New tutorial!

 I've got another tutorial up over at Moda Bake Shop. This time I made a cover for your cold, ugly filing cabinet! It has pockets and a flap so everything is still easy to get to, just prettier!

The additional patterns are available here. These are the extra two 29" square patterns for the corners.

Because I feel so blessed to be able to do what I do for Moda, I want to be able to share with you! Leave me a comment here and I will draw a winner for 42 squares (cut by me) of Fandango! Closes Wednesday.

My bad!

 I was supposed to do the draw for my Thankful giveaway yesterday but got too busy with Thanksgiving! So without further ado the winner of 2 Essence charm packs and some yardage is Lis!

Lis send me an e-mail to caraquilts at gmail with your address and I'll send those out to you!

A bit more and some Autumn

  I first want to say thank you to everyone who commented or e-mailed about Little Bit and the situation with her school. I cannot tell you how much your words have meant to me and my family. If I haven't gotten back to you I'm sorry but please know I have read and appreciated your support very much.
 
  I've managed to get control of my emotions mostly, and the thing that did it was seeing a beautiful view and being able to appreciate that, reminded me that even with the crap that has happened Little Bit and I are still able to enjoy it so things will be alright.

 She will be changing schools and we are not letting the issue drop but I am going to try and not let this do more damage to our family then it already has.
    Little Bit will be seeing a social worker on Tuesday to try to discover how far things went, whether more then one of the boys touched her and what she is processing and how. This will be turned over to the community police officer attached to the school to do with as they will. I am not having her forced to go over and over things, we will try one time and from there will focus solely on helping her get over her fears and finding the best school situation possible for her.

Now some zen.

 

Speechless Two, only not so speechless (long)

  Warning: This is a long, totally not quilt related personal post. It's also all over the place, kind of like my mind right now.

  So I went in to the school today to speak with the principle and teachers. The excuse? The boys hadn't admitted the whole story, and huge surprise the speech and cognitively impaired child didn't just articulate what had happened. And why not tell me? Oh they were still "investigating" and had spoken to the FOUR boys parents. Oh and they were going to call me....today?
Now that they have been informed of the severity, they will again call parents, call in the community service officer from the police to talk to them, and not sure what else.   I'll give you they seemed genuinely surprised but not to fully understand the stupidity of their actions.

Ugh. I'm not happy. I don't know what to do or think right now.

We're not finished with this by a long shot. We've still yet to speak to the superintendent, and don't worry I will be filling various complaints as well. We are not going to let this go. I've split my thinking almost, of the incident and the the school's f-up, as two almost separate things, both of which  put Little Bit as a victim.

Little Bit is still afraid to go to school. I'm taking her in tomorrow to visit with her resource teacher. From there Little Bit is going to be the judge whether she stays or comes home. We will be moving soon, or yeah that was good news for another day, and it will now be to a different school district.

I've been promised that any and every incident involving Little Bit will be reported to me to make any judgment calls on, not them.
What else? She's going to meet with the social worker, with me/hubby there.

 I'm furious, sad, hurting, betrayed and beyond being able to trust these people again. I bound 2 wraps trying to block some of this out. I know this is about Little Bit not me but I can't help but feel so much too. And I guess holding it all in so I can be her advocate is stressful but necessary.

How can these people possibly think questioning the suspects without the victim's side of things would possibly arrive at the accurate results??? And because of their complete and utter lack of sense in this she has had to live with this for two days, including be forced to take the bus and be in school with these boys. I'd made her take the bus because I didn't know, but now I'm so worried it may have hurt her more. With a child like Little Bit it is so hard to know how things will go, because of her differences she may be able to get past it easier and with less damage then a "normal'' child, or it may make it so much worse. And I don't know how to figure that out except to wait and see. Making a deal could make it worse right now, but I can't ignore it either.

I could just scream right now. I know I'm being vague in details and that is just to protect Little Bit. It is easy to figure out who we are and I don't know where this is going and don't want to potentially cause more problems. All I will say is considering it was all second graders, four boys and my daughter, it is pretty bad. And if they were 12 years old or more they could be facing serious charges. Little Bit seems ok so long as she doesn't think she has to go back to school right now. She even wants to go to see her bio dad, which is really rare. So it's not ok but it's not super traumatized either.

Is there a wall I could pound my head against? It'd feel better then trying to figure all this out.

Speechless

 I'm just overwhelmed with emotion right now and need to share.

My cognitively delayed, speech impaired second grade daughter was convinced to do something at school by a group of boys from her class on Tuesday. It was investigated to some extent but no action taken. AND I WAS NOT INFORMED. I had to find out from another mom who called me, tonight, wondering if I needed to talk because her daughter had told her about, so the other children knew. One of the boys takes her bus to and  from school.
  This school has ignored bullying and other instances of Little Bit being abused because of her differences. But this is just outrageous that I was not even informed so I can at least help her deal with and understand.
 I'm going in tomorrow morning with my husband, and my mother to get the principle to "explain" what happened, why I was not informed, and what was done. Which she will have no possible acceptable explanation. So from there we will be going to the board, and who knows from there.
  I'm so worried about what if this has happened before? worse? What is going through her mind?? What message has been sent to all of the children about getting away with things? Is my daughter now an "officially" acceptable child to bully, abuse, and harass???
  And I feel so much worse because she had not wanted to go to school on Tuesday because she was scared of other children and I told her she needed to go and to just tell a teacher if they weren't nice to her, and I sent a note to her teacher.

I feel so many things right now. I'm going to go stab bind one of my quilted wraps for a while.

Totally cool feeling!

  The Thankful giveaway can be found here.

   Meghan at Thrifty Quilter made a quilt using my Scattered Prayers tutorial over at Burgundy Buttons and it looks fantastic!
This is the first time I've gotten to see a quilt made by one of my patterns and I have to say it is one cool feeling. So thanks Meghan for sharing! And I absolutely LOVE the purple background!
 

Go give Meghan some love!

Thank you!

 Thank you all my wonderful friends who read my last post and left me a message! I appreciate you seeing I was having an attack of self doubt and reassuring me. I feel so much better knowing I'm really not talking to myself here! In appreciation I'm going to do a giveaway! I've closed the comments for the last post and took all the names from those who commented and have put them in the tea pot and I will add any names who comment on this post.

What is up for grabs? How about two Essence charm packs, and about 22" of yardage! Such yummy fall colours. I've made a few thing out of this line and loved them all.

So just leave a comment here to win. I'll draw on October 11, which is Canadian Thanksgiving because I'm so thankful for all my online friends!