Recap of November

I'm not sure where the month of November went! Well, I am, really, so here are a few pictures to share!

 First of all, the quilt show in North Augusta, SC, where I entered my Words to Live By quilt. It was a great show and I feel honored to have won this ribbon - there were many great appliqué quilts.

 I was thrilled with the ribbon!

 Here is my Black and White BOM I finished earlier this year . . . .

And last, my Botanical Garden. A really fun quilt to make,  inspired by Sarah Fielke's book. 

This show was on a Friday and Saturday and I left Sunday for Nicaragua for another mission trip. There were three of us ladies, carrying packages to 74 sponsored children at a Christian School there. 

 Here we are with all our bags, ready to leave.

Sylvia shares more of Jesus' love to the children as we are getting ready to distribute the care packages while the children eagerly wait! 

 I was able to see these children that my husband and I had sponsored in person! 

 What a joy. . .

 and this precious girl we have corresponded with for five years and now she is graduating from high school, wanting to become a nurse. They were all three graduating.

 We took the 15 graduating seniors on a day trip to Lake Nicaragua, lunch at a restaurant and to this gorgeous overlook at Catarina below.

One little village we visited has no running water. This is the way all the people get their water - they go down this path past where the road goes, wash their clothes in the 'river', which is really a stream, bag their clothes up and fill their five gallon bucket and walk back up the hill to their home. Truly amazing!! A well has been dug nearby and now there is an effort to raise funds to pipe the water a couple of miles down the road so the people will have water at their homes. The path was difficult to walk down for us, yet they do it frequently.

Here is the 'river' where they have carved out areas to sit on the rocks as they wash their clothes.

This little ten year old girl filled her bucket with water and waited to lead us up the path.

She would not go until we followed and she knew we would be okay, the whole time holding the bucket of water on her head. Amazing! 

Another exciting thing is that a sewing ministry was started five years ago and many are graduating from this school and are able to have home businesses to make money to help support their families. It's great to see that sewing, which I love so much, reaches around the world to help others!!!

2014 Coming to a Close

It has been quite a while since I've posted so I will try to catch up before we are in the New Year! In November I went on a mission trip to Nicaragua with a group from our church. We have been sponsoring some children to go to a Christian school there and I was able to meet them in person after corresponding for almost four years.

 This is Angely. . .

 Maria . . .

and Moises, who had been out of school for a while because of some surgery. We found him at his home with his parents and what a blessing to get to see all these precious children!! It was a truly great trip!!

A lady from our church began a Sewing Ministry and Sewing School there and here is the classroom. It is amazing what these students have learned. There were 12 who graduated while we were there and took home their very own sewing machine to be able to have a home business. There was a fashion show with many of the garments they had made.

Here is an example of one dress this lady was finishing up that week for the show.

 Speaking of finishing, I really did complete my quilt top, "Words To Life By," SBOW, from Primitive Gatherings. That was all those hundreds of half square triangles I grumbled about earlier! 

 Here is one more block of my Primitive Garden quilt, also from Primitive Gatherings.

And now as the Di Ford Mystery Quilt has come to a close for 2014, I have completed the first round! Oh well, maybe in 2015 this will become a quilt.

I made this little doll quilt for Lacey who is two and loves her babies! It matches her room.

This is our quilt group (minus Gerry taking the picture) at our Christmas luncheon!

Jake has now turned four - where did the time go??

After 14+ years in the making - I have decided to finish my Bible Quilt (designed by Jan Patek as a BOM). The blocks have been completed for years except for the embroidery/words. Since I do much more hand stitching now, it will be prettier than if I had done it years ago. How's that for making yourself feel good about procrastinating!!?

 And now one last project - my Dear Jane quilt that has also been in the making for 12+ years. This is my first triangle/border block. I found a FB group, Jane Stickle Quilt Group, which is very encouraging and I can see that I might now finish this historic quilt. Here are two websites with great information also:

Dear Jane and

That Quilt, where she gives pictures and step by step instructions on how she made her blocks.

 I've had 65 blocks out of 225 completed for a while. I am setting some new goals to finish this quilt.

 It is VERY challenging at times, some blocks have 45 pieces in them and they measure 4.5" finished.

That's a LOT of tiny pieces. I chose all my center block fabrics years ago and identified them in a layout provided with the EQ Software. I chose to make them just a little brighter than Jane's original quilt, OR, as I say, what hers may have been before fading some over 150 years ago. 

Of course, Christmas was celebrated amidst all of these posts, but now the decorations are put away and I am looking forward to new GOALS for 2015. 

Happy New Year!!