Past, Present and Future!

Tonight is another Friday Night Sew In, hosted by the lovely Heidi at Handmade by Heidi!! I'm in the midst of packing for Thanksgiving travel, and cleaning house and picking up my eldest from college today, but I'm still going to make time to sew tonight! I've been in this sewing "frenzy" all week -- so tonight is the culminating event!! Accomplish something!!

And I've got a lovely array of projects to work on.  Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue!! :-D  LOL! No wedding quilts, thank goodness!   But a bit from the past, present and future, I think.

The something "old" and "borrowed" and "blue" is a LeMoyne Star quilt that a friend passed along to me to put together.  The blocks are made from original '30's fabrics, set in soft old unbleached muslin, a classic!  The blocks for the quilt top came to me nearly complete -- I'm in the process of assembling the last of the block pieces, making some 17 additional blocks to go with the 32 complete LeMoyne Stars and the 9 "criss-cross" blocks all with the vintage fabrics!

Knowing that I'm helping preserve the handwork of some dear lady from that earlier time is inspiring! Even the set-in pieces of the LeMoyne aren't nearly as aggravating as they usually would be! :-D

If I finish with this project (and I might, since I've been working on it the last couple of days), I'll move on to the present and work on my Circuit Rider quilt blocks.

I'm prepping a couple of fleur-de-lis blocks and I'll use a paper-cutting technique to make freezer paper templates for them, and  I'll wag out my little Bernina Deco for the Bible Block since I don't particularly enjoy hand embroidery.  (Weird, huh!?) :-)

The future project I want to work on  (if by some miracle I were to actually make it that far!! LOL) is Bonnie Hunter's (Quiltville!) latest mystery, "Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll!"   My fabric is picked out, and I'm excited about using up some stash.  The first mystery installment comes out today.

 

I read Bonnie's blog last night, and she shared that she'd learned of a fellow blogger who had taken her own life.  Nothing that was shared online indicated something like that was likely.  It was sad, shocking news for Bonnie.  I was thinking about that today as I chose my projects for the Friday Night Sew In....



So much of what we share on-line is authentic, real, nitty-gritty stuff.  Other times, we share what is on the surface because the hurts are too desperate for words or the situation too poignant to articulate in such a public forum.  In such circumstances, there is One who knows the real us, the one we cannot always share with the world -- or even with quilters who are among the most compassionate and giving people on earth.



It is to Him that the angels and the living creatures of Heaven sing in Revelation 4:8:

"Holy, holy, holy

is the Lord God Almighty,

who was, and is, and is to come."

Past, Present, and Future.  There's an old gospel song by Ira Stamphill that says,

I don’t know about tomorrow,

It may bring me poverty;
But the One Who feeds the sparrow,
Is the One Who stands by me.

And the path that be my portion,

May be through the flame or flood,

But His presence goes before me,

And I’m covered with His blood.

Many things about tomorrow,

I don’t seem to understand;

But I know Who holds tomorrow,

And I know Who holds my hand.

I need to learn to trust the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come with all of me -- my past, my present and my future, my quilts and hurts and all that I can and do share online -- and all that I cannot.

As you read posts today, say a prayer for those who write and those who read.  Lift them up to the One Who holds tomorrow and the One Who holds our hands. Remember them as you sew tonight with quilters all over the world during the Friday Night Sew In!

Blessings!

Our Time

I sometimes wonder if I was born in the right age! Just this past month I FINALLY succumbed to the dreaded cell-phone plan! With a daughter at college and two boys involved in Boy Scouts and athletics and youth group activities, it's probably long overdue.  I'm being dragged kicking and screaming into the modern age.

Ironic, since I'm (clearly) online. :-) That's different. :-D  LOL

But I daydream of earlier times.  I've been listening to audio books while I applique and quilt by hand, and  I'm currently in the 5th of the series of The Secret History of the Pink Carnation by Lauren Willig.  The books are a little bit mystery, a little bit spy novel, a little bit romance, cool history stuff from the early 1800's.  I love 'em!

I'm fascinated by the stories of those long-ago days.  Maybe that's why I'm drawn to reproduction fabrics.  I'm working on an English paper pieced tumbling blocks because of an antique quilt top I purchased on Ebay (would you believe I got it for $30, shipping and all!). 

Karen Witt from Reproduction Quilts took a look at the top when she was at our quilt show a couple of years ago.  She dated some of the fabrics as early as the 1830's.  Cool.  There are still bits of paper inside some of the blocks with a script from an earlier age.  I feel like I'm in the presense of that erstwhile quilter of long ago! :-)

Another ebay find was this antique broken dishes quilt top.  I'm saving half-square triangles as I "quick piece" blocks so I can do a quilt like this one.

And finally, there's this beauty, also from the 19th century.  The hand quilting is exquisite! and while I'm not (yet) inspired to make all those little Lemoyne Stars :-D -- they finish at 3 1/2 inches! --  I think the quilt is beautiful and I wonder about the maker.

All this fascination with the past and its quilters, though, is just that.  Would I give up my rotary cutter, or my immeasurable choice of fabric, or my sewing machines? or my internet, or my ELECTRICITY!!?? Probably not.

Mordecai, uncle to Queen Esther in Persia of old, told her "And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?" (Esther 4:14b)

We are all, invariably, in the here and now because that is where we are supposed to be! When Paul preached at Antioch he told them, "David had served God in his own generation."  (Acts 13:36a) Likewise, we are here to serve God in our own generation.

In this age of internet and cell phones and instant communication, you have to wonder if handmade (even if we use a machine! :-D) quilts have a point.  Of course they do! We are preserving what has gone before us, and continuing traditions that matter.  We are forging new ways to create and express and dream.  We are passing along art and beauty and faith for "such a time as this."

Aren't you glad this is your time!?
Blessings!

Legacy Quilting

My daughter, Emily, swears she will never be a legacy quilter.  I smile (secretly, I scoff!) -- because I remember very well my twenty-year-old-self's own secret list of "nevers" -- children, staying at home, being larger than a size 10...and here I am, some twenty-something years later doing all those things and more that I never dreaded nor dreamed.

My own mother was not a quilter. Her idea of a four-patch was four feedsacks sewn together to make a quilt top, handily and easily tied, then thrown on a bed, the grass, the clothesline, the potato bin...Nothing artsy-fartsy about that. Utilitarian, practical, simple.

I have in my possession the one pieced quilt she did, an Iowa Star with 6 or 7 inch blocks, made of scraps and teeny, tiny pieces...no wonder she didn't do another one!

She delighted in my quilting, though, even though she admitted she didn't understand it. (Cutting big pieces into little pieces and sewing them back together!?!? No way!) 

A couple of rows and a piece, so far

Before she passed away, I started to reproduce her quilt in my own Thimbleberries greens and reds and creams.  I couldn't find a pattern for it using diamonds to set it up like hers, so I had to draft my own.  I'm trying to hand piece mine, like Mom did hers, and it'll probably be years -- decades! -- before it's done and ready to pass along to Emily.

My piecing, in spite of nicely drafted templates and the flexibility of hand work, is quite imperfect.

So was Mom's, though, and it doesn't affect the beauty of the piece in any way.

The quilt is still servicable and beautiful and quaint and a piece of my Momma that I will cling to for the remainder of my days, even more so now that she is in the presence of the Lord.

In the church we often emphasize the need for "Titus 2" women -- those who teach the younger ones all the right ways of living -- and we certainly should be passing along those things to our daughters and neices and friends.

When I get "bogged down" trying to execute that admonition from Scripture, though, I turn to the love expert, John, who wrote in 1 John 1:1 -- "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched -- this we proclaim concerning the Word of life."

 

Much as I would like to be able to pass down ALL the wisdom of the ages to my Emily, I need only worry about what I have seen and heard and have touched....And while my quilting and my quilts are a great legacy to pass along, there's so much more.  So much more.

 

That loving and giving are the best things in life.  Nothing equals the comfort of a friend.  Hard work produces endorphins, a natural anti-depressant. :-)  Life is short, but what an unbelievable ride it can be!  Sometimes cake is the answer.  Just like Jeopardy, you have to ask the right questions.  "The LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD gives grace and glory; No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly." (Psalm 84:11)

 

And if she never quilts...? Well, there's those grandchildren she tells me she'll never have.  Like my momma before me, I just laugh.  We'll see, missy.  We'll see!!!

Blessings,

Mary Lou