For Tonya...
Thinking of you
and hoping you'll
soon be back
with us.
"It was not a woman's desire to be forgotten. And in one simple, unpretenious way, she created a medium that would outlive even many of her husband's houses, barns and fences; she signed her name in friendship onto cloth and, in her own way, cried out...Remember Me" Linda Otto Lipsett, Remember Me (Machine pieced,hand quilted with clamshell pattern,1" finished logs)
(A section of a flannel quilt I made for my grandson Brady)
Saturday, Oct.22nd...sunny but cold here in WI. These pieced butterflies were a calender page a number of years back. Since it's done with vintage fabric, and scrap, of course, I LOVE THEM! So I saved the picture, and began a search for the pattern. Most butterfly patterns you come across are for appliqued butterflies. . A few years after I saved the picture, a gal I know saw it on my wall and said "I have that pattern"..and she did, and she made me a copy !! It turns out its from the Collection of Ruby Hinson Duncan. It was first printed in the Comfort Magazine in the 1930's. It has been a popular pattern ever since. I counted and there are 24 pieces..many of them cut reversed.
My friend found it republished in the May/June issue of STITCH'N'SEW QUILTS in 1988. I am hoping to begin picking fabrics for it this weekend, while gathers nickle squares for another stitching/blogger friend..*VBS* It is identified as Pieced Butterfly #1408 and is for a 10" block.
Thursday, Oct. 13th..an odd sort of a day. Not really rainy, not really sunny. Not cool, but not warm either. Have you noticed life is like that sometimes? Six of one thing, and a half dozen of another?
Youngest son was home for a routine visit. By home, I mean my house, of course. Right now, for the most part, he had no other. There is the house where he is residing, with his dad and the new Mrs. "me". And there is the house where he goes every other Wed. and Thurs. to visit his two small sons. His life is sort of 6 of one thing and half dozen of the other. Do you remember the tree I posted from Disney World? The one in the African park section...that can live 4000 years, and after awhile doesn't need leaves to sustain life and growth? I've been thinking about that tree alot lately.
Maybe we all need to have powers of transformation to survive what comes at us. Some sort of adaptation of coping for the rainy days as well as the hot sunny ones. All that rain out east. It was here just over a week ago, in WI. The county just north of me got 10" overnight. If it had been snow, that would be 100" of snow.
Maybe we are lucky(or wise) to be quilt makers. Almost everything is useful. When life gives us scraps, we piece them together into a whole. The quilt I am showing you today is like life. Any one piece taken seperately doesn't do much, be much or have any great value. But by combinding them, piecing them together with belief, knowledge, patience and love...each small scrap adds to the "whole". It becomes a part of something strong and lasting that has something to offer back to the world. Quiltmaking, born of the mother "necessity" perhaps holds the adaptive key that aids my survival. We no longer need quilts to be made "as fast as I can to keep my family from freezing" nor as "beautiful as I can to keep my heart from breaking" as in pioneer days. But, for me, today, as across the centuries, this form of self expression keeps my world "pieced" together day to day. And maybe tomorrow, for the east coast, the rains will cease and the sun will once again be shining.
Tuesday afternoon...overcast and cool. Another day, another problem..LOL..just took pictures of the liberated houses I made up north last weekend.
They show perfectly well in my Dell Image Expert..they are in an album..nice. BUT..I transfered them to MY PICTURES file, which is what I work from..and they-a-no-a-arrive-a!
Three attempts..I give up ! I'll scan them if I have to..but I must figure out what happens between "there" and "here". So for now I give you sweetpea...my only claim to her is that I made the quilt. It's "Bugs'n'Bows". She likes to "finger" the yarn ties, as you can plainly see..*VBS* Makes me happy..*G*
October 8th...It's official ! Celebrating the arrival of my 65th year! Not the milestone some of you seniors use, but I happy, proud and soooooo pleased to have arrived at the place where I don't need to pay for private health care solo anymore. Coming from a family of quite YOUNG deceased relatives...65 looks good to me !!! *VBS* I am second oldest of the living cousins on my mother's side. She died of congestive heart failure at 52. Maybe that gives you an idea why I'm soooo happy to be 65.
Oct. 8th..first pictures. Sixty five years ago, and counting. Taken at the hospital, moms and babies stayed a full week back then. It truly is "time in a bottle", these old photographs..my baby book, the list of gifts received and who was there to welcome baby to our world. My young second cousin is working on family history for his newly established website. I've spent much of the past week uploading and downloading pictures and documents into the computer to send him. How all the bits and pieces from this scrapbag of life transport you to another time and place. This picture touches my heart, my beautiful young mother with her first child. So much hope and promise, so much optimism about the what the future held.
It touches my heart, makes me sad, fills me with awe, and makes me wonder. How is it that this photo can exist, be so clear and sharp and untouched by the 65 years that have passed? I would like to live long enough to understand, to really "get it" that objects remain and their owners keep changing through the years and pass away. Maybe it's that living thing are always in transition.
This rainy day is my dad's birthday. He would have been 94 today. Bittersweet seems appropiate for today's offering. I got word last evening that my sister in law had lost her battle with cancer. She had turned 67 in July. She had recently been moved from her apt. to assisted living on a different floor of her building. Since she is a nun, she was worried about the Mother House paying for both her apt. and her assisted living. So this past weekend, the siblings and nieces(my daughter and daughter in law) gathered and began emptying the apt. I'm no longer included in any of "their" stuff. Guess that is more convenient for them now that my ex has re-married. Of course I would have been happy to help, but if you are not included, you do not go. I was quite unprepared for the call last evening that she had passed away. Now my dilema is, "do I go to the visitation and/or funeral, or not". It's odd because I feel it would be fine for me to do that, since I have a 30+ year history with his siblings. I'm not sure it would upset anyone except the wife of my ex's brother. She decided years ago that I was a "rival" and acts upon that assumption. Sooooo...what to do??? A card with money, of course, but paying one's respects meant far more to me, when my dad, died. I've got a couple of days to decide............feel free to give me your opinion..please.
Monday October 3rd...a warm,humid mid summer type day here in WI. After freeze warnings last week, and snow showers predicted for Wednesday this week..one wonders? How can it be 80 degrees today??? Well, the good thing is the geese are flying, the leaves are changing and all things spooky are on the way. Is there anything a child loves more than jumping out from behind a chair or door and saying "BOO"...I give you all a "boo" in many of my favorite colors. This dish towel will never see duty of THAT sort...dishes, that is..*VBG* The "i's" have it !
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