My friend Sandy's quilts

 I quilted up three of my friend Sandy's quilts this weekend.  I love that she trusts me enough to give me her quilts to quilt.  I love trying out new quilting designs on them too.  Of course, Rebecca the Robot does all the work.  I just push the buttons and babysit her when she needs help moving to the next row or runs out of bobbin thread, but I will take the credit when the quilt is finished :)

This last quilt was one I tried out the giraffe quilting design on before I used it for the quilt for my student who needed a hug.  Turns out she was in the hospital and still is waiting for her quilt.  I have another student who just went into the mental hospital for suicidal thoughts.  I am hoping to get her quilt finished before Christmas break.  If you have time to make a quilt and donate it to your local high school, there are so many hurting kids that could really use a hug.  Just drop it off and tell the front office to give it to the school psychologist.  They will know exactly who to give it to.  Many of these kids don't have parents who are parenting right now.  Our school is in a middle class neighborhood and we have had our homeless population triple this year alone.   These kids are under tremendous stress and really don't know how to process things.  When you hear about the school shootings, people are always asking why?  As a high school teacher, we see the why every day.  Kids need to feel like they belong and that someone cares about them.  If they can't find that at home, they will look for it in a gang, in drugs or alcohol or in the media through violence like the school shootings.  At least someone will notice them for a few minutes.  I don't pretend to understand them all, but many of them have the same needs of acceptance and feeling like they fit in somewhere.

Ok, off the soap box and on to happier thoughts.  Only five days and then break time :)  Which means family time and quilting time!  And time to clean out the sewing room.  Yippee!