"She is not afraid of the snow for her household..."

I've been thinking about this verse from Proverbs lately. There are so many aspects to being a Virtuous woman that I find it bewildering to break it down. I know God kinda did that for us with the verses and all but, if you're like me, you need lists itemized and bulletted to make sense. Anyway! This is a verse I can understand and work with.

As we are in Sydney at the moment things are getting pretty chilly. There's snow just south of us and areas around our city are getting frosts. Praise the Lord, I asked him for a heater and He gave us a new one for half the price of the main stores. I explained to my wee son that the Lord cares about him and that's why He provided. Manasseh and I had a great time praying together and thanking the Lord for loving him enough to want him to stay warm. I know Manny is too small to understand right now, and I can just hear you chuckling ;-) but one of these days the penny will drop and we'll get a conherent memory logged away in there. I want his earliest memories to be praying! I never want any of my children to have a reason to question the Lord's existence or His goodness.

So because I am focusing on this verse, "She is not afraid of the snow for her household", I have been making warmth the focus of my homemaking and it's been fun! I've been experimenting with delicious soups (don't worry, you'll hear more about them for sure!), making sure that there is always hot chocolate and hot tea available when my hubby comes home, and shopping on ebay and trademe for warm winter woolies. However, the most important thing of all, and the real reason for this post, is that yesterday I FINALLY finished my first quilt. It's a cot quilt, made from cotton with a wool batting, machine stitched and hand quilted. The theory behind the batting is that it will be warm in winter and cool in summer (or tropical climates ;-) and it's antibacterial. They say that wool is "a quilters dream, like stitching through butter". I haven't tried any other batting but I can tell you now - it is like quilting through butter. Me thinks I found my batting of choice :-)

I named it "Little Brown Bear", as Chris' nickname for Manasseh is "Little Bear". It's not the best-made quilt (notice there are no photos showing too much of the border...teeheehee) but, as a dear friend taught me, that's ok because it was made from all the love in my heart for my precious son. And I couldn't agree more!

This is a little snuggle blankie that I made. Charlotte taught me how to make it and it's so easy and so cute! Manny loves it! The first time I tucked it around him he pushed his little face into the fluff and squealed his approval :-) All I used was flannelette one side and fluffy-stuff on the other side. I folded the fluff over as a border but rather than tucking the ends under as a hem I just stitched straight down. It was easier that way and the fluff fabric won't fray, so it worked nicely. 

So what is the plan for today? Today I am going to perfect my idea for baby mittens! And yes, I'm using left over fabric from the snuggle blankie to do it ;-D