Nap Blankets 2019

Nap Blankets 2019  ~ Ready for the first day of the new school year.

I have posted about making Nap Blankets before, I am blessed to be a part of a small quilt group that is dedicated to supplying an elementary school in our local system with a nap blanket for each child enrolled in the Pre-K program there; that is 45 blankets-- three classrooms with fifteen children each. I have posted about this program before, here. I believe that our group has been doing this for the last nine years, that's 405 nap blankets so far! You can read more about the program, part of our greater Quilt Guild here.   

Here you see some of the nap blankets going through the rigors of "quality control". She's tough! 😉

 From a previous post: "These blankets are simply constructed with two one yard lengths of child-friendly fabric, a front and a back. They're sewn right sides together, turned and top-stitched around the edges and with a corner to corner "X" through both layers, there is no batting."  

I  am grateful to be a member of such a generous group of quilting friends; we are all blessed with so much, this annual project elicits nothing but pure joy.

Life is Good!

Back To School...

...back to blog*. Where I live today is the first day of school again for public school. For all intents and purposes this day signals the end of summer. I have written about this before, but this day, that of school beginning once again, has always made me incredibly sad. I don't know where this emotion comes from-- does it have its roots in my own end of summer/ school starting memories? Does it emanate from sending my own little ones off to school again at the conclusion of happy summer vacations all those years ago? Is it a combination of both? Is it one more tangible marker of the passing of time?  It probably seems silly to most; this melancholy will pass, it does every year, but today's the day and my heart is heavy. As a way of mediating this "funk" I am choosing to focus on a positive outcome of today's first school day: once again my great group of sewing buddies, the "Miss Bee Haven" gals, have come through and piled up the nap blankets for PreK students at a local school. We have adopted a school and provide forty five blankets, three classrooms full, for the youngest students to claim and keep, not only at school, but forever when summer comes rolling around once again in 2018. I can only imagine their apprehension today-- embarking on new experience in a place where they've never been before, filled with faces of friends they've yet to meet. Then, a grace moment: they are given the opportunity to claim a blanket; something they can hold on to, wrap up in and feel safe, something that is theirs and theirs alone. I hope they can feel the love stitched in each and every one. 💗

Our "Bee" group gathered on Saturday at the barn studio of one of our members to have a Sew Day and pot luck lunch together, it was a gorgeous day. This has become an annual event and is yet one more end-of-summer signal for yours truly. As always, a good time was had by all and we'll all be marking our calendars for next year!

Life is Good!

* I have been woefully neglectful of this blog. I know-- you probably think that I have been consumed with cleaning after that last post over three weeks ago. No, I honestly can't say what has taken up my time or can even effectively explain my absence. I have been busy with many fun things and am making a concerted effort, starting today, to catch up and post again on a much more regular basis.