Saturday, December 20, 2014

Doing good things

When Dan and I had kids, we dreamed about our children being peace-makers, do-gooders, kind, caring people who make a difference in the world.

In day-to-day life, this doesn't always feel like a reality. Sibling squabbles and childish selfishness can get in the way of ideals and dreams.

So, we endeavour to do good things with the kids, in very overt ways, so they can see how good it feels to do good for others.

Our kids get a generous weekly allowance but they don't get to spend it all. Some they have to put aside for savings and some they put aside for charity or (as it is known in this house) Tzedakah. In past years, we have taken the saved up Tzedakah and the children have chosen a large toy to place under the charity Christmas tree at our local department store. Their gifts have gone to children their own age who otherwise might not have received a gift at Christmas time.

This year, we did things a little differently. Jake expressed a desire to do something for the homeless and to be able to give a gift in person, rather than leave an anonymous gift. He wanted to make a personal connection.

So, inspired projects like this one,  we took the children's Tzedakah money (and some of ours also) and we bought five backpacks and went shopping for useful and nice things to put inside.


Thursday, December 11, 2014

Yee-haw! A Texas quilt

Well, if we are going to take an Aussie quilt to QuiltCon, we'd better have a Texas one too! ;-)
This succulent was the closest thing I could get to a cactus at short notice ... lol
This is the first pixel quilt I've made that has the added element of applique. It's not easy to create a 5-pointed star using squares and rectangles! :P

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Aussie Aussie Aussie

In preparation for our trip to Austin in February, I thought it would be good to make something very Australian to share at our YouPatch booth.


An Aussie map quilt hanging on the most Australian of icons, the hills hoist!