Buried for 25 years...

My brother and his wife will be married 25 years next week. About the same time, my grandmother broke up housekeeping to move to a senior apartment. We were living 300 miles away at the time, so Robin got the bulk of Grandma's sewing treasures. She has shared with me through the years, for which I am grateful. She has always told me about a group of quilt squares Grandma gave her, "and as soon as I find them, half of them are yours." I never got too excited, as Grandma thought that double-knit polyester was God's Greatest Gift to Man, and she made a number of quilts out of that *fabulous* fabric. (By the way, those quilts are still goin' strong. I am always reminded of them when I go to a church camp...but I digress.) In the last month, she has re-done her sewing room, and they finally came to light. What she didn't tell me was that the squares were made by my grandmother's grandmother:
There were thirty of them, and Robin gave me sixteen, and she kept fourteen.

Somehow we always think of these ancient women making perfect, tiny stitches, but the quality of these is not quite "up to par" with that assumption. I don't know if maybe they were made by her in her old age, with arthritic hands. But let me tell you, they make me feel good about my *talent* or lack thereof. My Quilting Motto stands: Finished is Better than Perfect.

This week I made a "gig bag" for my autoharp. Charming bought me this instrument 15+ years ago. It came in a chipboard (read: cheap) case, and within the first year the handle came loose. Over the next years the case has ripped and been taped and re-taped. Not that I even play it very often; it usually comes out only at Christmas.
I was going to throw away the old case at first, but the bag is not the most adequate protection for the instrument, which is pretty heavy, so I kept the case as added security. Here you see the lining, a pretty, vintage-looking blue:

On to another front:

Well, it has been almost a month since we got our new car, and I braved the license bureau to title it and get plates. Indiana is offering an alternate plate bearing the words In God We Trust:

Words to live by, as the trip to the Bureau set me back $387.00 and change. But kudos to Indiana for offering the plate. Might not see this in California or New York...gotta love us *provincial* Midwesterners.

Well, the sun is out again, after a week of 1) four days of snow and 2) three days of rain. Should hit 50 degrees, too. Our poor daffodils--all over town they were laying on the ground. Hope my lilacs survive....more on that later!