"Enjoy Peace!"

I love to Quilt. I am by nature a very creative person. I feel the most content and fulfilled when I am creating. I started out by borrowing my mother's old Kenmore sewing machine and making myself curtains for a new house. I moved on from simple curtains to making Christmas gifts and décor for friends and family like tree skirts, table cloths, stockings and such. I have been making quilts for many years but wanted to do something to give back. I feel incredibly blessed in my life and believe we honor our gifts the most by giving to others that may not be as fortunate. I make quilts, pillowcases and tote bags for children placed with our local Children's Aid Society. These children are often forced to leave their homes in a hurry and under very scary and often negative situations. They don't have the ability to keep many of their own possessions and have nothing to call their own. It is a very special feeling to be able to create something that they can not only call their own but could provide comfort and support as well as a nice warm hug at a time in their young lives that is so fraught with uncertainty and negativity. I found a group called Project Linus Canada and now I make quilts for children that are experiencing illness, tragedy, loss or major life events. Currently there are 4 people in the chapter I direct for my area and we have made and donated over a hundred quilts to children in need of a nice handmade gift of love and warmth. In addition to the Project Linus work I also enjoy making memory quilts for people. I have made about 15 quilts to commemorate different events in peoples lives such as vacations, loss and love. I love these quilts because there is so much versatility in them. I can make them by printing photos onto fabric to commemorate a specific person or event. I can personalize by using pieces of clothing that are appliqued onto the fabric to create a completely unique and special remembrance of virtually anything. I can embroider fabric to make into a quilt (or just about anything else) to create totally unique gifts and items to help people remember and honor those they love or a place they have visited. Fiskars has been a tremendous help to me on my quilting journey. I use so many Fiskars products to help me create. I use Fiskars scissors, rotary cutters and cutting mats just to name a few and love these products for their durability, quality and value. Creating the quilts I make it is extremely important that I am able to rely on my equipment. Whether creating unique and special memories for people or honoring loved ones that have passed, I need to be able to produce quilts with quality that will last as long as possible to help ensure those memories don't fade. The comfort that the quilts provide to the children we donate to is of the utmost importance in their young lives at a time when they may not have any other comfort to look to and for this reason it is important to provide them with quilts made with not only all the love we can put into them, but quality that will last for a lifetime as they move on and forward into often uncertain futures. With the uncertainty of Covid-19 taking over the world it is even more important for those that can, to do for those that can't or give to those that don't have. I have made masks and scrub caps as well as quilts to help thank the first responders in my area continue to do what they do, and to say thank you for helping to take care of us when we all need it the most. It becomes more and more important every day for us to take care of each other, to help each other and I am so very happy to have been blessed with a gift that allows me to give my love to those that need it, to provide comfort to those that may not have any and to help someone find peace when they are struggling to get through each day. With each quilt I make and donate I give with the message "Enjoy Peace!" for it is Peace that I am awarded by making and gifting the quilts.