Swept Away

Some weeks are so much busier...lots of house work, lots of yard work, lots of computer work,huge piles of charitable giving projects work...and then of course, there's family and life challenges that we all deal with.

Sometimes, as fate will have it, blogs and blogging will suddenly become even more challenging. I will be deluged with email asking me to do things, make things, donate things, join things, etc. etc. and then I go to various group settings and they ask me to make things, donate things, join things. Oh my goodness! For a lady who almost never sleeps, it can be occasionally over whelming. As someone told me, 'it's because you do so much already, I figure it would be easier for you to do it than me.' Ha! I can only say to that ;)

But then something wonderful happens. Sometimes it's a wonderful surprise, a reminder that there are really good and giving people still left in the world. Those who want to support us, or lift us up as we struggle with our own lifting up of others. And those people and their gifts of generosity from their hearts remind us of the good that still exists in the world.

Today, I want to thank just such a special person. Paula (The Quilter) Denee of Colorado wrote me a while back and told me that she had a piece of Alaskan fabric that somehow came from a store in Juneau (!) and that she had hand quilted the sweet little panel of designer fabric by Lynn Blaikie of the Yukon area of Canada (our Eskimo art has always kind of cross cultured here and there between Canada and Alaska) and Paula thought of me as she was working on it and asked me .....flat out asked me..would I like it when it was finished? She named it 'Windswept' but I was just plain 'Swept Away' by the offer!

Would I like it?
No....
I would LOVE IT!!!



And not only did I love it even more in person, I rearranged my sewing nook to give it a place of honor. And boy...does it ever fit in! Perfectly, as if it belonged there. Because of course, it always did. It just did :)

Paula..I'm now calling her 'Bless her heart, Paula' has, in the past, also sent me a pair of magical socks and a pair of wonderfully warm slippers..both of which she also made.

Paula's, gifts are better than Christmas. They are gifts 'just because' she thought of me. Thank you so very, very much Paula!

I go into my sewing nook every single day, multiple times a day. And each and every time I go in I say "Bless her heart." to Paula."

And I do!


Links:
Lynn Blaike batik fabric panels
Lynn Blaike art prints
Lynn Blaike, use of Batiks and native culture in Canada

 My own Links, Photos, and Free Tutorials from my sewing experiences in Alaska:

How To Make A Kuspuk

Links to Making Kuspuks in 2010:
Kuspuks Go to the Capitol
Kuspuk Fridays, KTUU, Anchorage News...our classroom work featured as State Legislators wear their own kuspuks every Friday they are in session!

Links to Making Kuspuks in 2009
Sewing Kuspuks Again!
Kuspuks
Links to Making Kuspuks in 2008:
How to make a kuspuk

Kuspuks Make Front Page News

Juneau Empire Photos: Parka party 01/18/08

video: scroll on left menu choice of 'Creating Kuspuks'

Michele Bilyeu blogs With Heart and Hands as she shares a quilting journey through her life in Salem, Oregon and Douglas, Alaska. Sharing thousands of links to Free Quilt and Quilt Block Patterns and encouraging others to join in the Liberated Quilting Challenge and make or donate small art quilts to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Help us change the world, one little quilt at a time!