Flower-y Prose

I've been thinking about flowers. Especially wildflowers. Don't they have the prettiest names?

Blackeyed Susan.

Forget-me-not.

Dutchman's Breeches.

Bachelor's Buttons.

Morning Glory--my mother used to say, "morning glory--the Glory of the Morning!"

Dogtooth Violet.

Of course, there are many more. Spring beauty. Mayapple. Wild geranium. Snapdragons. Jack-in-the-Pulpit. I'm sure you could add to the list.

Then there is Queen Anne's Lace, with the little blood-red floweret in the middle. I had always heard that it was named for Henry VIII's wife Anne Boleyn, and the "drop of blood" was hers because he, well, beheaded her, you know. But wikipedia says it is for another Queen Anne, and the blood was from when she pricked her finger with a needle while making her "lace."

Such quaint names. Such pretty things. How wonderful our Father is, to have created flowers, not only for their usefulness, but for our enjoyment. The fragrance of the wildflowers is generally more delicate than that of their domesticated cousins. Your nose has to be "tuned in" to enjoy them. But what a delight, walking through a wood or along a roadside in the springtime, to catch the fragrance, then to look for the culprits, off the beaten path!

Evidently, flowers are important to people in general. Every state has its "own" flower. When my mother was in school (1930's), the state flower of Indiana was the zinnia. Somewhere along the line, they changed it to the peony. Or, as my grandmother, along with most country folks, called it, the "piney." She was so proud of her "piney bushes" in May. Flowers are even "national" sometimes. The Japanese have their Chrysanthemum throne. I'm sure there are others.

So, I've just been thinking about flowers. Maybe you can take a few minutes and think about flowers today, as well. And don't forget to thank your Father for sharing!

Darn cute.

...if I do say so m'self.

I was asked to make a couple of aprons for the church coffee shop, for the girls to wear at Sunday morning donut-time, and Wednesday night cafe. I used the same pattern for each, McCall's 5825.

Here we have a cheery print, reminiscent of coffee beans (?), and trimmed with a yellow swirly-pattern, like steam from your favorite mug:
Then I made one in a coffee-brown with white polka-dots, trimmed in red pindot:
Please do not tell me how much it reminds you of Minnie Mouse.

These are expertly modeled by Blackeyed Susan, whom I grabbed barely out of the shower to model these. I promised her I wouldn't show her face. (this disclaimer for my family, who for YEARS made fun of the fact that I cut off people's heads in all of my photos.)

I am also teaching tonight from the book A Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. My subject is Simplicity.

Let me quickly disabuse you of the notion that I was chosen to teach this because I Have It All Together.

Nuthin' could be further from the truth. But God has a sense of humor that way, doesn't He? As Charming says, "God is so BIZARRE! But then, would you want to serve a God that wasn't?"

Food for thought...

Little Bits

Forget-me-not pointed out that, even though I have been home from vacation for eleven days, my blog says that I am still "incommunicado." Truth is, I've just been busy.

Gotta tell ya', I am grateful today to be posting. Friday night, Alvin Fernald and I were sitting on the couch, watching tv, and he said, "the computer's smoking." He ran across and unplugged it. I hoped the whole CPU hadn't melted together in some nuclear-meltdown-thing, but we took a moment to thank the Lord that Alvin had noticed it. If we had been in another room, the house might have caught fire. Thank you, Lord, for guardian angels!

(by the way, Charming fixed the computer for $39.95-plus-tax. I love that man!)

Saturday didn't go as I thought it would. My plans for a quilt outing with my dear sister-in-law Robin had been scratched, and as Alvin was in a softball tournament and Blackeyed Susan went with Forget-me-not to said tournament, I figured to Spend The Day decluttering. No such luck. My day was a steady stream of Company, including my brother, whom we needed to do a major catch-up with. So, nothing much got done, but did a LOT of visiting.

Sunday night plan was fireworks! Our city's major week-long festival always ends with fireworks. Although you can go to the biggie meet-up place complete with porta-potties, we chose to go to our neighbor's church parking lot, where neighbor-husband's band was playing, cheap hot dogs to be bought, and the Church Bathrooms available. Good stuff. We've been before. But never before where the Sky Opened Up and looked like it would never stop. You know the kind of storm, where you are as dripping wet as you could ever get? Yeah, that's how it was. We tried to wait it out, but had to give up. It rained for quite a long time after that, tho' I thought I heard the fireworks display about 10:15 pm. But by that time we were dry and warm and KFC-bucketed and happy. And home.

Another instance of God's grace: In the car, driving home, Heat seemed like a good idea. But we found out the heater wasn't working. How cool to find that out in July, so you can get it fixed before you need it?

Other stuff is going on. I'm making two cute-as-pie aprons for the coffee shop at church. Quilting a quilt. Getting ready to teach the Ladies on Wednesday evening. Johnny Tremain and Lily are back home after two weeks away, so we'll be seeing their four kids. Charming has been off work for six weeks today. Tempers are shorten-ing due to the extended change-in-routine, but the Lord is teaching us about living Day to Day.

I hope I'm learning. It doesn't seem so, but I really want to bear the fruit of the Spirit in my life.
Don't ask my kids if I've done so. I may have, but I don't think it shows yet. So there's More Work to Do.

Oh. I forgot all about vacation and all the other cool stuff I've been thinking about. I guess I'll have to do a little more catching up with you.

Maybe tomorrow. Laundry is calling!

Incommunicado.

We are off this week to beautiful Lake Huron, up at the top of the "thumb" of Michigan.

We are not taking any computery stuff.

There is a tv in the cottage, but we turn its face to the wall while we're there.

(I'm sure Blackeyed Susan and Alvin Fernald will be texting their buddies, but no such dealie for Charming and me.)

So basically I'm incommunicado.

Joe Hardy is housesitting, and we'll be back late Thursday night.

See ya'!

Morning Glory.

July 2, 2009, 6:53 am. Sixty-two degrees.

I awoke to birds singing, and fresh, cool air breezing in my open windows. That old-time, "summer" smell.

Heaven!!

Many of you did not grow up in a time before air-conditioning. You may not know the art of blowing one fan "out" one window to bring in the breeze from the opposite side of the house. Sleeping on the floor, because it's cooler. My husband's home had a screened porch where they slept in the summer. Before I had a/c in my "married" home, my babies slept in the basement.

My daddy got air conditioning in the early 70's, and I grabbed onto that notion Im-Mediately. I am not a summer-lover: for me, June, July, and August are simply months to endure until fall. Charming bought me central air about fifteen years ago, and I've never looked back.

I admit I'm a wimp. I think about those southern belles, sweltering in long sleeves, long skirts, and CORSETS. Not even an electric fan to alleviate the misery. And I still don't understand going to Florida for summer vacation. Come on, people!

This week has been unusually mild (and low humidity) for Indiana for late June/early July. People around me complain, "hey, this is more like fall weather!" (yet, you should have heard them belly-aching just last week about the heat wave...) I have had my a/c off and the windows open. I have found that I miss the summer sounds and the summer smells, even tho' I do spend some of my mornings on the porch, hot or not. And it was especially noticeable this morning as I awoke.

It was a Glorious Morning, that bodes well for a Glorious Day. I am beginning to pack for our little vacation, for which we leave Sunday after church. We are going to Lake Huron (at the top of the "thumb" of Michigan) to spend four days with Charming's Dad and his wife. The cottage has no a/c, but that's okay--Lake Huron provides the a/c. And I sure wouldn't want to miss going to sleep and waking up to the sounds of the water. God always meets me there, from the early morning coffee time alone (I am usually the first up), to the incredible sunset-show every evening, each one seemingly better than the night before. Good fellowship, as well. Blackeyed Susan and Alvin Fernald are both in high school--our time left with them is short. We are blessed to have time away while Charming is off work (please, Lord, a job waiting for him on our return would be a great thing!), and time with his father and wife is a treasure.

I have errands to do today, but will spend as much of it outdoors as possible. Wishing you a "glory" day, as well!

Number Three on the List...

Violet and I keep a list of God's Five Greatest Gifts to Mankind. Violet always has five things on her list, but once in awhile, one gets bumped off in favor of another.

I, on the other hand, am the kind of person who, once the List is complete, wouldn't think of changing it. So, I have just now, today, added a number three.

I'm sure you are on the edge of your seat, wondering what holds places number one and two.
So here goes:

Number One: Indoor Plumbing.

I maintain that I am richer than Solomon in all his glory, because I have wonderful, albeit humble, bathrooms in my house. A full one, and an extra half-bath on the first floor. Sure, people in newer homes have like, four bedrooms and five bathrooms. Wouldn't our great-grandmothers roll over in their graves to think of more baths than bedrooms in a house?

Number Two: Chocolate.

Really, is any explanation necessary?

Number Three: Hardware Stores.

Now, this is not a new thought. I love, Love, LOVE hardware stores. And their big-brothers, the big-box home improvement stores. So many things you never even knew existed, all there begging you to take them home. And me not even knowing how much I really, really need them!

But right now, I'm talking about the regular ol' neighborhood hardware store.

This morning, I took my good scissors into the hardware store:

My mother bought me these scissors before I went to college. Her comment: Everybody needs a good pair of scissors; they will last you a lifetime. Of course, I knew about don't-use-fabric-scissors-on-paper-or-they-will-be-ruined. Throughout the years, I have kept and broken and kept and broken that rule a few dozen times. But they always sharpen up nicely.

Over the last couple of years, I found myself having to tighten the screw more and more often. Finally, no amount of screw-ing helped. That little screw was done Stripped.

I looked over all my cheapie scissors, thinking that I would steal a screw from one of them.

I found out that cheapie scissors are held together with rivets, not screws.

I looked online and found a place I could get a replacement screw. The screw was pretty cheap, but of course shipping costs would be involved, as well. So, I decided to try the Friendly Guys at the Local Hardware.

I asked for the Screw Expert. I didn't know if there would be some sort of Specialty Screw involved. After all, the screws in a pair of scissors don't just sit there, they are Moving All The Time. Turns out their screw expert was a teenaged girl. She took me back to the Screw Desk. (which was also the extra-house-or-car-key desk...) She began by working to get the old screw out. Fully five minutes later, this is what we had:

I don't think you can see very well. The best part of the screw shows that the threads are worn down to almost nothing; near the head of the screw, there are no threads at all--absolutely smooth. I *have* had the scissors for thirty-six years. I guess thirty-six years of faithful service should earn a guy a new screw, right?

So, to wrap up this long story, two employees took twenty-five minutes to finally narrow down six different screws (and a lock-washer) to one. That means fifty minutes of man-power. The final bill:

Fifteen cents.

(plus a penny tax.)

My scissors are happy.

So am I.

I love my hardware store.

Busy Summer...

...and it's still June!

My nephew Phil (far left) is off to Korea to help defend our freedom. It is such a blessing that his cousin Mike is already over there. Evidently they will be together a good deal of the time. (also in this photo: back: Johnny Tremain, cousin Derek [Mike's brother], and our own Laura Carrot. Front: Alvin Fernald)

Next we have my nephew Nate, and his lovely bride Sarah. It's just been Party Central this summer!

While in South Bend for Nathan's wedding, we stayed with Violet, whom you may remember is a dorm rector for a women's dorm at Notre Dame. We took a little Tour Down Memory Lane on Saturday: (Charming and I met there thirty-five years some time ago.)

Alvin decided that he would be the Travelocity Gnome Guy on the tour. Here he is in front of the Library (Touchdown Jesus, if you are a fan of ND football).

The Main Building (Golden Dome) is so, so beautiful. We went inside and saw the gorgeous murals. The a/c was set none too high, so we cut our tour a little short.

Next we have Alvin standing in front of Charming's old dorm room. There was a Definite Sales Presentation goin' on from Daddy to Son on this one.

Finally, a Dad/Son moment on the steps of the dorm.

We finished our day with a visit to Queen Darl, Charming's dear mother, always a treat!

This weekend, *I* get to stay home. HOORAY. I am going to redeem my time with rest, because we leave in another week for vacation. And, as every mother knows, vacation does not happen without a lot of Planning, Shopping, and Packing.

Sigh. I think I'm tired already just thinkin' about it. But, Oh The Joy when we finally get there!

Four Score and Seven Years Ago...

...my Daddy was born!

photo: Daddy and Alvin Fernald, 2007

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

So, so many stories I could tell you, of course, about a man born in nineteen-and-twenty-two (as his father would say). The time at twelve years old, on Halloween, putting an outhouse up on the roof of the bank building downtown. Going to the neighborhood grocer on Thursdays, with his dad's paycheck in hand. The grocer would "cash" the check, pay the family's bill for the week, and Daddy would leave with a handful of vanilla cremes the grocer put in his hand on the way out the door. It was Daddy's job to coax the furnace to life in the mornings. Then there was the time he woke up with inches of snow on top of his blanket. And on. And on.

He skipped his senior year of high school to care for his baby sister after his mother had surgery, then went back and graduated a year late. He married "the girl next door" at nineteen. Three months later was Pearl Harbor. He proudly served in the Army Air Force. When he came home, he began a forty-one year career at General Electric. Mom and Daddy's life had many joys as well as sorrows--he has nine children waiting for him in heaven, as well as his "pretty girl." For his fifty-year high school reunion he wrote a tiny biography, and called himself "a simple man, raising a family, married to the love of his life."

But of course, he didn't tell the whole story. How he is the ultimate in human role models for How to Be a Godly Man, and How to Live Your Life with Integrity. About Duty and Sacrificial Love and Fun. About how all you had to do was watch him awhile, and you could see the Father God's love shining through him.

And, of course, he could fix anything. And do anything.

Because he's my Daddy.

Beautiful.

During this growing season:

"Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it: Thou greatly enrichest it with the
river of God, which is full of water: Thou preparest them corn, when thou hast
so provided for it.

10Thou waterest the ridges thereof abundantly: Thou
settlest the furrows thereof: Thou makest it soft with showers: Thou blessest
the springing thereof.

11Thou crownest the year with thy goodness; and
thy paths drop fatness.

12 They drop upon the pastures of the
wilderness: and the little hills rejoice on every side.

13The pastures
are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout
for joy, they also sing." Psalms 65: 9-13

Nature all around us, tells us what the Lord is doing. And, Nature is rejoicing! Shouldn't we be rejoicing as well, at what the Lord is doing?

Playing with the Big Boys

I just love Monday nights this summer! Johnny Tremain, MacGuyver, Rocky Balboa, and Alvin Fernald are on our church softball team. Alvin is so excited, because the minimum age to play is fourteen, and, of course, he is.

Last night was the third "played" game (with one rained out). Alvin struggled the first two games--after all, he's never played softball before, and the rest of the guys were seasoned, and men.

He missed fielding a couple of balls, struck out a couple of times, "flied" out on others. But last night was Different. That boy was On His Game. He caught a line drive, foiled a run, and got two hits, one an RBI. He was also part of a double play, but later he told me that the second guy didn't quite get out. Oh, well. For this Mama, that didn't make no difference!

I would be remiss if I didn't tell you that my other two sons and son-in-law had exploits of their own. It seemed that they just couldn't miss catching a fly ball when it came their way. I'm not sure, but it seemed to me that my four boys are just about the best players that the game has ever seen!

[Why, yes, I DO need to sew four or five buttons back on my shirt, from bustin' with pride!]

On the sideline front, fifteen-month-old Oxford had his first taste of dirt. Like many of us, it will not make his list of fave foods. But Mommy Forget-me-not was there with water to wash it out, and grapes to take the bad taste away!

This morning, I watched three of Lily's, while she went to the homeschool used curriculum sale. I made the girls these Lazy Days Skirts: (click on the link for the free pattern)

(That is Laura Carrot on the left, and Sweet Pea on the right.) I didn't have the ribbon that the pattern called for, for the border, so I just used a contrasting fabric.

Charming has had yesterday and today off. The weather has been great, and it has been a relaxing, wonderful two days. If you read my other blog, you'll know that Charming is under a lot of pressure at work, and will probably be "downsized" this month. This "weekend" has been very therapeutic for us. Of course, any day filled with our children and grandchildren has got to be great, right?

Thinking.

I've been thinking again. Go check out my other blog!

Diamonds for Violet

What girl doesn't like diamonds?
I finished this quilt this weekend. In fact, the quilting took less than three weeks to complete--incredible!

I've got Blackeyed Susan trained. When I photograph my quilts, she knows to flip down the corner on the second shot, to show the backing:

This quilt is the third of four, exactly alike. Do you want to hear the story?

A number of years ago, I received a quilt my grandmother had made, of diamond shapes, all different. Forget-me-not really liked it, and used it on her bed. After a few weeks I could see that behaviors like sitting on it to put on your shoes, or dumping your schoolbooks on it on a regular basis would do more damage, more quickly than the years of normal used the quilt had seen in my grandmother's care. I told Forget-me-not that we'd have to put the quilt away; she complained, and I told her I would reproduce it for her.

My friend Kaybeautiful and I scoured our scrap bins for fabrics. Since we were not into quilting big-time yet, we only had scraps of things we had made for ourselves or for our children. I believe we needed about 265 different fabrics, and when we fell 'way short, we Started Shopping. That was the fun, fun, fun part. For about a year, we would pick up fabrics here and there. We cut four diamonds out of each fabric: one for her, and three for me (one quilt for each of my three daughters). If we were alone, we would mail them to each other, with little notes attached: "I liked the little figures in this one." "I know you like red!" and my favorite: PPPatP. (Paid Premium Price at Patchworks [the local quilt shop]."

As the months went by, I found out something about Kaybeautiful: she and I don't share the same fabric taste. Some of the fabrics I was most excited about, she would comment, "well, you always told me that there should be a few "uglies" in a quilt." And some of her favorites were, well, eeuuww--ugly. A few times we went shopping together: Kaybeautiful would bring a bolt over to me and say, "I know you'll love this, because I hate it!" (really, what happened is that we started choosing fabrics that we knew the other would like--it was Pretty Cool.)

So we finally collected all the diamonds. I cut the white muslin diamonds for all three of my quilts all at once, laid them out in a pleasing order, and began the first one. I completed it for Forget-me-not's high school graduation in 2000.

Sometime after that, our basement flooded, and the cardboard box I kept the diamonds in got soaked in eeuuww. So I had to handwash them and iron them. Fortunately, Forget-me-not's was already done, so I could figure out the order of the diamonds for the other two quilts.

I finished Blackeyed Susan's in the summer of 2005. So much for doing one a year for three years and done with it! And, as you can see, it is 2009 for Violet's.

One last thing. As you can see, the top and bottom border are zig-zagged. This makes for a weird feeling around your face. However, after I finished the first one, I took it to show my mother, and the first thing she said was, "now, THAT looks like a Grandma quilt!"

Success!

Wear Your Apron Day Fun!!

First of all, here is a photo of my sister's apron. She commented on the last post under the name Pinky Marie [apron modeled by Blackeyed Susan]:

My friend Kaybeautiful and I started our Apron Adventure by having a formal portrait taken. I made both of the aprons we wore. Kay's was a full-length in a teadyed blue toile thing. It was trimmed in black polka dots. I wore a half-apron in a cute 1930's blue, trimmed with red-on-white polka dots:

We took a walk in a nice woodsy place. I knew that most of the "spring" wildflowers would be gone, but we saw wild geranium, mayapples, and a tiny stand of trillium! (I hadn't seen trillium in years...

We then went to the grocery store to get fixin's for a chili dinner. Funny thing--everybody else evidently forgot it was Apron Day. Kay said, "they were all staring," but I said, "but nobody m*lested us!"

We came home and had coffee and tea in beautiful teacups (Kay=tea, Barbie=coffee). Kay decided to make snickerdoodles, but complained that her apron didn't go around far enough. "My grandma's aprons," she said, were Full-coverage things. When *I* bake, I like to wipe my wet hands on my [behind]." So I pulled this out for her to use:

This is the front, modeled my moi:

Charming and Kay's husband Mikey played music for us all afternoon. They enjoyed the cookies so much that they wrote a song for Kay--the Snickerdoodle Mama Blues. "She's my Snickerdoodle Mama.... " five verses full.

I knew I would have fun on Apron Day, but how much MORE fun to spend the day with a bestest girlfriend?

(By the way, Jen, I'll let you know about the aprons. I actually have a full apron *and* a half-apron made from the yellow bird fabric!)

Wear Your Apron Day!

Good morning! Today is

Wear Your Apron Day!!

I'm just makin' a little note here at the beginning of the day, because my friend Kaybeautiful is coming to see me from 100 miles away. When she gets here, I will post a pic of us in cutie aprons.

It's all about the Apron Love. To find out more about it, go on over to The Apronista!

What I'm Doing Today

remembering....my Mama, gone home these three years now. This lilac bush is from a cutting I took of one in her yard:

piecing...quilt squares by hand:

quilting...my Diamond Charm quilt. I love six needles moving across the quilt simultaneously, dimpling the surface:

meditating on...II Peter 1: 3-4:

"According as His divine power has given unto us all things that
pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that has called us
to glory and virtue:

Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises:
that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature..."

teaching....Algebra. Geometry. Biology. History. Literature. Loving it!

***********

going...to visit Daddy in the nursing home.

***********

thankful...for God's provision.

***********

needing...to trust Him more!

***********

bragging...on Joe Hardy, who is finally a SENIOR in college!

***********

listening...to dozens of sparrows in the ivy growing up the side of the house next door.

***********

reading...Eat for Health by Dr. Joel Fuhrman.

***********

wondering...how we got to be at the beginning of the recycling truck's route (5 a.m.!)

***********

changing...my bedsheets! Love fresh sheets.

***********

praying...for my children. Jobs. Relationships. Healing.

***********

cooking...lentil soup.

***********

loving...my dear Charming. I don't deserve him!

***********

cleaning...my sewing room.

***********

writing...a bio for Charming for his ministry packet.

***********

fixing...sweet tea with lime.

***********

looking...at the beginning of a gorgeous day outside!

***********

looking forward...to Violet's visit in a few days.

***********

yearning...to be conformed to the image of God's Son.

***********

Sounds like a busy day. Better get started!

My Great-Grandma's Quilt

This is a beautiful quilt that my grandmother had on her own bed for a number of years:
It was made in two sections. The sixteen middle squares looked very old, and were made of what I now know is "mourning prints" and black-and-white "shirtings:"

Then, in 1972 (as the back of the quilt is marked), my grandmother put a row of squares around the outside in what I am sure was an attempt at matching, but were of [horrid] polyester prints:

I am very afraid I judged her. And I had only just begun to learn to sew, and didn't know much about fabric myself! Of course, all-cotton prints were quite rare in 1972, the new "age of perma-press" and, my grandmother's *other* favorite fabric: Polyester Double-Knit. Now I know that it was the very best "match" she could find at the time.

Here is a close-up of the older portion. As you can see, the fabrics are fraying (grandma let us sit on her bed, etc. and the quilt shows the ravages of heavy usage):

I have to show you the back, as well. Grandma loved "novelty" fabrics, and she gave that love to me, as well. I have one of her quilts that is backed with a fabric with the words Sneak-ease all over. Later, I owned a pair of sneakers that were lined with that same fabric!

Here we have The Jungle Book (from the original movie release era). This fabric is repeated all over the back:

I received this quilt from my mother, who got it when Grandma broke up housekeeping. This is what she wrote:

"center section made by Great-Grandma Lee before 1955 [the year of her death, and my birth]. Outer border made by Grandma Plasterer 1972."

I had no idea that anything survived that was made by my great-grandmother (for whom I was named, as well!) I was thrilled beyond words to have this heirloom.

When I laid it across our bed to show Charming, he wanted to keep it there. He really liked the geometric black-and-whiteness of it. But the center section was fraying, and I knew we'd lose it entirely before too many years passed. So I told him that I would reproduce it sometime.

Fortunately, by then, quilt shops were carrying many reproduction prints, and I was able to get a number of them that are literally almost exact matches to the originals. As is typical of *me,* I usually have more ideas "cooking" than I have time to do. The fabrics I bought have dates from 1996 to 2000. But Now is the Time for me to begin this project.

I'm piecing this quilt by hand, as the original is. I have finished two squares:

I am Extremely Pleased with the results. This is going to be Fun. I will piece these squares as I am able, at home or while "waiting" for kids. It will probably take me several months to finish.

One more thing I wanted to share about this quilt. I looked up the pattern, and it is called Barbara Frietchie Star. Do you remember the poem? "Shoot if you must this old grey head/but leave your country's flag, she said." Read about her here.

******

My great-grandmother's name was Barbara. My name is Barbara. So I am going to name my quilt "Barbara Star." And I have let my children know that if any of my grandchildren or great-grandchildren are named after me, she will get the quilt.

******

But no pressure, kids.

Makin' Rosebuds

I promised you yesterday that I would show you this top:

It is the Rosebud Quilt from Quilts from the Quiltmaker's Gift. I bought fabrics similar to one of the versions in the book, oh, about five years ago. Somehow, when I took them out last week, I was not-so-enamoured of them as I was when I bought them. Maybe it's because I have made a number of quilts in the last five years, and maybe my taste/style/whatever is evolving.

Not to say that it isn't pretty, and like I said yesterday, I have "takers" for this, if I don't keep it. Here is a little bit closer up:

And I'm doing a little-bit-fancier thing for the border, which will maybe be a little-more-exciting, as well.

(you're not looking too closely at my points-matching technique, are you? Remember, my Quilting Motto is Finished is Better than Perfect....)

More later on this one!

Is There Any Old Business to Discuss?

Finished: my little doll quilt inspired by the fabulous department store in our town when I was growing up,W&D's:
and, from the Unfinished Projects File, this apron:

I had bought the fabric, thinking I'd make an apron celebrating Violet's college graduation. Yeah, that was

1997.

I had decided at that time that I wanted to make an apron for moi instead, so I stored the cut-out pieces and the bias-strips for the binding. For. Twelve. Years.

And, as most things like that work out, it just took me a wee bit o' time to finish it!

I have also finished the squares for a quilt for which I bought the fabric about five years ago. After "finding" it again, I decided that I wasn't as enamoured of the fabrics as I was then. But naturally Forget-me-not told me that she would "take it off my hands," if I can't find another recipient. (Forget-me-not is always willing to take a quilt off my hands, whether I want it or not!) I'll be putting the squares together this evening, and will take a photo of the top tomorrow, 'kay?

Hmmm. What next? Well, I don't know, but fer sure, there are a Number of Old Projects from which to choose!

4/21 Club Meets Today

Quick: Are you ready for the meeting of the 4/21 Club?

Alas, I am not a member. I can only look longingly from the sidelines.

The 4/21 Club is my family's sort-of-exclusive "club" for people born on April 21st. That would be, first of all, Charming's sister Katie, who is 52 today. Next comes my brother Mikey, coming in at 48. Next is my own dear son, Joe Hardy, coming in at the magic ***30***. Next, my brother Mikey's son, also Mikey, at 24. Finally, my great-nephew Connor, turning 5 today.

If you happen to be eligible to be a member, let me know. I'd love to add your name to the roster.

and, by the way, happy, Happy Birthday to my dear ones!

(now, off to Facebook all of them!)

Rest in Peace, Chuck.

I heard yesterday of the passing of a dear neighbor and friend, Chuck Crockett. (and yes, he was a direct descendant of the Davy-man.)

He was one of the pillars of the church--he was into his sixth decade of teaching Sunday School. For as long as I have known him, he taught fifth-graders, including four of mine. I have several friends in their forties who sat under his wonderful teaching.

He retired as a vice-president of a local bank, then went back to school to do what he really loved, landscaping. He had many contracts around town, and also cared for a gorgeous orchard with many heirloom fruit trees. He gave garden space to a number of families every year. We were invited often to pick apples and make cider.

His only son was born when he was sixty-four years old. Andrew is seventeen now, and, because of the blessing of homeschooling, he has worked side-by-side with his father since he could walk. Not a moment was wasted; his father had a *lifetime* to teach him how to be a godly man.

We thank the Lord that He let us know this man, one of the Greatest Generation. Not so many of those left in the church. It is a great loss for us, but Chuck ran his race so, so well, and now is Home.

Rest in peace, my friend.

Edited to add: I found out that Chuck was out at the barn in his orchard, working. When he sat down for a rest, he just Went Home. When our pastor asked his son Andrew if he had spoken to his father that morning, Andrew said yes, at family devotions. Isn't that the way we'd all like to go? What a blessing!