Darling Downs Chinchilla quilt block

A drought is nothing to laugh at. California is only one place on Earth where natural water from rains is in short supply. Tehachapi has its own water supplies from the mountains, but if if doesn't snow, there is no water added to the reservoir.

There is a drought of spirit that happens for us too. A long time friend of mine called Friday night and told me what has been happening in his life and that his very soul is dried up, crumbling and crackling from this drought of spirit. I asked what I could do and was given an easy task (for me) and sent him what he needed as words in a letter.

Sometimes its easy to offer drought relief, sometimes I don't even know when my hand of friendship is needed. 

This morning, I made a block for a quilt to be raffled at a drought relief fundraiser being held in Chinchilla, which is a town in the Darling Downs region of Queensland, Australia in early March. One of the group's members in a block swap I recently joined sent out a request for specific size and style blocks she will use to make up this quilt.

The Log Cabin pattern was the first quilting class I took, though it was taught using a chain piecing method to make an entire quilt at once. 

This one block was made with scraps, and I do have a lot of them on hand!

It was my thought to use up all that pink fabric, but as I went along, I had less of it that would work, so started going a bit bolder with more orange tones on the dark side. The lights were a little more difficult to show a progression. 

In my search for fabrics, I found a couple of pieces that were used on the front of Nick's quilt, so I started adding them to the back blocks.

I've started piecing Patrick's quilt (he is Nick & Tony's Daddy and my Niece Lisa's Husband). The goal is to finish those four  quilts along with my other Niece's family for this year. I remind myself that this is mid-February.

My own droughts of spirit come and go with the days of my life. Quilting with all these colors pulls me up from that feeling of being parched and weathered.

As I look at the pic above, it touches me how quickly it came together because of all the scraps there are to chose from. I really never in a complete drought of spirit with all these abundant resources to chose from. Oh sure at times, the drought has different guises that fool me into thinking it is so, like aging issues, separation from family and friends issues. Those kinds of things are real enough.  

And then I quilt.