The Winter Sea, a Book Review

I have to share this wonderful find with you.

I just finished reading a book by an amazingly talented author, Susanna Kearsley.  It was the first book of Ms. Kearsley’s that I’ve read.  However, I am going to be on a hunt for the others.

Winter Sea, by Susanna Kearsley, is hauntingly beautiful. 

 

The cover is lovely and from this scene you are introduced to Sophia/Carrie who are linked by ancestry.  Sophia is the 18th century ancestor of Carrie, the 21st century main character of The Winter Sea.  By reading that you are assuming it’s another “time travel” novel but it is so much more than that.  Carrie doesn’t “time travel” as much as “time drift” through the experiences of her ancestor, Sophia.

This is a historic fiction, though I almost hesitate as using the word fiction due to the intense research that has gone into the characters in this novel.  It is historic fiction at its best in my opinion.

I took this book out of the library where it sat on the shelf of “New Book”.  The local library was without a director for several months and monies for new books accumulated until a responsible person was in position again to purchase books for the library.  May I say I like Nancy, the new director, from the moment I saw her?  We just “clicked” and I’m thinking perhaps it is because we know a good book when we see it.  No, every book I’ve ever picked up has not been a “good book” but I’m lucky because the majority of them have.

My mother used to read voraciously as the younger children in the family played around her feet, around the room, around the warmth of the kitchen stove.  She was able to block out all the external noises and disturbances, absorb herself right into her books.  What a wonderful example of a reader she was.  She would have loved The Winter Sea.  My sisters and several of my brothers all took her example and carried it forth, reading book after book at every opportunity.  I can’t wait to have my sisters read  The Winter Sea.  I know they are going to love it, and I know they will be ordering it up on their Kindle as soon as they get my message.

The Winter Sea is set modern times, 2008 to be exact, and the main character, Carrie, is a writer and she’s hoping to write a best seller.  Now I’m not a writer but it seems to me every writer must set out to write the next best seller.  Carrie travels to Scotland to experience Slains Castle for the setting of her new novel and finds she is drawn to the castle and the surrounds immediately.  She rents a cottage on a hill from a Scotsman and sets up her computer, for she is a modern writer and uses a laptop rather than the old notebook and pencil.  Her ancestors begin to share their lives with her in such as way as she has never experienced in her writing.  One of the reviews I was reading called this sharing I mention as a “time slip”.  She doesn’t “travel” through time but as she writes she “slips” into almost a trance as the words seem to come tumbling from the mouths of her ancestors.

It’s such a wonderful book and I don’t want to give away too much, but I assure you if you enjoy historic novels, The Winter Sea is among the finest.  Being intrigued with the writer of historic novels that I’ve never come across before, I did a little research only to find out that she has many books, some written under a pen name, Emma Cole.  I found ten other titles by Susanna Kearsley and I can’t wait to begin the search to find them.  She is a Canadian author, living near the shores of Lake Ontario, and her books have been published in many languages.  I hope they’ve all been published in the US so I can be successful on my quest.

Are any of you familiar with this writer?   If you aren’t, you must begin to acquaint yourself with her writing.  If you have enjoyed the likes of Philippa Gregory, Daphne du Maurier, Diana Gabaldon, and other talented writers of historic fiction, you will certainly fall in love with The Winter Sea.

Susanna Kearsley has a “not-a-blog” which she calls her blog as she feels a blog gets written in frequently and hers does not.  It is interesting to peruse it, and click on some of the links she provides us.  Who could not love a woman who includes a YouTube video of Bob from Sesame Street singing “Keep Christmas With You”?

Happy reading,

 

Marsha

 

 

 

Old and New

Warning:  I”m not talking just about quilting, though “old and new” would fit quilting.  It just as nicely fits cooking.  So now you know.  I”m talking about quilting and cooking tonight.  Follow along and I think you’ll be happy you did.

Last night, as I mentioned in my last post, DD, DGS and I went strawberry picking at a nearby farm.  We always take the grandson with us; he’s actually a very good picker.  We took him the first time when he was about three years old.  He has learned to look over the berry before putting it in his pail.  ” No bad spots, no white spots” are his mother’s lessons to him. I wonder where she learned those lessons. {smile}   He is allowed to eat his fill.  I wish I had that first strawberry picking photo handy.  He was an adorable baby and is a handsome young man now.  I picked about 10 pounds of strawberries with the plan to make some sugar free strawberry jam and a few strawberry shortcakes.

With the grandson spending the night and smelling the strawberries all night as he was sleeping in the same “room”, I made pancakes with a fresh strawberry topping for breakfast this morning.  Tonight, DH asked for strawberry shortcake – instead of supper.   Of course I’m not going to complain about that once in a while and I love strawberry shortcake as much as he does.

I’ve used the same shortcake recipe for my whole married life, with a few exceptions.  Every now and then I try a “new” recipe but this is a tried and true, several generation recipe.  My grandmother had this recipe and my mother had this recipe.  It came from a newspaper article in the Portland (Maine) Press Herald column called “Clearinghouse”, written by Marjorie Standish.  Ms. Standish later put the recipe and a lot of other wonderful Maine recipes into book form.  Actually this recipe came from her second Maine cookbook called Keep Cooking the Maine Way.  This book and her earlier book, Cooking Downeast, are both compilations of the many, many Clearinghouse columns she wrote over the years.

I own both of these books and so does my daughter.  These two books are still available in Maine gift shops and bookstores but if you aren’t visiting Maine, you can find them both on http://www.amazon.com.  My copy of the “Keep Cooking” book is a 1973 hardback edition.   The other book is even older.  My daughter has her grandmother’s copies.

I used the recipe called “Old Fashioned Strawberry Shortcake” which goes like this:

2 cups sifted flour                1 tsp. baking soda            2 tsp. cream of tartar    1/2 tsp. salt     1 stick butter or margarine     1 egg      2/3 cup milk

Sift flour, measure and sift together with baking soda, cream of tartar and salt.  You could use 4 tsp. baking powder if you do not have soda and cream of tartar.  Blend in butter or margarine, using pastry blender.  Beat egg slightly, combine with milk, add all at once to dry ingredients.  Stir with a fork.  Toss dough onto lightly floured board.  Divide in halves.  Roll or pat very gently and place one half in a buttered 8″ pan.  Brush that half with melted butter.  Place other half on top.  Bake at 450 degrees until shortcake is delicately browned, about 12-15 minutes.

Ms. Standish inserts this in the recipe”: ” This is a “do as I say, not as I do” because this is what you will do if you want a real old-fashioned strawberry shortcake.  I use this recipe for it is a real biscuit shortcake.  Instead of making 2 big layers, I cut the rolled-out dough with my largest 3″ cookie cutter, bake the shortcakes on a cookie sheet and serve them in soup plates.”   I completely agree with her.   I made mine into smaller biscuits and baked them in a baking pan.

A Completed Project

A completed project I can wipe off my WIP list.  That’s great!   I think one always feels great when one project can be removed from the list because there are always SEW many more that we want to add on.  Every time I go to look at a new blog I find something else I’d like to make.  My “bookmarks” list on my computer is HUGE.  I just saw three things at Quilting by the River I want to make!  Yikes.  We all know we aren’t going to live long enough to do all the projects we’d like to, but that’s not going to stop us from adding it our list, is it?

First I want to show you my finished project.  I was in the bank last week and ready to leave with the young lady who waited on us noticed my Selvage Bag.  She asked where she could get one and I quickly told her “from me” so she ordered one.  She said she wore a lot of blue so anything with lots of blue in it would work for her.

Last night I dug out my slivers and selvages to see what I had in blues.  Quite a few it turns out.

That’s Side 1.  I purposely make both sides different so that the owner has a choice of which she displays.

Side 2

The bag has “trim” straps, rather than fabric.  I used this on my own selvage bag and find I like the lightweight feel of the trim and it seems to stay in place on my shoulder better.  You can just see the blue trim on the right edge of the bag in the above photo.  It’s navy blue and shiny.  I unraveled about 2″ at the bottom, combed them out and left it as tassels.

I did make pockets for the inside, 8 to be exact.  I always love to have a couple of narrow pockets for pens and then wider ones to hold the cell phone or camera and whatever else is necessary. Below is the one I made first, for myself.

Here’s the other side of mine.

I made some changes to the bag I made for Juliana.  After stitching the selvages and slivers to a foundation of batting, I stitched the lining and the outer bag together at the top edge, right sides together.  Then I stitched all around the entire thing, leaving just a small opening to turn it right side out.  Then I just stuffed the lining down into the bag.  If this is too confusing and you seriously need to know what I mean, let me know and I’ll make a sample and take photos.   Doing it the way I just described makes a much more professional looking bag, inside.

Now that Juliana’s bag is done, I’m thinking I might use selvages and slivers to make a mug rug for a swap I’m doing in June.  The coordinator said “add a strip” to the mug rug and she means (I emailed to check) to use a stripe or two (or more) in the process of making the mug rug.  I’d enjoy a selvage mug rug so I may do that for my swap partner.  Once the partner is assigned, I will check her profile to see what her likes/dislikes are and try to use colors she’d enjoy.  Maybe I’ll applique something to it to make it summer-y.  You’ll be sure to find out as I’ll show ithere before I mail it out.

Now for a few things I wanted to tell you about.  First, if you like to make needle-keeps or cases, you might like to see this.  There are tutorials for 26 different styles of needle cases.  Some are really adorable.  Linda P…are you reading?  I thought of you immediately!

Next, and you have to hurry on this one.  There are free Block of the Month offers for this Memorial Day weekend only.   You sign up for free this weekend and then you can use the classes whenever you find time, not just this weekend.  Check it out here.

If you are interested in “modern” quilting patterns, here is a website to visit.  They are the creation of Jenny Pedigo and I think they are so cool!

I read another book this week.  I know.  I’m reading a lot.  I always do when I’m not quilting and summers are my “prime time” to read.  They always have been.  We are very lucky to have a wonderful little library about 2  miles from us, maybe not even that far.  They have a wonderful selection of newer books, not something you always find in a small country library.

I finished When We Were Strangers by Pamela Schoenewaldt yesterday.  I adored it!   It is a look into the life of Irma Vitale, an Italian seamstress who has no chance of marrying in her tiny town in Italy because she is…. too plain.   She flees her home and travels in the steerage section of a ship, risking life and limb, for a new start in America.  She goes there to find her brother Carlos who is supposed to be in Cleveland, Illinois.  Her life takes some scary turns and some very interesting turns.  This book is a wonderful look into the life of a young, single woman who has nothing but her sewing skills to fall back on.   This book shows something that we all find among our quilting friends, a common bond strong enough to build a life on. It’s available at http://www.amazon.com as well.

Now I’m reading another great book.  Lots of Candles andPlent of Cake by Anna Quindlen is a woman’s book written by a very insightful woman, her  memoir.  New York Times says she is “America’s Resident Sane Person”.   I love it!!!  She says thing that you and I have thought, time and again, about ourselves, our mothers, our sisters, our marriages and life itself.  This is a book you keep saying, “Yes!” to almost every page!

Okay, so enough dribs and drabs of my life.  I’m off to read more of Anna Quindlen’s amazing insights and scream “Yes!” a few more times.

Happy Days!

Marsha

 

Here’s one thing Anna Quindlen has to say that we will all agree with. This is about memory loss, that aggravating thing that we all encounter as we move along through the years.

“Here’s what it comes down to, really: there is now so much stuff in my head, so many years, so many memories, that it’s taken the place of primacy away from the things in the bedrooms, on the porch. My doctor says that, contrary to conventional wisdom, she doesn’t believe our memories flag because of a drop in estrogen but because of how crowded it is in the drawers of our minds. Between the stuff at work and the stuff at home, the appointments and the news and the gossip and the rest, the past and the present and the plans for the future, the filing cabinets in our heads are not only full, they’re overflowing.”

I guarantee you will love Anna Quindlen’s book.  I am enjoying it so much I want to go read other things she’s written.

 

 

 

Two Book Reviews and a Reminder

First the reminder.  Have a fantastic Memorial Day weekend everyone.  I hope the weather cooperates for you.  Mostly,  I hope you’ll take a minute or two to remember those who came before us who sacrificed their lives for the peace and safety we enjoy today.  My dad has a headstone like this.  He was a veteran of WWII and I wish I could tell you all about it.  None of us kids ever asked him to talk about his military days, and he never reminisced about it.  We know he was on an amphibious ship during WWII but we aren’t sure just where he was.  How I wish we had asked him about his experiences.    We know he had a dear, dear friend whom he stayed in touch with right up until his death, Norman, who lived in Oregon.  My dad lived in Maine.   They must have shared some very important moments to stay so close all those years following the War.

I know two men who were honored with the trip to Washington, the Honor Flight,  for WWII veterans.  This trip is an opportunity to honor these men, mainly WWII veterans but also included are younger veterans terminally ill.   They treat these men like real heroes, allowing them a chance to visit the memorials to their service.  I’m proud to know both Paul and Norman, two men who are very proud of their service to this country.  Two men we must say thank you to, over and over, for their unselfish actions.  Paul and Norman are both in their 80’s now, Paul not in such good health but still when invited, he went with all the excitement of a small boy going for his first pony ride.  He told his niece and I one day about the trip, how they treated them like kings and cared for their every need.  It’s such a small thing our country can do for these living heroes.  Norman is still in good health and he is so proud of his military years.  He proudly wears his uniform whenever the opportunity arises.  He willingly shares his experiences and I can only think that perhaps he and my dad shared experiences.   Thank you, all veterans, and active personnel, for the years you freely gave to our country to maintain our land as we know it.

Be sure to thank a Veteran if you meet up with one this weekend.  Thanks to my dear husband for his service and I remember his service so well.  We got married while he was in the military and I spent two long years alone while he was overseas.  He was never in serious danger, though he did serve on a ship that did a serious job and if things had gone bad, I think he probably could have been in danger.  However, he came home to me and I’m thankful for that.  We lost a few friends during the Vietnam era.  They gave it all!

 

Now to something lighter.  I thought I would share with you several books I’ve been reading (and listening to) this week.

I know this is a quilting blog (mostly) but I enjoy knitting too.  This is a knitting book, a novel, The Knitting Circle by Ann Hood.  This is fiction.

This is a touching, heart-wrenching story about a young woman, a mother, who loses her young daughter, Stella, to meningitis at age 5.  It takes us through the first year with Mary, showing us the raw pain that this woman and her husband, Dillon, go through and the resulting actions that often occur when a family loses a child.  Mary is led to a knitting circle and takes up knitting which she learns is a perfect way to block the painful thoughts that come to her night and day.  In the process of learning to knit, Mary learns  of the other knitters in the circle.  They each have a story to tell, a horrible story to tell, and through their stories Mary is able to learn to deal with her pain.   I highly recommend this book.

 

The second book is related to quilting.

 

This one, a non-fiction, is just as riveting.  Mary Lee Bendolph, Gee’s Bend Quilts and Beyond  is a fascinating look into the life of Mary Lee Bendolph and her relatives and friends, and other artists that she meets late in life when her quilts, the famous quilts of Gee’s Bend, take her out of her insular community and awaken the world to the quilt artist Mary Lee Bendolph.

The photographs in the book are accompanied by Mary’s story, and the story of her whole community and the African-American families of  the rural South.  Mary’s experiences with her mother’s quilts and watching at her mother’s knee certainly had an impact on Mary’s quilts.  However, Mary takes her quilts beyond the utilitarian quilts of her mother.  They are still utilitarian, often made from recycled clothing from her family, but they are art as well. Some of them I can’t say I LOVE, but others are striking.  That’s the way it is with all art, right? Sometimes you wonder why someone calls it “art” and other times you scream “This is ART!”

I was very interested to read this account of Mary Lee Bendolph and the quilts of Gee’s Bend.  I hope you’ll find it at Amazon.com or at your local library and learn about these artists.

 

Happy Holiday.

 

Marsha

 

A Nice Birthday Gift, Book Review

We’re still celebrating, how ’bout you?   Michelle at Quilting Gallery has a wonderful Birthday Blog Hop going on. Click on the box above to find more blogs participating and perhaps you’ll win a prize.   My giveaway is a quilted Christmas  mug rug made by me, a packet of 20+ 5″ squares of Christmas prints and a surprise.  Christmas is all about surprises.   Maybe you’re here because of it.  Thanks for coming and I hope you’ll subscribe to read my posts regularly.  I do not have sponsors like many blogs so you won’t see any ads here and I don’t do regular giveaways because I don’t have sponsors.  I’m just a regular quilter, doing regular quilting projects and sharing what I do.  I hope you like it.

I have a mixture of updates on my own quilting progress as well as some tutorials, some eye candy, some experiences, and some sharing of ideas as well as updates on my quilting group and even some book reviews.

Today I’m going to give a book review of Jennifer Chiaverini‘s most recent book, The Wedding Quilt.  This is a book that would make a great BIRTHDAY present for a quilter in your life.

This book reminisces about Sarah McClure’s arrival at Elm Creek Manor, reviews her relationship as it grew with Sylvia Bergstrom Compton and how her quilting lessons became the popular quilt retreat, Elm Creek Quilts. 

Sarah’s daughter is getting married in this book and the author uses the opportunity of wedding preparations to bring the various members of the Elm Creek Quilt group back on the scene.  I found this very helpful as it’s been a while since the first book and I wasn’t recalling many of the details about all the friends involved in Chiaverini’s books. 

As we would all expect, the Elm Creek Quilters get together to create a wedding quilt for Sarah’s daughter, Caroline. 

I related to many things in the book just as you will. Sarah didn’t have a wedding quilt because she wasn’t a quilter when she got married.  She made a quilt to mark her first anniversary.   Both of my children received First Anniversary quilts from me.   I was making my daughter’s wedding dress which kept me very busy from February to August that year.  I was teaching school then so my fingers were busy evenings sewing pearls onto the French lace for the wedding dress.  I didn’t have time to make her a wedding quilt, though I really, really wanted to.  I knew I wouldn’t have time.  Thus, Sara and Dave received a First Anniversary quilt.  It was a variation of the Dresden Plate all done in blues, my daughter Sara’s favorite color.  

I didn’t make a wedding quilt for our son’s marriage to his dear wife, Aubrey, thinking perhaps her mother (also a quilter) would and I didn’t want to step on toes.  I also decided I would follow the same plan as I did with Sara, making them a First Anniversary quilt.

The quilt I made for them also has lots of blues in it, Aubrey’s favorite color.   I completed the quilt while at the Plantation last winter as part of a Mystery Quilt project.  As I chose the colors I had in mind the First Anniversary quilt.  It has lots of stars on it.

The Picture File gremlin has been at it again.  Sorry, I can’t find the photo.  When I do, I’ll insert it.

Back to To The Wedding Quilt, it is a book of memories-memories made and memories relived during the preparation of the wedding quilt.  If you’ve read all the other Elm Creek Quilts novels, you will definitely want to read this one.   If you haven’t read the others, this book will introduce you to the friendships, joys and sorrows of the Elm Creek Quilters.  I recommend all the others too.  The Union Quilters was timely in its release, coming out just in time for the 250th anniversary of the Civil War this year.

I enjoyed reading about the quilt that hangs on the wall in the Elm Creek Manor.  I didn’t remember about this wall quilt from previous books but now it seems like an important piece.    Each original Elm Creek Quilter has a quilt section they made and when they return to the Manor, they put their piece back onto the wall.   I love this reminder of each member of the group and the memories it creates for Sarah and the other quilters as they see the missing sections of the quilt and recall their friends.

I don’t know if Jennifer Chiaverini plans to write more Elm Creek Quilts novels but it could go either way.  This book almost feels like a wrap-up of the series, but also leaves the reader wondering if the books will evolve into a new generation of quilters beginning with Jay and Caroline, Sarah and Matthew’s children.  Only time will tell!

I hope you enjoyed my book review and I hope you’ll come back next time.  I have fabric postcards almost finished I want to share with you, and I’m going to be baking this week so maybe there will be a recipe.  Happy Quilting!

Marsha

Finishing Projects for a Fair and Finishing a Book

What have you been doing this evening?  I’ve been busy trying to finish the rest of the items I’m planning to put in the Craft Fair on Saturday.  With Thanksgiving coming and the requisite cooking/baking, I won’t get much more done before the Fair.

I’ve finished up my fabric postcards. I used Carol Doak‘s Holiday Ornament paper-piecing pattern to make my snowman postcards.  It went together very well, but I just couldn’t decide what to team the snowmen up with.  The snowmen made 3″ blocks so I had to add more in order to put them on the 4″x6″ postcards.  I decided to make some of them have a Christmas look and others just a wintry look.

 

O’ Christmas Tree fabric postcard

"Follow the Star" strip-pieced fabric card

“Follow the Star” is strip-pieced and quilted and placed on the diagonal for this card.  The star is blanket-stitched on top of the strip-piecing.

 

Snowman Fabric Postcards

“Lost Mitten”, “Starry Night”, “Let it Snow” and “Up with the Birds”.  Snowflake fabric for the writing area on the back.

The other item I finished it a little hanging message.  I actually punch-needle embroidered the message quite a while ago but couldn’t decide what to do with it.  This afternoon I decided it would make a cute hanging sign.  “Live Simply” is a wonderful motto to remind each of us that we don’t need so much “stuff” and can live with less than we do.

"Live Simply" hanging sign

The last two things I have to finish tomorrow afternoon AFTER I make a lemon meringue pie for Thursday is two small denim pouches, perfect for credit cards and bit of cash which fits into your pocket for shopping with two hands.  I’ll show you them when they are done.

Today in our quilting group, we learned to make fabric bowls.  They were so interesting to make.  Everyone said they’d seen them before and thought they must be very difficult to make.  With the help of a great teacher, we all were able to make progress.  Some finished, some didn’t.  I believe we agreed that we’d share them with everyone Sunday night during the Ice Cream Social so I will be sure to get DH to take some photos when the group gathers to show off the bowls.  The directions were based on the books by Linda Johansen.

I had to return my library book today.  Fortunately I was able to read it in its entirety before its due date.  The book is HUGE but great reading.  I listened to the first five books of the “Clan of the Cave Bear” series by Jean Auel over the last few months.  I had read them years ago when they first came out but listening to them on the iPhone iPod feature was fabulous.  I enjoyed them so much.  The newest book, The Painted Caves, wasn’t available on audio-book as it’s quite new.  Jean Auel does a fantastic amount of research into the anthropological, and social, history of early man and the locations where they have been historically proven to have been.  She weaves such a story of these people and their lives together.   Ayla and Jondalar are an amazing couple and with their animals and their daughter they present us with details about the actual living arrangements of the early Peoples.  The domestication of horses and wolves (the forerunners of our domestic dogs of today) add a great deal of interest to the story.  Their travels from one end of the earth to the other, taking years to achieve, tell a lot about what the topography was like during/after the Ice Age.   Living among mammoths and aurochs and other long-gone animals seems so exciting while reading this book.  I recommend this series highly.  They are entertaining and educational–what a mix!

I was lucky to get another book I’ve been reading about lately.  Jennifer Chiaverini‘s latest book, The Wedding Quilt, was available to check out so I grabbed it.  I had read about it on her blog and was eager to get it.  I’ll give you a review of the book after I’ve finished it, but I expect it to be just as good as all the other Elm Creek Quilts novels have been.

That’s it for tonight.  Good night, sleep tight!

 

 

 

A Good Read and a Good Deed

I got my Vermont Quilt Documentation book today—thanks, Margaret, again for telling me about these!  I can’t wait to read it and look at all the quilts.  So glad I finished the book for my book discussion group tomorrow night!  Nothing will stop me from reading this now.

I’ve been reading (actually listening to the audiobook) Room by Emma Donoghue for a book discussion group that meets tomorrow night.  Find it here: http://www.amazon.com/Room-Novel-Emma-Donoghue

 This book is written from the point of view of Jack, a five year old boy who has lived with his mother in one room, locked in, for his entire life.  Jack was born in the room and stays in the room for much of the book.  The sudden expanding of his world finishes the final part of the book.   This story is disturbing as you know while reading it that such things can and do happen in our world, a world  full of many good people and also some who are filled with evil in their hearts.

Jack is a lively young boy who creeps into your heart while you learn about his life through his conversations with Ma, the only other person he has ever known.   Ma is a loving mother trying her best to give her child everything she can in her very limited universe.  I don’t want to tell you too much about it but I do encourage you to read this book.

The other thing I was doing over the weekend is making up some 10.5″ square blocks for a cause I read about on Pat Sloan’s blog.  Check out http://www.bluenickelstudios.com for information about how you can help.  As anyone who knows me knows,  my DH and I have spend a lot of our adult years volunteering in one way or another.  Ronald McDonald House of Portland, Maine, Wayside Soup Kitchen of Portland, Maine, Habitat for Humanity, RV Care-a-Vanners, and now our volunteering with Vermont State Parks.  I also donate quilts to charities like Citizen S.A.M. Now Iam busy using up a lot of scraps to make blocks for Blue Nickel Studios project to help warm the homeless in New York City.  I’d like to make quilts to donate to those in Vermont who lost everything in Hurricane Irene but my finances don’t allow me that luxury currently.  Cotton batting is getting exorbitant!  Anyway, what I’m getting at is that you should visit Blue Nickel Studio’s blog to see what you can do for their current cause or Citizen S.A.M. to see if you can help them out.  If you have your own cause that you are currently helping, more power to you.  Congratulations on helping your fellow man.  Keep it up.  The world can be a better place if we just help our fellow man in any way we can.