Latest Projects

As I've mentioned before, a lot of people I know are having babies. It happens when you reach a certain age - and for me, its actually happened in two separate waves (just like the weddings did!). This post is about two friends, one who I've known since the Greenville days and one from my Seattle Bible Study Fellowship class. 

Alexis and I met when I became a Discussion Leader for one of the groups in the Seattle Young Adult's BSF class. Our groups were about the same age, and so were we, and we hit it off. Alexis is one of those women who will love you fully, make you laugh with her witty and sarcastic comments, and who will deal with you straight. I love how she enjoys life and trying new things and I also love her authenticity. She and her husband, Greg moved to New York a year (I think) before I moved to Illinois, so it has been a LONG time since we've seen each other in person. But I still count her among my good friends, she's one of the favorites, and just keeping up with each other on our blogs and facebook will have to do for now.

Alexis and Greg are due to welcome their first baby, a little girl, any moment now. In fact, maybe RIGHT now as I post this (I think today is her due date). I wanted to share a little gift I made for her and Greg. I love making these baby burp rags for my friends!

I only got one picture of these as I was sending them out so I'll describe the picture above. Each of the burp rags is made of a cloth diaper, about a 12x12 piece of fabric and a coordinating ribbon. When I chose these fabrics/ribbons, I hadn't see the decorations of the baby's room yet, so I just thought of what I know about Greg and Alexis and decided they would like these batik prints that have a lot of colors in them, with purple, pink, and orange ribbons.

My friends Laura and Andy are the recipients of another baby prayer quilt. I made the first one of these for Baby Brookie, my friends' baby daughter. At the time, Brooklin was not eating well, was sleeping poorly and kept losing weight. I prayed while I made a little blanket for her and by the time it was finished and mailed, she was well. I feel like the discipline of prayer was really valuable in this time. Flash forward to September of last year. My friend Laura came to visit around Labor Day weekend and she was just barely pregnant. It was a time of great rejoicing and a time of trepidation. I had already been praying for Laura a long time but after she left, I found myself praying even more. And I knew that I had to make a quilt for this baby, too. I've been working on it secretly for months, all the time so excited and wanting to tell Laura about it when we check in on the phone, or when we're praying together, but I also wanted it to be a surprise.

Well, I finally sent it to the Petersons and so I can also show it to you. When Laura was here in September she said, "I don't know if its a boy or a girl yet, and I don't care which it is, but if its a girl her name will be Hope." The baby is indeed a girl, due in a couple months, and her name is Hope. So I stitched her name into the top orange square. I think if you click the second photo you can see the name stitched into it.

So I learned a lot from this particular project. I had been working on it literally for six months. The construction only took a day, but the stitching was just slowly coming along as I had time to sit and sew and pray. It traveled with me on my winter trips to St. Louis, Greenville, San Antonio, and Phoenix and in all those places I took it out and sewed a little and prayed. Sometimes I would just put it on my lap and pray.

When I went to send it to Laura, I almost couldn't do it. Instead of becoming a tool to focus my prayer, it had become a talisman of sorts. The pregnancy was going well and Laura was healthy as was the baby - and suddenly I got nervous that I would send the quilt and something would happen. Aren't our human hearts foolish? So I wrote the note to Andy and Laura and prayed and remembered that while the Lord hears and answers our prayer, he is in control of all things and that includes this little baby girl. It was a great reminder for me of God's sovereignty and grace. Laura recieved it and I was so excited to hear from her that she loved it and that it was bringing her as much joy as it brought me to make.

So those are the latest projects. I have a few new things in the works, but with too little time to really work on them. The one I'm the most excited about is a dress that I'm hoping to make sometime in the next couple weeks. Pics will come soon!