Whipping up a Wrap for a Friend

I recently learned my friend, Jan, was diagnosed with cancer. She had surgery and will be having chemotherapy. I've heard that while receiving chemo one gets very cold, so I knew I wanted to make a quilt for Jan - to keep her warm and to let her know I was thinking of her and praying for her.

I needed to make something quick. I also needed a sample for the Scrap Happy club I'm leading at the quilt shop. My talk was about using large cuts of fabric. I combined the two "needs" into a comfort wrap for Jan. It's kind of like a long table runner that she can wrap around her - big, but not as bulky as a full size quilt and easier to manage while sitting in a chair. My co-worker Cyndi quilted it with a great heart motif (I wish I'd taken an up close pic of her quilting).  Here's what it looked like -

She loved it. She called me after using it to let me know how well it worked to keep her warm. The nurses were telling her they wanted one, too. Heck, I want one. But I've other quilts to make. More on that next time.

It's Time to Simplify

I've been thinking about letting the blog go. I'm not as interested in blogging as I've been in the past. Frankly, it's a time thing. Plus there are just so many other blogs out there that do that blog thing better than mine. I don't think of it as quitting, but more as a priority realignment.

I struggle to find time to squeeze blogging into my schedule. Some of my favorite bloggers (Bonnie of Quiltville Snips and Quips and Crystal of Money Saving Mom) are so prolific, even with their busy lives, that I often wonder why I struggle to get something online. Having the "want to" just isn't enough. It's got to become a priority, a goal or a habit - a discipline.

Discipline is not my strongest suit. It is defined as: to train or develop by instruction and exercise especially in self-control. Well now...that sounds doable. After all, isn't that what I'm doing with Weight Watchers? The idea of training is intriguing. Bending and pruning plants so they conform to a preferred course comes to mind when I thing about training. Teaching children how to behave is another example, as is an athlete preparing for a particular event in his career. 

The motivation for pursuing discipline is probably the biggest challenge. At one time I wanted to blog because I thought it might help me in my career pursuits. I'm not sure I'm still convinced that is true. So, here I am arguing with myself. But perhaps I need to simplify and just look at my blog name - Thankful Kim. I could simply choose to post about those things for which I am thankful, keeping it simple and short. What a concept!

So here goes:
Today I am thankful for my small group (from our church). I'm finally getting to know people here in our "new" home. It's been a year and a half since we moved and we are just now starting to feel like we have friends, not just acquaintances. These are people who know what's going on in our lives and care about us. This is cool. 

Finally Finished

My best friend, Judy, is coming to visit in a few weeks. She's going to sleep on our extra bed upstairs. The only quilt I have for that bed is over 20 years old and falling apart. This will not be acceptable.

I've had a flimsy complete since I went to a retreat about 3 years ago, but I wasn't loving this quilt and wasn't sure I wanted to keep it. I pulled it out and decided that maybe if I had it quilted I would like it better. I met with a local long-arm quilter and got an estimate that was a tad high for my tastes. After some thought and discussion, I decided that custom quilting wasn't really necessary. An allover meandering pattern would do quite nicely and was much less expensive. So off to the quilter it went.

Once quilted, I had a new appreciation for this old JoAnn's Block of the Month cutie. With the deadline of my visiting friend fast approaching, I whipped the binding on in no time. Ahhh....the power of a deadline! I'm hoping that power will come into play on this, not-yet-started baby quilt.



I'll keep you posted.

Discovery

The world is full of things that I don't know about. Okay, maybe I know about some of those things, but I don't get how they work. That was the case with Facebook. I've had a Facebook account for over a year now. I got it as part part of a research project for work. It was interesting, but I really didn't see the appeal and found it to be less than exciting.

That all changed with a chance encounter with an old acquaintance. I don't even know Kathy that well, but we run in the same circles. She was telling me about the wonderful experience she had with Facebook and raving about how much fun it was to find friends. Her enthusiasm was contagious and I just had to go check it out again.



That was three days ago. I can hardly rip myself away from the computer. I'm having so much fun making friends. I've found some old school chums, some people from my early married days and a whole bunch of people from that circle of friends mentioned above.

Facebook is the MySpace of my generation. There's not a lot of tricking out of Facebook pages. These people work for a living. But there are lots of pictures of kids and grand kids. It's so much fun to catch up or just be reminded of things I knew but had been tucked back in the recesses of my brain.

Now if I can just rip myself away long enough to have a life I'll have something to write about on Facebook.

I'm thankful for Facebook and friends. What r u thankful 4?