Blog Comments on Hold

Posted on September 18, 2009 by Barb

Dear Bloggy Friends/Commenters,

Our recent move put me way behind on responding to comments at this blog and making comments at yours.

Now that we’re back on an even keel again around here, I’d love to say that I’ll do a better job of keeping up with the blogosphere. However, I need to buckle down and finish a couple of books I’ve written.

So, while I’ll still peek in on you when I can, I’ve got to stop commenting and answering comments for a while. Know that I’m still thinking of you as I chain myself to this keyboard and get some actual work done.

I hope to keep posting here once a week or so, but working on the books will come first. God willing, my newsletter will still come out each month.

Missing you already,

Barb

PS Prayer requests automatically rise to the top of the list, so if you express that need at your blog, know that I’m praying for you 🙂

Public School Indoctrination May Be Increasing, But It’s Nothing New

Posted on September 3, 2009 by Barb

Last week I wrote about indoctrination in the public schools. Here’s another example, but one from the past: a man shares a vivid example of how the public school personnel of 40 years ago “coerced me into sharing private family information — that my father smoked — in order to serve the agenda of the state.”

Do’s and Don’ts of a Highway Birth

Posted on July 16, 2009 by Barb

Were any of your children so eager to enter the world that they couldn’t wait until you made it to the hospital?

My cousin Candice (a homeschool mom, btw) has four daughters. Her youngest, Ania, arrived while Candice and her husband were en route to the hospital. Ania was born in their car on the side of the highway while cars raced by in the next lane.

Candice and her husband are journalists who documented their big event with photos and Candice’s recent post in the Boston Globe, “Do’s and Don’ts of a Highway Birth.” And Ania is now a healthy two-year-old. 🙂

New Project for a New Baby

Posted on July 2, 2009 by Barb

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I call this photo “Optimism.” You see, I haven’t made a quilt in a few years, but a friend of mine just became a grandma, and I want to make a baby quilt for her adorable new granddaughter.

So I picked out the fabrics one week, pre-washed and pressed them the next, and was supposed to start sewing this week.

Ahem. Here they are, still awaiting the rotary cutter.

I’m hoping to start sewing very soon. The fact that we’re moving 4-6 weeks from now looms large in my brain. I need to start packing. But I really want to make this quilt! So we’ll see…..

Picking out the fabric was something of an experience, btw. I wanted to buy new fabric because I figured the fabrics from my stash probably look too dated for a modern baby quilt. Most of them are 10-20 years old, and I even have some stuff from the 70s. All of my stash is good fabric, tightly woven with colors that are still beautiful. Most likely, all of my fabric stash was made here in the USA.

Several years ago, I read that most of the fabric sold here in the USA these days is made overseas. Like so many other things, fabric can be produced more cheaply in other countries, so why not? That explains why it took so long for me to find the fabrics I need for this baby quilt. I learned first-hand that cheaply produced fabric is most definitely cheap. I had to reject many fabrics that were not woven tightly, or not printed very well. Even so, a couple of the fabrics I chose because I needed them color-wise are not as high-quality as I would have wished.

Today I learned that there’s a wonderful solution to this problem. One of my favorite quilt supply catalogs, Connecting Threads, has announced that ALL of the fabric they sell now is woven and printed in the USA from cotton grown in the USA. How cool is that? And the price is still $5.96 a yard….how do they do it? They say they cut out the middleman, and I’m glad they do. Wish I’d known this before I went shopping for baby quilt fabric. I have a feeling that the fabric they’re selling is better quality than the imported stuff.