A SOLDIER'S CHRISTMAS - author unknown

T'WAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS, HE LIVED ALL ALONE,
IN A ONE BEDROOM HOUSE, MADE OF PLASTER AND STONE.
I HAD COME DOWN THE CHIMNEY, WITH PRESENTS TO GIVE,
AND TO SEE JUST WHO,IN THIS HOME, DID LIVE.--------------

I LOOKED ALL ABOUT,A STRANGE SIGHT I DID SEE,
NO TINSEL, NO PRESENTS NOT EVEN A TREE.
NO STOCKING BY MANTLE,JUST BOOTS FILLED WITH SAND,------------

ON THE WALL HUNG PICTURES, OF FAR DISTANT LANDS.
WITH MEDALS AND BADGES,AWARDS OF ALL KINDS,
A SOBER THOUGHT CAME THROUGH MY MIND.
FOR THIS HOUSE WAS DIFFERENT, IT WAS DARK AND DREARY,--------------

I FOUND THE HOME OF A SOLDIER,
SILENT, ALONE, CURLED UP ON THE FLOOR,IN THIS ONE BEDROOM HOME.
THE FACE WAS SO GENTLE,THE ROOM IN DISORDER,
NOT HOW I PICTURED, AN AUSTRALIAN SOLDIER.--------------


WAS THIS THE HERO, OF WHOM I'D JUST READ?
CURLED UP ON A PONCHO,THE FLOOR FOR A BED?
I REALIZED THE FAMILIES,THAT I SAW THIS NIGHT,
OWED THEIR LIVES TO THESE SOLDIERS,WHO WERE WILLING TO FIGHT.--------

SOON ROUND THE WORLD, THE CHILDREN WOULD PLAY,
AND GROWNUPS WOULD CELEBRATE,A BRIGHT CHRISTMAS DAY.
THEY ALL ENJOY FREEDOM,EACH MONTH OF THE YEAR,
BECAUSE OF THE SOLDIERS, LIKE THE ONE LYING HERE-------------------

I COULDN'T HELP WONDER,HOW MANY LAY ALONE,
ON A COLD CHRISTMAS EVE, IN A LAND FAR FROM HOME.
THE VERY THOUGHT BROUGHT,A TEAR TO MY EYE,
I DROPPED TO MY KNEES, AND STARTED TO CRY.-------------------------

THE SOLDIER AWAKENED, AND I HEARD A ROUGH VOICE,
"SANTA DON'T CRY, THIS LIFE IS MY CHOICE;
I FIGHT FOR FREEDOM, I DON'T ASK FOR MORE, MY LIFE IS MY GOD,
MY COUNTRY, MY CORPS."----------------------


FROM THE COLD NIGHT'S CHILL.I DID NOT WANT TO LEAVE,
ON THAT COLD, DARK, NIGHT,THIS GUARDIAN OF HONOR,
SO WILLING TO FIGHT.------------------

THEN THE SOLDIER ROLLED OVER,WITH A VOICE SOFT AND PURE,
WHISPERED, "CARRY ON SANTA,
IT'S CHRISTMAS DAY, ALL IS SECURE."----------------------------

ONE LOOK AT MY WATCH,
AND I KNEW HE WAS RIGHT.-------------------------

"MERRY CHRISTMAS MY FRIEND,

AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT."

( This poem was written by an Australian Peacekeeping soldier stationed
> > overseas. )

Thought for the day!

"Work like you don't need money,
Love like you've never been hurt,
Sing as if no one can hear you,
And dance like no one's watching"

Anonymous

MT. RUNDLE, Banff, Alberta

I finished quilting my wall hanging ! I still have to put on the backing, sleeve and binding.
I will do that today. I have also started making long narrow bags for each wall hanging so that they can be rolled instead of folded for storage and carrying. I am happy with this one.
I hope you all like it . I hope to finish it
within the next couple of days. As the weather is so bad I am not going anywhere so it is a good time to get some finishing accomplished.

Thought for the Day!

"Happiness is like Honey - you can pass it around, but some of it will always stick to you"
Author unknown

#4 Mt Rundle

I have continued to do a lot of thread painting on the distance bushes etc. Click on the pictures to see the closeup. I thread painted grasses and
some trees and bushes on the front island and put in the logs as well.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All I have to do now is square this off, and put borders on it. I have decided on a narrow
orange-brown, and a mottled grey for the borders, after much discussion with my husband Pat, who has a really good eye. When you pick a border fabric I try to pick a color that is in the picture and I try not to pick something that will take away from the scene, as you want the scene to catch the eye, not the borders. They should frame the picture not overwhelm it. -------- I think I will put in some more
shrubs in the island and make them a bit bigger. Also I have decided to add a few
more branches, although the trees are quite bare.
I will post a picture of the quilted, finished piece as soon as possible. I hope this little
tutorial is of some help. Shirley

Thought for the day

"You miss l00% of the shots you don't take" Wayne Gretzky

Mt. Rundle, Pt. 3

I chose a hand dyed fabric for my sky, and a pretty turquoise blue for the water. I used a
pellon stabilizer under the whole piece and then appliqued the mountain to the background. If you look closely you can see in both pictures how I thread painted the row of trees at the base of the Mountain. ----
I put a strip of pretty brown-gold at the bottom of the tree line and stitched it down at the top and bottom. I then picked a lighter
mottled beige brown, for the island in the
distance. I then auditioned a piece of fabric for the foreground island. It is not attached at this stage. I did some thread painting on the far island and put in some shrubs etc. I then
decided on the foreground island and will attach it now. I still have the foreground island and the dead wood to add but the picture is coming along very well. I hope to finish it today and will post the next steps tomorrow. I hope you have enjoyed this little tutorial. Shirley

Mount Rundle, part 2

I have my picture stitched to some grey fabric. I want to heavily thread paint the
mountain so I have decided to do it on timtex to avoid puckering. Cut the sketched scene
right below the tree line, leaving the mountain and the tree line, to place on the Timtex
( peltex) (the web you use to make fabric bowls). I laid the mountain on the web, and stitched carefully around it with a narrow zig zag so that the fabric, and the timtex are
stitched together.I then cut out the mountain. I took some dark green acrylic paint and mixed it with textile medium and, dipping my brush in water, I painted the bottom part of the mountain as shown (this gives the impression of the trees. I then started thread painting with the greys. I used two shades of grey, light and dark and followed the original picture. As you can see from the photo above, I thread painted the grey and then filled in the mountain with white zig zag set to nearly a satin stitch. I forgot to take a picture of the next step. I thread painted trees along the bottom of the mountain by using a narrow zig zag in a blue green thread - up and down the width of the mountain.
The zig zag gives the trees a more realistic look. You don't need to detail at all just use the
zig zag and fill in the strip (always going up and down) along the bottom. We are now ready to attach our mountain to our background. I will continue with part 3 in the next post.

Shirley

Mount Rundle, The Canadian Rockies

is the project I am working on now. I managed to get a lot accomplished yesterday
and thought I would put pictures of how I go from beginning to end when I make
a scene.--------------------------I would like to show you how to either increase or decrease
a pictures by blocking both the original picture into squares and then taking the size of picture you want and blocking it into the same number of squares. This is a picture of Mount
Rundle, in Banff, and I squared off the photo which was 8 x 11 " and then squared of an
piece of butcher paper l8" x 13.5.-------If there is a lot of detail you might want to divide the squares again into four on both pieces.
I then very carefully drew each square exactly as it was on the original, only in the larger
square on the butcher paper. Carry on doing that throughout the picture. I spent a lot of
time copying the Mountain and just sketched in the foreground. I then took a piece of
Press n Seal and copied it with a black archival pen. (I have used a fine sharpie but I am a bit leery about the ink seeping through the P & S.) --- Once I had copied all the lines onto
the press n seal I laid the P & S on a piece of grey fabric, making sure it is very flat. --I then stitched carefully along all the drawn lines. Once I had stitched the whole scene, I CAREFULLY removed the press n seal. A share pair of scissors helps with this. Make sure you get all the press n seal removed. Voila, you have your picture on your fabric.

I will show you how I continue with this wall hanging in my next post. Shirley



Shirley

Thought for the Day!

"It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow". Robert H Goddard.

"Yesterday is gone, tomorrow never comes, Today is the day we live " My Mom used to tell me this all the time"

"Square Dance" was our latest class

and the quilts shown are the results. Cheryl taught this beautiful little quilt and the girls
really did themselves proud.

These quilts are all eligible for a draw in June. I think they are all so different and so bright and pretty. Judy, RoseMary, Arlene, Joan J.
Judith, Janet and Dee make them. Not in that order. We have some wonderful classes coming up so it should be a fun time after the Holidays.

here is the second 3 fabric wall hanging example

for my class which is coming up in January. I used a pretty autumn panel with grouse and added a ring necked pheasant which came with the panel. I then added some thread painted birches and shrubs in the bottom corner. This is a simple way to make a very nice wall hanging. Two completely different scenes using two different panels. They make great gifts.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We have had a huge snow storm here in
Calgary, actually I think it is all over the
place as I know the Western States have
received it too. It is so bitter cold and will
remain that way for another 4 or 5 days.

I hope the snow pile holds on until my
grand daughter can come up and play
in the pile which is right outside our
patio door. It is nearly as tall as I am.

The roads are slippery so we will stay in
until things improve. That is one nice thing
about being retired.

I just baked some cinnamon buns and the house smells so nice - they sure do hit the spot with a cup of hot chocolate. I am so glad I have the preparations done for the class. The emails are ready to send out and I can go on with another project.

I am going to do some scenes of the Canadian Rockies ; I think I will do up a few in case
Well spring has another major fun raiser. It is the first time I don't have any commitment
for ages, so I love the feeling of being able to have no pressure and just being able to start something new, completely on my own, with no guidelines.

I have been busy sorting out the files and photos in the learningfa group. We have so much wonderful work in the photos and I don't want to delete any of them so I am sorting them into albums. I love our group, we have 350 people now and the classes are so successful. It is unbelievable the number of sign ups for each class - our blogger l0l class which is coming up in the new year has over 70 students signed up and the rest have between 30 - 50 signups. We have some great classes coming up in the New Year.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:

"I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show,
or any good thing I can do to any fellow human being, let me do it now, and not defer
or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again" William Penn


"

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

"I keep the telephone of my mind open to peace, harmony, health, love and abundance.
Then, whenever doubts, anxiety, or fear try to call me, they keep getting a busy signal-
and soon they'll forget my number." Edith Armstrong

Good Morning!

I have been preparing a 3 Fabric wall hanging course and have the first one of two finished.

I had a group of panels featuring birds and decided to do the chickadees. I am really happy with the way it turned out.

This is a very easy process and I think it is
handy for those who don't feel they want to
try original wall hangings. These work up very quickly and are lots of fun to make.
-------------------------------------------------------
We are expecting bitter cold weather here
in Calgary. It is expected to go down to
-25deg. C with a windchill down into the
-30's. brrrr. I guess in this part of the
world it is to be expected. I just wish I was in Arizona! I loved the winter weather there.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am looking forward to Christmas as Hayley is nearly 5 and is really getting excited about Christmas. We are fortunate that our family will be together. Although I am not positive our oldest son will make it. It will be a quiet Christmas which is the type I enjoy the most.
Before we retired we used to have 'open house' on Boxing day (the day after Christmas)
and sometimes we would have 50 people drop in and out during the day. I miss it in a way, but am not able to put out that much effort and we are in a condo rather than a house so we have not had one for quite a few years.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We are both still dealing with the end of our 'flu' or cold or whatever it was. We are both still coughing and have headaches. The Doctor said we will live grin - and that we just have to wait it out. I seem to always get a long lasting cough this time of the year.

I am really happy as I have made a new wonderful friend this year, WENDY from WELLSPRING as well as all the volunteers, and PATTI the executive director. What a great
group of friendly people they all are. I hope to be able to help Wellspring again this year with my wall hangings - so satisfying.
========================================================================

One of the learningfa group members, Chris Dahl is going to teach us Blogger l01
in January. She is very knowledgeable and I am looking forward to learning how to do
some new things on my blog. She will show us how to set up a blog from beginning to end. As it is right now, my blog is simple and I don't do much fancy stuff here. There are a few things I have problems with so I am looking forward to
learning about blogging. Some things are not compatible with my mac but more and
more things are available to us Mac users.

I hope you are having fun preparing for Christmas - have you got all your quilting projects done? I hope so. Shirley

THOUGHTS

Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words;they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your Character; it becomes your destiny.
Frank Outlaw

DEE from Learningfa

posted the instructions as to how to make a 'tiny url' if you want a
quick way to reach a site on line. Here it is, and thanks Dee.

I have made a little tutorial to help you
understand TINYURL
better.



*******************************************************

Highlight to copy the long web address from
the top of the
web page
Together choose CTRL & C keys (I like to
think of this as
copy)

You can open a new window and then go to
www.tinyurl.com

You will see a white box with the words:
 Enter a long URL
to make tiny:
In the white box you will then copy the long
 web address
from the web page.
I do this by using the CTRL & V keys (it is
 another form
of paste)
Now, using the box to the immediate right of
 the box you
have just entered the
long web address into, click on MAKE A TINY

A box appears asking if you want to use this
 source or not.
I chose ALLOW

Viola….do you see below it is written out for
 you……

That long url you sent has now become:
http://tinyurl.com/5wwrqt

Again I copy and paste into an outgoing email
…..your
friends will now be able to
just click and go to the web page…..it isn’t
 hard.

I love to use this method when I have a picture
 I want to
show them. Instead of
having to go into the photo albums to view a
 newly placed
picture, you can just
make a tiny and send it to the group. If the
 members click
on your tiny they
will go directly to the picture placed into
the album. No
more having to hunt or
search for it.

Thought for the day!

"Only when we give joyfully, without hesitation or thought of gain, can we truly know what love means." --Leo Buscaglia

Hayley,

my nearly five year old Grand Daughter, stayed overnight and we had such fun.
We made a ginger bread house, then a sleigh and reindeer with Santa driving the sleigh.
We ended up with icing all over our faces and I think we had more on us than we did on the gingerbread! Then we decided to decorate the table tree and put out the little fairies I had painted with her last year. She decorated the tree all by herself and she thought that was neat. We then packaged all the pine cones we painted last visit and put them in little bags with her name on them and also the name of the recipient. It was a very serious business and took lots of concentration. What a joy she is! We still have lots to do as we have to make a Christmas tree chain and a few more things.

Thought for the day

"All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action"
James Russell Lowell

Hi everyone!

I have been working away on a wall hanging and have nearly finished the quilting. I got side tracked with a couple of other projects and so I am glad to get working on this one.
This one is for my dear friend Debbie,and I hope she likes it.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't have a lot of Christmas preparations to worry about. We put up a small table tree and my grand daughter helps us decorate it. The family has decided to donate to our favorite charity this year rather than buy presents. Pat (dh) and have decided to donate funds to the 'Mustard Seed' which is a homeless shelter. With our bitter winters it is a big problem here to make sure that people have a safe, warm place to go to. It is a wonderful organization and we felt that as we have so much, it would be a great way to celebrate the meaning of Christmas.

As a result I don't have a lot of presents to buy or a turkey to cook as we will be at our son's for Christmas. Time is flying by , it is hard to believe Christmas is nearly here! I always look forward to the Christmas season, especially if I don't have to do a lot of shopping for presents in the crowds. I used to enjoy it but as I get older I get less enjoyment from
fighting the crowds!.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am having so much fun each week, helping our sweet 4 year old granddaughter to make decorations and gifts for the family. We decorated large pine cones with glitter and paint last week, and we are going to get them ready for 'all the people she loves'. I bought little Christmas bags and she will write her name on the tag I made as well as the person's name that will receive the gift. She is so excited. We decorated 6 of them last week and she is so proud of them. I have 3 more so we will do them up for her preschool teachers.
I also will help her make a gingerbread house for the 3rd year, as well as Santa and the sleigh with the reindeer (all gingerbread). So that will be lots of fun. Just as much fun for Nana as for Hayley. We have also started making a paper chain like I did when I was a child, for her Christmas tree. I had forgotten how much I love doing Christmas
decorations with children.
Shirley

Thought for the day

Feeling gratitude, and not expressing it, is like wrapping a present and not giving it.
Author unknown

Boston Terrier rescue group.

(I
My friend Debbie is an active member of this rescue group. She has two wonderful
bostons and I have been quite taken with them. Please visit their website and vote for their rescue group , the group with the most votes gets a prize of $l0,000.00 ,so it is a great opportunity to help this shelter. Please cut and paste the address below, and enter to vote, there is no cost but worth the time for such a wonderful group.

I have put the link in the side bar- and below.

http://www.care2.com/animalsheltercontest/74354/?refer=21529.12.1228250584.6993

The winner is

SHARON MC KAY Sharon chose the landscape. One of the girls in my group suggested the name Serenity so that is what I called it. I think it expresses the feeling I was trying to
attain for the landscape.

Sharon made this beautiful sampler quilt which qualified her for the draw. Thanks to all the girls who entered! Congratulations, Sharon.

Thought for the day

Success is how high you bounce when you hit the bottom.-Author unknown.

Learningfa draw

Here are the two wall hangings for the draw on
Learningfa. The first one is a Crazy patch wall
hanging I made last summer. The chickadee is thread painted and the peacock is painted with beading. I had lots of fun doing this series of 'Fantasy' wall hangings. This one is
'Green Fantasy"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The second wall hanging is a landscape I just finished. I used one of my hand dyed fabrics with appliques, and lots of thread painting. The winner will choose which of the two she wants. We had two large projects this past year; The Southwestern wall hanging and the sampler quilt. Any of the students who finished the tops in either class was eligible to be in the draw.

We will be drawing the name today and I will announce it on the list and here as well.
I have enjoyed doing both of these and I hope the winner will enjoy their choice, too.
Click on the photos to see the close ups.

I have posted pictures of the work in progress previously but these are the finished pieces.