Chain Stitches
I haven't quilted in years. I haven't cross stitched but once this past year. I have started to crochet again but the interest wanes and fades after a while due to many interuptions of tending house and family.
I keep thinking once Steven gets a little older how I can indulge myself. Being able to sit a few hours at a time marking the day with stitches in one project or another.
My house is not adorned with anything I have ever crafted. I seem to give them away as gifts instead of making and keeping treasures for myself.
I want to quilt again. I want to set up a huge quilting frame and I want to create art with my colored threads. Right now I just don't have the time. Steven is underfoot. I can't seem to get him entertained long enough to even look at fabric swatches.
One day I will quilt again. The desire is very very strong right now.
It is so strong that when I went to the library I stumbled on a series of fiction novels that center around heritage, genealogy, cooking and the handed down art of quilting. The symbolism, the desire to create beauty from things from the past, appeals to me greatly right now.
This weekend I have finished reading four novels.
The Christmas Quilt.
The Quilter's Legacy.
The Sugar Camp Quilt.
The Runaway Quilt.
There are several more of these books. For now these have cooled my want to quilt.
One day I will quilt again.
*****
After two years of being frugal and completely unwilling to pay $60+ for a small fig tree I feel as if this weekend I have succeed finally in my wishes.
I purchased 3 fig trees (under $10 each) for my orchard.
I also purchased blueberry bushes.
I have everything I need to begin starting my seeds for my garden.
I worry that the temperatures will linger in the lows and it will not be warm enough until well past the April 15th frost date for our region to actually plant.
Last summer the monsoons we suffered which flooded DC pretty much drowned most of my gardens. I had NOTHING to harvest but the fruit from my orchard in early fall.
This year I have great plans for my garden. I even hope to be able to try my hand at a heritage tomato that is snowball white in color.
*****
Quilting and gardening might be how I spend my spring and summer.
I would LOVE to quilt, but I honestly do not think I could devot enough time to it. We garden also; how I love to garden! (Except the weeding sucks.)
Angie, I agree. Quilting is such a fabulous thing to pass down.
Jeff's Mother quilts. She makes such nice keepsakes. All the kids got a nice "wedding" quilts. We cherish ours so much.
Casey got 2 baby quilts when she was born and she's going to start working on one for Kyle for his new teenage room.
I love hearing about your garden and orchard.
Angie, I agree. Quilting is such a fabulous thing to pass down.
Jeff's Mother quilts. She makes such nice keepsakes. All the kids got a nice "wedding" quilts. We cherish ours so much.
Casey got 2 baby quilts when she was born and she's going to start working on one for Kyle for his new teenage room.
I love hearing about your garden and orchard.
Angie, I agree. Quilting is such a fabulous thing to pass down.
Jeff's Mother quilts. She makes such nice keepsakes. All the kids got a nice "wedding" quilts. We cherish ours so much.
Casey got 2 baby quilts when she was born and she's going to start working on one for Kyle for his new teenage room.
I love hearing about your garden and orchard.
Quilting and gardening sounds perfect.
My great-grandmother quilted, she passed it on to my grandmother who taught my aunt who taught my cousin. I was completely left out of the chain. There are many times I wished I knew how but never more than the time last summer while cleaning out my garage, I found a big box of unfinished quilts great-grandma left my dad when she died. I really need to find something to do with them.
You have to get the quiltmakers gift and read it with steven - gracie will love it too - its a wonderful story and beautifully illustrated and there is a quiltmakers gift companion to make the quilts in the book and even fabric now...
Earlene Fowler and Jennifer Chaveralini(I can't spell) both good quilt novilist -some of the books you listed are by one of them!!
:)_
You have to get the quiltmakers gift and read it with steven - gracie will love it too - its a wonderful story and beautifully illustrated and there is a quiltmakers gift companion to make the quilts in the book and even fabric now...
Earlene Fowler and Jennifer Chaveralini(I can't spell) both good quilt novilist -some of the books you listed are by one of them!!
:)_
I have so many knitting projects to finish/start. And everyone else gets in the way of me making my stitches.
I'm jealous of your fig tree. I want one too. My great grandparents had one. My great grandmother made fantastic fig preserves. I'm pretty sure my grandmother took a cutting from their fig tree after my great grandparents passed.
Have you read Earlene Fowler's series of mysteries: Fool's Puzzle, Irish Chain, Kansas Troubles...and so on? There are 10 books in the series now.
A white tomato? I never heard of such a thing.
I have some quilts made by my great-grandmother, but I have never wanted to make them. I admire those who do!
A white tomato? I never heard of such a thing.
I have some quilts made by my great-grandmother, but I have never wanted to make them. I admire those who do!