Color Inspiration has been laying dormant for the past few weeks, much like the plants outside and the baby in my belly. Actually, neither the plants outside nor the baby in my belly are truly dormant–they are moving and working and growing like mad, but so far it has all been out of sight. They are both getting ready to burst forth with vigor, though, I can feel it. With mere weeks now until potential baby time, I’ve been spending a lot of time sewing in an attempt to wrap up my pre-baby quilty to-do list, which means a bit less time for blogging. I still love you, I promise.

Last Thursday I had a particularly thank-FULL day and decided to share some of the highlights this week, linking up with Yvonne at Quilting Jetgirl’s Quilty Thankful Thursday. Be forewarned: I’m breaking one of my biggest blogging rules in this post and using almost entirely iPhone pictures (gasp. shudder). Gratitude does not discriminate, though, and I’d rather share my thanks than hold back due to a lack of appropriately awesome photos. Please forgive me.

Sewing time

Last week was spring break week, which meant no preschool for Maddie. The kids and I had a *mostly* exciting week full of play dates. To top it off, my mother-in-law was free to play with both kids all day on Thursday. This gave me some much needed, uninterrupted sewing time so that I could finish the Pinkalicious Hazel Hedgehog baby quilt for my sister-in-law. I know once little baby boy makes his appearance, long stretches of sewing time will be impossible for a good long time. I breathed deeply and enjoyed every moment.

Unexpected Fails-Turned-Wins

During my epic sewing day, I discovered that the small fabric shop from whom I’d purchased the background fabric had made an error and sent 1.25 yards instead of 1.5 yards of the necessary fabric (unexpected human error: fail). With my original plan, the 1.25 yards not only would require exorbitant piecing, but would simply not be enough to fill the background (epic conundrum made more epic by the severe time crunch). BUT, since I had made the last minute decision to piece a heart in a speech bubble to add to the quilt top, I was able to finagle all of the dimensions and cutting calculations to make it work. Without the speech bubble, it would not have been possible. AND the errors I made while reconfiguring the quilt layout (shh, I was tired!) resulted in slightly larger than necessary pieces instead of too small (accidental quilt math fail-turned-win). Awesome. What could have been a total bust of a soon-to-be-extinct sewing day resulted in a completely pieced, layered, basted, and partially quilted baby quilt. Blissfully grateful!

Surprise Gifts

In the midst of this wild sewing day, I received a package. It was addressed to me and from a machine embroidery shop, but I could not for the life of me remember what I had ordered. Surprise!! It was a completely amazing and unexpected gift of 20 bobbins from Yvonne. It immediately took my bobbin count from one to 21, which is unfathomably amazing.

I now can quilt with MANY colors, and have a bobbin to match! AND I can load multiple bobbins before quilting to smooth out the process. Life changing. I’m continuously amazed by and grateful for the generosity and kindness that runs so deeply in our quilting community. Yvonne, through picking up on a little single-bobbin-juggling aside during an email exchange, decided to invite my husband into a mission of espionage to send me a gift. Yvonne, you are SO kind and I am grateful for our friendship.

Power of Community

One last bit of gratitude, from just yesterday. As another example of how powerfully positive the quilting community can be, Jodi from Tales of Cloth posted about the completion of the #flowersforeleni quilt tops made for Rachel from Stitched in Color. 550 flowers, made by 240 women from 4 continents, all in loving support of a fellow quilter whose baby girl was born with unexpected complications and an unknown future. I recommend you read Jodi’s full post HERE, but I am so grateful that I was able to be a part of this effort. I made two of those 550 flowers, filled with hope, and prayers, and support. There’s power here in this quilting community, and from what I’m seeing, we are using it for immense good. It makes my heart swell.

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quotes, a little reminder about the importance and value of gratitude:

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more.
It turns denial into acceptance,
chaos to order,
confusion to clarity.
It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.
Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.” – Melody Beattie

Go ahead. Unlock the fullness of life. It takes practice, but it is possible. Thank you, Yvonne, for getting us quilters into the habit of being grateful.  I’m linking up with Thankful Thursday, although I will try to be thankful every day.