Sapo! the Feel Better Frog!

The making of "Feel Better Frog"

A dear friend is scheduled for a hospital visit, so it was time to get sewing. Her recent FB post noted that she needed a stuffie of some sort, and we're a praying sort of family. So, the Feel Better Frog was born. 
I started with the Purl Frog pattern from the Purl Bee. Then I stretched out the middle to make it more of an eye-pillow length, and made it in green fleece. 
We filled our frog with 1c rice and 1/2 c flax seed, and added two drops essential oil of lavender and cardamom. J said a prayer over a little white button, and M picked out the pink one I used for the heart. J's is tucked inside the frog. This is a grown-up friend, so buttons are OK, but I might make some for babies with embroidered eyes, and all the prayer buttons tucked inside. 


Rice and flax filling is great for the small limbs of this frog, and you can pop him in the micro for a minute for a little heating pad. The scents are optional, of course. 

What's on the table

Floating through cyber-space I stumbled upon ModPodgeRocks' link to Mrs Schmenkman Quilts 

fabulous selvedge covered notebook.  She's doing a give-away for it here!

Snce I was trying to think of what to make a couple little friends for a birthday gift, I'm adopting the fabric-on-notebook idea! So Ruthie gets a pink one with dragonflies and beads, and Johnny get blue with a jeans pocket! They are soaking in the ModPodge at the moment, photos tomorro before the gifts are given!

UNO!

M's doing really well recognizing her numbers, so we moved on to letters! Since our favorite game in the house is "UNO!" I made up cards with the letters of the alphabet on one side, and J's sight words on the other. Then I printed them on four colors of construction paper. We play like "UNO!" M's young enough that seeing the cards ahead of play, as well as the colors, makes no difference. When we play on J's side with the words.. well, there is some tweaking to do.

It's still a good game to play at lunch time!

It's a new addiction!!

Reading all the other craft/sewing/cooking/art/teaching blogs out there! Ane thinking all day that I could do that too!!

SO Here is New Year's Resolution #2: Update this Blog weekly with the Domestic Goddess things we do around the Big Boat! I'll even do the Photo thing!

Hidden Treasures

Sew This Thyme

OK, this isn't Thyme, it's a truck load of "scratch and dent" flowers.

Sew this truckload of flowers and sweet potato vine and you can care for someone else, their property, and their life.

It's not a new idea, it's just that I got photos today. My Dad; Carroll Hackbart, and his friend Al Schmaderer got a call on Tuesday that Kaw Valley Greenhouses had stock to donate to the local Senior Center. On Wednesday night they picked up the "material", two truckloads of sunburnt vines and overblown petunias.

Thursday morning they guys met at the Center and started planting:
Bob Smail, Don Combs, Al and Dad.

Dad had built planters and outfitted them with watering systems. (Thanks to Thrivent and Caring for Communities grants, and the Manhattan Men's Garden Club)

This sunny May day they prepped the beds and sewed the plants that no one wanted. Which, after a few weeks, everyone will envy. Caring for Creation is overwhelming if you take the whole earth into account. Caring for your community can be broken down into small and large projects that can be done.

Taking the time to weed your own garden, or even better, the garden of someone who can't get down on thier knees anymore, is caring for creation.


Delivering meals to someone who can't get out, friend, family or stranger, is caring for community.

Stewardship is about life lived for others.

GO Sew this thyme!

Sew this is the idea:

Stewardship is all about responsible care of someone else's possesion.
As Christians we confess that all is the LORD's. So everything we have is someone else's stuff. But Stewardship sometimes gets so focused on our care of our cash, that we overlook the stewardship that is a way of life.

Sew This is about Stewardship in the many and myriad ways that I've learned from my parents, and other people along the way.

Sew This will begin with sewing: seeds, plants and pants. And I'll move out from there.