DD#3 came home all upset last week, her field trip had been cancelled because of the swine flu scare.

Mind you, we live west of San Antonio, and the scare amongst the Austin – San Antonio corridor has been wild and wooly.  In fact, our nephew’s here for the week because his school (including county and city districts) cancelled ALL classes for 10 days. 

Although we have no confirmed cases in our area, the school is taking precautions and has cancelled all field trips (though, of course, not SPORTS events) until further notice.

But, the poor lass was so distraught, and I did absolutely NOTHING to dispel her disappointment … because, as she told me the “why” … I couldn’t do anything except laugh {badmom}:

Mommy, our field trip has been cancelled because of the SWAN flu!

Throughout the school year, my three youngest kids (DD#2, DD#3 and the son-man) attend a Wednesday afternoon class at our church called Sacred Arts.  This year, their theme has been Creation, and learning about how God created the world.  Ms. Judy, our church musical director, is the teacher (and I, the assistant) for these classes, and my kids absolutely love attending!  They not only learn how to express their faith through various musical techniques (singing, bells, percussion instruments, liturgical dance, etc.), but they get to learn more about God’s world through a kid-friendly Bible study, play games and do crafts.

As Ms. Judy took them through Creation and the kids’ craft project was to paint their ‘vision’ of God’s work on muslin.  Once a month, they’d paint away and I’d clean up their mess.  Then, I took the squares home, cut out various parts of their blocks, and piece them together into rows…with the finished product goal to be a banner that could hang in our church.

This past Sunday, their banner was complete (I finished it at 5 am!!!) and Ms. Judy presented it to the congregation as a gift to the confirmands.  It was a wonderful gift (if’n I do say so myownself), and a super memorial that really highlighted the lessons learned by the Sacred Arts kids and their own views of how our world began:

Quick note about putting it together:  First, I had the kids paint the squares on unbleached muslin squares that had freezer paper pressed to the back (to prevent bleed-through of the paint and to stabilize the fabric).  I used the rainbow colors from Jelly Roll strips, that were donated by Linda from www.AbbiMays.com, to separate the rows.  Instead of batting and muslin for the back, I omitted the sandwich and just used Moda Jacquard Prairie Paisley Cream that Linda sent to me, too.  It’s a heavier 100% cotton fabric than muslin, and since the kids had done all of the artwork, I didn’t want to detract from their painted blocks by quilting over the top of them.  So, I just sewed the backing to the front 1/8″ above and below the Jelly Roll strips, and then turned the edges back to create and finished edge (without binding).  I did add a Jelly Roll strip to the bottom, because there wasn’t room (under the “Day Six” stamping) to turn that edge under – so, I sewed it with a 1/4″ seam allowance, pressed it back, turned it under and whip-stitched the bottom binding to the backing of the banner.  Once a rod-pocket was in place, it was ready to be dedicated!