Gifts of Love - The Living Water Quilt

Sunday brought another foggy day, at least on our side of the hill.  As we crested the hilltop on our way to church, the skies cleared and it was beautiful in the valley.  We returned a couple hours later to the gray skies once again.  A perfect afternoon for popping one of my old favorite movies  - Benny & Joon - into the DVD player and for starting a new little embroidery project.  This one is a sweet little quilt called Betsy's Closet - In Stitches by Acorn Quilt & Gift Company. 

 This little charmer finishes at 24 x 28 1/2 inches if I strictly follow the pattern, but I'm thinking that if September brings us a new granddaughter I may enlarge it a bit to make it big enough for use as a baby quilt.

The mail was very late arriving Saturday, and when we stopped at the mailbox on our way to church, we found a package containing these goodies! 

I was the lucky winner of Pam's giveaway last week on her blog Learning to Be Me.  I've already spotted at least two patterns in the book that will be on my list and those luscious fabrics will no doubt find their way into a couple of small projects on the drawing board right now.  Thanks so much Pam!

And that brings me to the real topic of this post.  With Valentine's Day rapidly approaching, all across blogland little quilted hearts are showing up on mug rugs, table toppers, and other quilty goodness, many created as gifts to show the special folks in our life how much we appreciate their love and friendship.  Well, Pam at Learning to Be Me has put her heart into creating a magnificent quilt of love and life over the past several years.    Her quilt was begun, intended as a gift for her Dad, who had asked her to make him a king-size quilt.   Pam decided to make his heart's desire, using a lot of his favorite color-orange.  She even hand quilted this gorgeous quilt!  Long story short, during the interim, her Dad has suffered some serious medical issues and is now residing in a nursing home where he will be unable to use the quilt.  After much thought Pam decided the best way her quilt could honor her father would be if she used it to raise funds for a mission that has been on her heart for some time.  And so, Pam's Living Water Quilt is being raffled in an effort to raise funds for Blood:Water Mission, a group dedicated to providing clean potable water to rural African villages.    The raffle will run through March 31, with a goal of raising $7,000 which is the approximate cost to drill one new well for an African village, where residents often must walk for long distances daily to fetch water from streams that are frequently contaminated sources of drinking water, leading to illness and high child mortality rates.

You can read more of Pam's story, see her gorgeous Living Water Quilt (and her second project currently underway called Project 40) by clicking here and here; and more information on Blood:Water Mission is available here. 

I am touched by Pam's generosity of spirit and hope that other bloggers who read her story will be similarly inspired to spread the word to help her reach her goal of turning her wonderful quilt into a gift of pure, clean, living water to people who have never known this luxury.

Later this morning I'm meeting up with Barbara of the very popular Cat Patches blog to have lunch and then I'll have the opportunity to introduce her to our local quilt guild at our monthly meeting.  Barbara and I are meeting up right behind the LQS, so guess where else we might be headed!    Looking forward to meeting Barbara in person - I think we first "met" while posting our monthly challenges for the Free Motion Quilt Challenge last year.  If you haven't yet met Barbara, head on over to Cat Patches and prepare to be regaled with the Adventures of Smitty, her delightful cat!  Oh, and she's also a quilter, a baker, and a master story teller!

Happy Monday!