and tee shirts for the week. The money they donated is meant to help us to buy uniforms, but since other students were wearing regular clothes, the Marcotte kids easily fit in. How thoughtful is that? 

We all have had to do some adjusting to life. That includes my not getting to emails, this blog, visiting you all, pinning--just anything on the computer.

One big adjustment has been the new living arrangements. To keep Will and Stacey's family  together with enough space for all of them, Rich and I moved into our 19' camper.  Adam and Jenny, who were living with us since their house became infested with mold a year ago, have moved into Will and Stacey's much larger camper. 

We're all making the best of it. Adam and Jen have a larger, nicer camper, but it's out in the open. Our camper is tiny but stored under a large shed. Both now have full hookups so it's very much like an RV park.  

We've set up tables, chairs, and our outdoor rug. For fun we call this area "the parlor." We also made a small play area for our Maltese puppies, especially the escape artists.

Rich pulled some of my potted plants over to protect them from the occasional 30 degree weather but they add life to our shed. I won't say we can live this way for a year or two, but for now we're all in it together and are making the best of it. 

Finally, it's time for a Milly Moment!
Miss Milly has a new tooth. It's a typical little baby tooth that her tongue found about the third day after it broke through, and she simply doesn't know what to do with it all. We've had such enjoyment from her nonsensical faces and tongue mishaps. That silly tongue seems to have an ADHD problem. 

Every time her tongue touches that tooth, it forgets everything else and probes around trying to figure out what's there. It's hard to eat, drink, or talk when your tongue is doing something else. And I'll leave you with that thought while you celebrate the holidays with family and friends. May you have a blessed and merry Christmas!