Erica Parker

Bad Art

eparke20 — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 04:10:40 +0000

Starting with a healthy bashing of Thomas Kinkade will always get you my good favor, but the following quote is what really hooked me. This video has it all. Even a bow-tie.

“God being present to us in suffering is the answer to our suffering, not the end of our suffering. The end of suffering is not the answer, God being present in the midst of suffering is what we desperately need.” -Mike Cosper

The rest of the discussion is too interesting not to share as well…

Is love alive?

eparke20 — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 18:14:09 +0000

I have talented friends… and I have proof.

My friend Chris Mayers together with Susanna Johnson has created a beautiful little Christmas album that is now available for your listening pleasure [FOR FREE]!

I hope you will download it and enjoy it as much as I have!

Rejoice!

eparke20 — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 01:00:49 +0000

There is a woman that I come into contact with regularly. Each time we meet I ask her how she is, and without fail she responds with complaints about her situation. To be honest, her complaints are legitimate. She is experiencing tough things. I feel for her pain, for her loss, for her struggle. I say what I can to encourage and sympathize with her and make her smile, but there is something more that I never seem to have the words to say in person.

I see her wallowing in her pain. The only thing she seems looks forward to is ‘getting through’. Getting through the drive to be with family at Christmas, but not looking forward to the company. Getting through this task or that… getting through her husband’s deployment.

I wonder if she would hear me if I told her what my heart is screaming? I want her to be able to experience the joy of what she does have and give thanks– not despite her loss but because of it. Instead of wallowing in our pain and letting it sweep over and consume us what if we would learn to grieve? What if we accepted that this broken life comes with tribulation, and in our anguish choose to cry out to the Lord and rest in His comfort? This friend professes to be a Christian and so I would challenge her (and myself) to do this with every distress and see a prayer of aching turned into one of longing for the day of restoration and rejoicing for the birth of a redeemer who will cause the end of every grief.

After all, isn’t that what Christmas is all about? Celebrating the birth of our Lord in whom we have hope and life? Now He offers new life, forgiveness, opportunity for joy, love, and thanksgiving– but in the day to come through our unity with Christ all of these will be perfected!

Good Christian Men, Rejoice

Good Christian men, rejoice, with heart and soul and voice:

Give ye heed to what we say: Jesus Christ is born today;

Earth and heav’n before him bow, and he is in the manger now.

Christ is born today! Christ is born today!

Good Christian men, rejoice, with heart and soul and voice;

Now ye hear of endless bliss: Jesus Christ was born for this!

He hath opened heaven’s door, and man is blessed evermore.

Christ was born for this! Christ was born for this!

Good Christian men, rejoice, with heart and soul and voice;

Now ye need not fear the grave: Jesus Christ was born to save!

Calls you one and calls you all to gain his everlasting hall.

Christ was born to save! Christ was born to save!

Merry Christmas!!

I’ll admit it, I have a thing for porcupines.

eparke20 — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 04:11:21 +0000

I came across this little guy in my favorite Parisian museum, Musee de Cluny. Porcupines have a very interesting symbolism in their own right… but of course I like them for an altogether different reason. I could potentially be persuaded to blog about that reason. But for now, I leave you with this fun picture of a porcupine in a tapestry. (I purchased a matching postcard and fridge magnet.)

I’m going take a stroll down memory lane and share a few things from college and my 2009 trip to France that have been hiding on my external hard drive. Stay tuned for some not-so-up-to-date updates!

Seven Sisters and a Sore Throat

eparke20 — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 02:03:09 +0000

I tortured my already irritated throat tonight by belting along with the Beta Radio cd in my car.

Please enjoy this sweet serenade to send you off on this Sabbath night, it sure sounds a lot better than me right now…

Quilted Bliss

eparke20 — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 02:00:35 +0000

Much of my spare time in 2011 was spent with the pleasure of making a wedding gift for one of my dearest friends and her now husband. I nearly burst out of my skin trying to keep this thing a secret from the happy couple. In fact, I was so excited I couldn’t help myself from posting a teaser!

Kara loves quilting as much as I do, so it seemed the only fitting gift for my friend. The day after I learned she was engaged I found myself in a sweet, country, antique store with a wide selection of vintage feed-sacks. I had trouble choosing just one! That feed-sack is the only fabric I bought for the project. The rest providentially fell into my lap one way or another over the next 6 months. The stories of these fabrics and how they came to be a part of this project seemed too interesting to lose, so I assembled a swatch book to accompany the quilt. I’m so glad that I did!

Each story is carefully stitched to its corresponding fabric bundle using a blanket stitch. The binding of this book proved to be particularly challenging! I had intended to use a Japanese stab-binding technique, but (in all too often moment of absent-mindedness) I cut the fabric swatches too small. Not wanting to compromise the ideal proportions I had in mind, I had to get inventive! My Embroidery Stitch Bible proved to be positively invaluable, and a variation of the Raised Chain Stitch suited my needs perfectly!

See the horizontal rows of stitching on the spine? That’s the chain stitch pulling all of the bundles together to make one whole book!

The hand embroidery here mimics the pattern on the ‘top’ of the quilt. Masculine and feminine, sweet and strong, Kara and Joshua are wonderful complements for each other. So, the design of the quilt celebrates the dichotomy in their relationship. In one unified work, bright and sweet florals share the stage with manly plaids and dark solids.

Many of our friends contributed to this quilt by sending fabrics (or helping me furiously sew the binding on during the bachelorette party!), but I couldn’t have done it without Janelle. She provided a sounding board for design giving me feedback and encouragement, sent a generous sampling of fabrics, and even hand-embroidered this piece of linen with their initials and date of the happy day. Thank you, Janelle!

I hope you have enjoyed this illustrated survey of quilt-making, I owe so much to my beloved friend Sarah Peters for photographing my work!

Until next time, xoxo.

Oh, communication

eparke20 — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 07:30:08 +0000

A blog is the best kind of friend. No matter how long you are apart from one another a blog is always interested to sit and listen to you express your thoughts and opinions. Thankfully, I’m better at keeping in touch with the friends that respond back to me than the dear-old-blog. I’m afraid that my animate friends wouldn’t be nearly so forgiving if we went so many months without speaking!
All the same, I think I’ll try to be better about updating.

This warms my heart

eparke20 — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 02:02:25 +0000

My sweet friend [Kara] married her love [Joshua] last month.

Our friend Sarah Peters photographed the wedding and by popular request she compiled a video of the photographs.

Enjoy this glimpse of the most beautiful wedding!

[Keep your eyes peeled for a glimpse of the quilt I made for their new life together!]

Studio Moments

eparke20 — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 14:53:15 +0000

I love my fabric. Let’s call these “before moments” with a quilt to follow.

Food for thought

eparke20 — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 21:10:26 +0000

I love finding Biblical principles in the strangest of places. My pastor turned me on to the book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, and I just wanted to share with you something I found interesting.

“Another experiment, conducted by Pascual-Leone when he was a researcher at the National Institutes of Health, provides even more remarkable evidence of the way our patterns of thought affect the anatomy of our brains. Pascual-Leone recruited people who had no experience playing a piano, and he taught them how to play a simple melody consisting of a short series of notes. He then split the participants into two groups. He had the members of one group practice the melody on a keyboard for two hours a day over the next five days. He had the members of the other group sit in front of a keyboard for the same amount of time but only imagine playing the song– without ever touching the keys. Using a technique called transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS, Pascual-Leone mapped the brain activity of all the participants before, during, and after the test. He found that the people who had only imagined playing the notes exhibited precisely the same changes in their brains as those who had actually pressed the keys. Their brains had changed in response to actions that took place purely in their imagination– in response, that is, to their thoughts. Descartes may have been wrong about dualism, but he appears to have been correct in believing that our thoughts can exert a physical influence on, or at least cause a physical reaction in, our brains. We become, neurologically, what we think.“

It’s incredible to have empirical evidence that our thought lives are vitally connected with the shaping of our brains, and thus the shaping of our character. Your thoughts are truly the stuff you’re made of.

Jesus taught the disciples about the distinct connection between our thoughts and actions, saying in Matthew 5:28:

“…everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

Paul has something similar to say in Romans 8:5-6:

“For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.“

So what are you thinking about today, and how is it shaping your brain?