The journey's hard

Life is hard and learning new things (or re-learning things) is hard. Recently I've seen grace modeled in new ways - big ways. It's hard for me to receive grace especially from myself. I don't feel worthy to receive grace when I've blown it. But I think that's part of growing and maturing.

I've also been scared lately. I've been scared that I'm never going to have a job again. I'm scared that I'm going to be at my parents house forever. I'm scared I'm going to get "stuck". I know what I want to do in life and it's been affirmed by many people, but because this journey has been a long and hard one, I'm scared it's never going to happen. These last 9 months have been hard. I've applied for close to 150 jobs in and out of Young Life Camping and I haven't landed a job yet. I've begun to ask the questions like "What's wrong with me?" And in that I'm having trouble finding pure joy like it talks about in James 1 where James is talking about considering it a pure joy whenever we face trials of many kinds. The longer I go without a job, the harder it is to find that pure joy.

Don't get me wrong, the Lord is still good and He is faithful and I have seen him work. I've never gone without food or a place to live. Yes, my funds have been and continue to be tight, but I've never gone without. My brother, Kory, is healing well and he's back to work part time - praise the Lord! The Lord has been faithful in that area for sure. I could go on about how I've seen the Lord.

My heart is a bit weary right now. I'm tired.  I'm trying to trust the Lord when my inner, sinful self is having hard time with that.

This journey has been hard. And I'm ready. Ready for something good.

THE Blanket

I have four nephews - Jack, Luke, Wyatt, and Christian. Jack, Luke, and Wyatt are my brother, Mike's, boys. Christian is the son of my dearest friends, Kory and Sara - so even though there's no blood involved, Christian's still my nephew. 

So I saw this great idea on Pinterest to make a Super Hero Blanket and I thought of Jack, Luke, and Christian who are all really close in age (Luke turned 4 in April, Christian will be 5 on Friday, and Jack will be 6 in November. Wyatt's 4 months old and has no clue what a super hero is!) 

Now keep in mind that when it comes to anything other than photography and pictures, I'm not the most crafty. I have lots of creative ideas but always fail on the execution. This time I was determined. When I came back from the Canyon at the beginning of June, I was set on learning something new this summer. This Super Hero Blanket was the perfect idea. I started with Christian's blanket first because his birthday is first.

So I had to start somewhere - finding tshirts that I knew the boys would love to see on a blanket. I knew I didn't want to spend a ton of money on tshirts that I was about to rip to shreds and sew on a blanket. I went to Target and their boy shirts with cool graphics on it were between $9 - $12 a piece. No thanks. So I went to a bunch of thrift stores and consignment stores and bought shirts there. At this kids' consignment store near my house they have days designated towards certain colored price tags and on those days you could get up to 50% off. I was all over those deals. I knew I wanted about 6 shirts per blanket so when I had about 20 shirts, I called it good.

I also knew that I wanted to alternate the tshirts with these fabric patterns made out of Fabric Quarters that you can get at Joanne Fabrics. So I picked those up.

 My box of supplies - tshirts, fabric quarters, and a cutting board.

 So, naturally, after gathering supplies, I had to cut off all the tags and wash all the tshirts.

A bunch of the fabric squares that I chose.

 After I washed and dried all the shirts, I laid them all out so I could see all of my options and had to pick out which ones  I was going to for Christian's blanket.

The six I had planned on using originally, but at the last minute I made one substitution. 

 So I found the smallest tshirt, taped it to the board, and cut it down to a rectangle.

 Took an empty pizza box and cut it down to the final size of the Cars thsirt so I could size the rest of the shirts and fabric squares.

 I did the same thing for the fabric squares. I then folded the fabric squares in to smaller squares so I could make patterns out of them. Keep scrolling, you'll see what I mean.

 All the tshirts and fabric squares cut out and ready for the machine. At this point I still had to go pick out the blanket material - which I ended up going with a sweatshirt blanket which I love.

 Sewing the different fabric squares together to make the patterns.

 A finished fabric pattern all sewn together.

 I laid out all of the materials - alternating tshirts and fabric patterns onto the blanket to measure out how much fabric I needed. I also pinned the tshits and fabric together but not to the blanket so that way I could just scoop it off and back on the blanket easier.

 The final size of the blanket.

 It's not perfect, but this was my first real sewing project by myself. Note - I didn't straighten it out completely so those wrinkles aren't permanent. 

 I put the tshirt and fabric back on the blanket and sewed it on. That was BY FAR the hardest part of this whole project, but it's done. If you can't tell - there are two tshirts with big machines, two batman tshirts, a spiderman tshirt, and a cars tshirt.

It's not perfect, but there it is. In all it's glory. For my first time using a sewing machine and my first time doing anything crafty, I'm pretty proud of myself. So Christian, I hope you enjoy your blanket - it should be there by your birthday. Jack and Luke, yours will be done by Christmas!