Hand-painted ornaments for PCH

Phoenix Children’s Hospital is nearly finished with their new building expansion. And while we don’t want to believe that the business of sick kids is a growth industry… it is. Fortunately, we live in a city that has a place like PCH because we needed it three years ago when our son received a year of treatment there (c h e m o t h e r a p y) for a rare illness. I am grateful to the incredible staff, the excellent doctors and the kind nurses at the hospital every day for healing my son. So when my dear friend and interior designer, Colleen Pawling, asked me to create whimsical paintings on her gigantic ornaments for a tree lighting ceremony and christmas tree auction to celebrate the new building which will benefit the hospital, I didn’t even blink. The title of the tree is Hope Glows. read more

sunday sewing…


I asked my son if he wanted to sew something with me. First, he drew the plan. And then he said it could be a t-shirt. I have a fresh stack of new fabrics ready to go for my first quilt project (and it happens to be for him)- he chose the placement of the fabrics in his design and we made it happen. He had an old plain t-shirt that worked. He got to push the gas pedal 🙂 Glee. Delight. SPEED! (Note to moms: hard to maintain even tone and cool temper when your child’s foot is controlling the speed of the needle and your fingers are so close…gentle, loving voice becomes rather sharp in this situation…a la drill sergeant…feels like the fuzzy feel-goodness thwarted temporarily by said momentary tone.) I thought he would want to sew the cotton patchwork down to the shirt but he told me that he is the designer and I am the sewer.