I’m a huge blues fan – have been since a university professor played Muddy Waters during a lecture. I was hooked! I spent my 25th birthday in New Orleans listening to blues so real you could feel it coming up through the soles of your feet. I ate alligator for the first time. I watched one of those spontaneous music parades. I drank chickory coffee. That summer, we enjoyed an incredibly cool, extremely low-budget north-to-south tour: we rambled from Maine down to Atlantic City (I spent only $10!) then wound down the coast having many adventures that I’ll spare you the details of. When we hit Florida, finishing up the last of the Georgia peaches that had been ripening in the back window of my big ol’ Oldsmobile, we went all the way around the coast and came out the Panhandle. I got a sunburn that I think I’m still peeling from! We suddenly popped out in Baton Rouge, where I actually parked my car for something like 2 weeks while I went down to Mexico and no one broke into it! But one of the biggest highlights of this amazing journey was the week or so we spent in and around New Orleans.

So I’ve been having a really hard time accepting that it’s all gone, or changed beyond recognition. Besides donating to the Red Cross, which I hope everyone has done if they can, I have really wanted to do something constructive – but that’s hard when you’re on the wrong side of the Atlantic. So today I joined the Katrina Quilts ez board. If you don’t have an ez board membership, it’s fast and free to get set up. They are collecting quilt squares which will be made into show quilts for the affected states. There are strict regulations, though, so do look at their guidelines. To further help out this effort, 123 Stitch is selling the fabric squares for only $2 each which includes postage anywhere in the world!

There are a lot of cross stitch enthusiasts who are helping in various ways. M Designs has released a free Pray Tree chart that is lovely as well as thoughtful.(The finished design is shown here, as borrowed from the M Designs website.) Other designers have released charts from which the sale proceeds are donated to relief/rescue efforts, including Martina Webber, Martina Dey, and Sampler Cove. There are also a number of businesses that are contributing time, finances, or other resources, including Silkweaver, Stitching Bits and Bobs, and the aforementioned 123 Stitch. The wonderful people at Stitcher’s Hideaway have assembled a very complete list if you would take a moment to look at it. Supporting these businesses and designers is more than acquiring great stash – it’s a small step toward cherishing & protecting our global community.