Sewing with Grandma

Believe it or not, I have very little patience with sitting in front of a sewing machine. I can quilt and sew just about anything, but I get claustrophobic when stuck there for any amount of time. My Mama, on the other hand, is an avid quilter and loves every bit of it. She has designed and made amazing quilts for most of her 13 grandkids (its a little hard to keep up when that many are born in the space of 11 years), as well as full sized quilts for each of her 5 kids. Not to mention all of the others that she's made over the years.

So when she approached me and asked if her oldest Granddaughter might like some sewing lessons, I jumped at the opportunity!

They started last Summer, with my girl choosing the "what" (a quilt for her doll Mimi). She was able to pick through all of Grandma's fabrics and chose the entire color scheme and layout. In between holidays and school, there weren't very many opportunities to get it finished (a great disappointment, as it was intended to be a Christmas present for Mimi). But at last, the final day came, and the project was finished.

I'm so proud of my little one. She took to the craft like I should have known she would. We are a family of makers, after all. She did all of the stitching and stuck with it even when there were stitches that needed to be re-done. She even chose the thread colors and did the tying to hold it together.

These two are already trying to decide what their next sewing project will be, and none of us could be any happier with the arrangement.

Almost immediately after finishing the quilt, a box was found and Mimi got to open her gift, much to the amusement and delight of everyone present.

Lately

It has been a long, busy week. Lots of special moments captured, but no time taken to write here. It has all been -good- busy. Volunteering at school (I do this four afternoons a week now), housework and errands, music practice, church fellowship group (taco night every Wednesday!), yardwork, business planning, those two kids of mine both getting a Student of the Month award on the same day.

Oh, and doing taxes, there was that too.

And a certain Farmboy had a birthday yesterday which we celebrated with Cod and Roasted Broccoli and a "Party Rainbow Chip" cake, because no one in town had is favorite "Cherry Chip".

Life is full of blessings, and for that I am daily grateful.

Eyelets :: Flowering Currant :: Feathery :: Leafing Out :: Princess Play :: Mr. Robin Redbreast :: Breakfast Out :: Homegrown Asparagus :: First Firepit :: Playdate with Chocolate and Sprinkles :: Belgian Waffle with Strawberries, Ricotta, and Honey :: Doing Taxes :: All Boy :: My Sewing Basket :: Budding Lilac :: Alfresco :: Flowering Cherry :: Cuddling Furballs :: Lady's Mantle :: Mr. Rofous :: Kerria Japonica :: Flowering Plum Bush :: Self-Portrait with Rubber Boots, Tilled Garden, and Magnolia

A Place to Call My Own

The room that used to look like this, and then later like this, now looks a little more like this:

Yes, my 4 year old still sleeps in her crib. Why not? Its cozy, still plenty big for her small body, and it easily contains the menagerie of stuffed friends that keep her company at night. But I digress.

The other upstairs room, which used to look like this:

Now looks like this:

Can you even stand how much better it is now? I can't. I keep going into my new office, my very own room, and fiddling with projects and tweaking the arrangements on my shelves, and generally being happy that I finally did it.

The bouquet of hydrangeas were at my wedding. I'm not usually one to decorate with dead flowers, but I just can't bring myself to throw these onto the compost pile. They were vibrant and fresh that day, and although their new-ness has faded, they have become more lovely with time. A good metaphor for our marriage.

I finally moved the kids into a room together (they love it, by the way), ignoring my un-founded fears that they would be sleep deprived and too crowded for comfort. I shared a smaller room with TWO siblings when I was that age, and it certainly didn't hurt me.

I do feel a little greedy, taking over an entire room for my office space, but it is my house, after all. Those little people are just borrowing space until they are grown up and ready to face the world. Might as well start teaching them to share and get along with each other first.

 

And having the space in which to be inspired and write and create and design and sew has been a very long time coming.

The other side of the room still needs some serious help. But for now I am content. No more setting the sewing machine up on my dining room table then putting everything away before dinner. Now it can stay plugged in and be at-the-ready continually.

And hopefully very soon, she will have a fancy printer as companion, and I won't have to make multiple trips to town each week to fill pattern orders.

This here is a little celebratory wallpaper for you to use if you like. Just click to enlarge, then right-click to save to your computer. For your personal use only, please.

Sampler Apron

A few weeks ago, I mentioned my friend Nora and her sewing skills. You may not have noticed, because I sort of sandwiched her in between a clip of me making it onto the local news and a picture of a fire in my new woodstove.

Nora is really, really good with a sewing machine. I mean really good. Not only can she sew, she also listens and interprets well. After a few sessions of helping her set up her etsy shop and talking with her about launching her online business, and complaining about the number of aprons in my closet that don't get used because there's one thing or another about them that I don't like... she went home with my ugliest (but most perfectly shaped) apron and some bits of fabric from my stash.

A few days later, she gave me this:

Thee most perfect apron ever, I tell you.

And double-sided even.

Perfect fabric (too bad both are now out of print, or else she would make one for you too),

perfect shape, perfectly long ties that can wrap around to the front if I so choose, and look at the detail she intuitively added just for me.

Little x's all around the edge? Oh yes, please!

If you have some favorite fabric in your stash and a favorite apron that you want knocked off, Nora is your woman. Tell her I sent you!

PS. The pan I'm holding is full of homemade hamburger buns, a revelation that you simply must try. I'll get around to posting the recipe soon, promise.

PSS. Windham Williamsburg Sampler and  Moda Blackbird Designs Beach House are the fabric lines. Both lines need to be resurrected, don't you think?

My Working Pin Cushion

I glanced down at the counter this morning, as I poured my first cup of coffee, and was struck by how artistic my poor, messy little working pin cushion looked.

I put her to good use yesterday, as I dug into a sewing project.

At one point, I had my mouth absolutely stuffed full of pins, had my foot on the treadle with machine needle whirring, and had to intervene in a small kid argument (yes, they DO squabble, despite their angelic faces). I thought I was going to choke on a pin.

And I suddenly had a flashback of my Mama, with a mouth full of pins, scolding us kids for some infraction, and barely being able to understand a word of what she said. But the emotion conveyed was crystal clear, and we knew we were in trouble if we didn't stopitrightnow!

I wonder how many of my grandmothers and great-grandmothers were caught with a mouth full of pins when they had children to scold.

My working pincushion isn't anything fancy. Its a somewhat vintage tomato that had lost its strawberry. I long ago replaced the strawberry with one of my own making and attached the pair to a wooden base, adding a fringe of linen scrap for decoration.

The amazingly tiny sampler scissor fob was stitched by Patti. I kept losing it (and the attached scissors), so I hung it from the cushion, where it now lives in plain sight so that I can enjoy it and have a place for keeping my working needles separate from the pins.

The giant needle was my Grandmother's. I have no idea what project she used it for, but I find it handy for keeping scissors corralled.

And a little present for you... this final picture has been especially sized to use as wallpaper on a widescreen monitor. It is free for your personal use. Simply click to enlarge, then save to your computer & enjoy!

And by all means, I REALLY LOVE TO READ YOUR COMMENTS... if you have a mouth-full-of-pins or pin cushion story to share, I would love to hear it.