Merry Christmas

Have a Happy Holiday, from my family to yours. This year was one that required patience and persistence. It was definitely a year full of changes and acceptance of a new way of life. I like to think that I did a lot of growing this year.

I am hoping for an even better and more magical 2019. I hope you are too. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Friday's Quote: Robert Baden-Powell

"The most worth-while thing is to try to put happiness into the lives of others." --- Robert Baden-Powell

With Christmas quickly approaching, I have been wondering whether I should buy gifts for my two boys. This is the first year that our little family will be getting our own tree (soon to be explained in a later post). It is also the first time my oldest has an understanding of why he's getting presents in the middle of winter, when it's not his birthday. I love making my boys happy and I love giving them presents. And that, my dear friend, is the reason why I've been debating about giving them presents for Christmas.

I am ashamed to admit it, but their father and I buy them toys all year long. ALL YEAR LONG. Most of the time, they just want little cars, like Matchbox cars. Yet, those cars do add up. They love their new toys and cars for several days, but eventually will move on to the next thing or an old favorite toy. So, I love seeing their faces light up when they get a new toy, but I hate that they get bored of it so soon. I've been wondering if I should try something different, maybe give them experiences and not just toys. I'm also wondering how I could cultivate lessons (e.g. it's better to give than receive) that would warm their heart. I don't know. This has been something I've been wondering about most recently and will try to find a solution. 

Do you have any suggestions for me? 

Quilt From Shirts: Finally Done

It's been several weeks since I've  finally finished my quilt made mostly (to be explained below) from dress shirts. It has spent some time waiting patiently to be finished and I'm so happy to be done with it. Hooray me!

I had intended to make a dress shirt quilt years ago (maybe before 2015), and probably actively collected 100% cotton dress shirts for it (in 2015). Yet, it wasn't until last winter in 2017 that I thought I had enough shirts (about 5-6 shirts) and began cutting up the shirts and sewing it together to make the quilt top. I was really inspired by a dress shirt  quilt made by Richard Killeaney called "Missing the Point," but I also have no patience for sewing up small strips together like his. Regardless, I made something similar and I really love the final result.

The blanket fits a twin size bed and would cover a full. In the picture above, it's laid on top a queen size bed. Now, the top is mostly made up of dress shirts from my Mr. Man and me. I've also added some quilting gray cotton fabric because I didn't have enough shirt fabric that was wide enough. The back of the fabric is a whole cloth that features old dictionary pages (which I really like). I hand quilted straight stitches across each horizontal panel using a different thread color (white, navy blue, or gray-blue) for each panel.  I think the quilt would be more eye-pleasing if all of the horizontal lines were more narrow and the same width; yet, as I stated above, I didn't have the patience. I really didn't want this project to linger on any more. (I have a quilting project that's been lingering on for over ten years, ugh!) So, here it is in all of its finished glory.

I've got so many other quilting projects that I'd like to work on. Let me know what you think of this quilt.