We spent most of the summer de-cluttering the house. I bought this house 5 years ago from my parents who by the way had 6 children...not just me. We all grew up here, so in every corner of the house there are little snippets of everyone's world. Someday I will post about all the treasures I have found, but for today I want to tell you about one. Although I learned to sew at the age of 7 from my Mom, I learned to quilt at the age of 10 from Mrs. McKenzie, a lady who was teaching all the girls at our church to quilt. We went, every Sunday, to her house to work on our crazy quilts. Over time, I learned to do more and more by reading on my own, and I made quilts for several of my nieces and nephews, one for myself and one for my parents the year they both had to have heart surgery. After every quilt my Mom saw me make, she would say, "I wish I knew how to quilt". All those years of sewing with me at her foot pedal and she had never learned to quilt. So one year she was out to B.C. to visit me while I was expecting and she asked me to show her how to quilt. So I found a very easy pattern and we started. We picked blue (both of our favourite colour), one solid and one with tiny pink flowers on it. I showed her some rotary cutting, block placement, the order to sew it up in and how to match corners etc. After she left, we didn't speak of it much until I found out that my baby would be a girl she said then that this quilt would be for her. We never talked about it again. I thought that she just had lost interest. I moved home when my daughter was 4, my Mom died a year and one week later. Last month while I was cleaning the basement I opened a box to find the quilt! She had completed the top, picked a pink backing fabric and layered it with a crib sized batting. I never had the chance to show her how to do the quilting or binding part. In fact I hadn't touched quilting since the one I made for them during their heart surgeries. There is just too much emotion in quilting for me some times and I need to let go for a while. But this little find has brought me back. It NEEDS to be finished! It deserves to be finished. And my daughter (who is now 9) WANTS it to be finished! So, this weekend while I was missing my babies, my beautiful Hubby brought me to our boat to find some peace. And there, I stitched, with Mom's needles, Mom's thread and Mom's hoop. And somewhere between missing my babies and missing my Mom I found peace in the stitches.
We spent most of the summer de-cluttering the house. I bought this house 5 years ago from my parents who by the way had 6 children...not just me. We all grew up here, so in every corner of the house there are little snippets of everyone's world. Someday I will post about all the treasures I have found, but for today I want to tell you about one. Although I learned to sew at the age of 7 from my Mom, I learned to quilt at the age of 10 from Mrs. McKenzie, a lady who was teaching all the girls at our church to quilt. We went, every Sunday, to her house to work on our crazy quilts. Over time, I learned to do more and more by reading on my own, and I made quilts for several of my nieces and nephews, one for myself and one for my parents the year they both had to have heart surgery. After every quilt my Mom saw me make, she would say, "I wish I knew how to quilt". All those years of sewing with me at her foot pedal and she had never learned to quilt. So one year she was out to B.C. to visit me while I was expecting and she asked me to show her how to quilt. So I found a very easy pattern and we started. We picked blue (both of our favourite colour), one solid and one with tiny pink flowers on it. I showed her some rotary cutting, block placement, the order to sew it up in and how to match corners etc. After she left, we didn't speak of it much until I found out that my baby would be a girl she said then that this quilt would be for her. We never talked about it again. I thought that she just had lost interest. I moved home when my daughter was 4, my Mom died a year and one week later. Last month while I was cleaning the basement I opened a box to find the quilt! She had completed the top, picked a pink backing fabric and layered it with a crib sized batting. I never had the chance to show her how to do the quilting or binding part. In fact I hadn't touched quilting since the one I made for them during their heart surgeries. There is just too much emotion in quilting for me some times and I need to let go for a while. But this little find has brought me back. It NEEDS to be finished! It deserves to be finished. And my daughter (who is now 9) WANTS it to be finished! So, this weekend while I was missing my babies, my beautiful Hubby brought me to our boat to find some peace. And there, I stitched, with Mom's needles, Mom's thread and Mom's hoop. And somewhere between missing my babies and missing my Mom I found peace in the stitches.
