A child of the forest.......always

and not the prairie. Parts of WI were prairie, at one time. And some of the long grass prairie still exists here, in land preserves.But the long grass prairies of Laura Ingalls Wilders life and stories are foreign to me. I understand the cool, darkened sun-dappled woods of my childhood. The wind blows there, but nothing like prairie wind. For me, the prairie is more of an 'idea' and state of mind, than an actual place. I love the word...prairie. It triggers some long distant memory fragment that I can't quite get hold of. I learned several years back that prairie is a french word, and means meadow...one of those strange bits of information that lingers.
Yesterday was a snowy, gray day...some wind, but more than that, it was a day my furnace decided to 'go stubborn' and resist firing to light the gas. The furnace man was called, and I had a nice long wait for his arrival. I pulled this book from my shelves, and sat down for a closer look *VBS*(*very big smile*)
It's a book of quilts inspired by Laura Ingalls Wilder and was written by a New York woman who moved to Walnut Grove, MN. For the most part the quilts are small one. I saw several that might tempt me to cut scraps for. That was until I saw this one. It's hard to explain how one quilt vs. another will reach out and grab you. This one was made by the author of the book and she calls it "Four in a Nine Patch".
This is the original quilt which inspired her. The antique version is fragile, and wouldn't hold up to actual bed use. She's done a great job of reproducing the quilt and I am planning to own one also *VBS*. It has grabbed my heart! Her directions are for 1.5" strips to make the 4 patches. I'm undecided about that. I may use 2" scraps instead.
And I was trying soooo hard NOT to get 'hooked' into a specific project until I had my scraps cut up....oh well!