Time to Breathe

I can hardly comprehend that its the end of 2009. I haven't had a chance to write on my blog for a month and its stressing me out. This blog is like a friend who I can talk to and who keeps my life in print. I forget things now that I'm old (yes, 56 feels very old lately) and it is nice to have a place to come back and check on myself. Writing on a blog makes me think a bit harder about how I sound on paper instead of "I went to the grocery...I bought cat food". I like keeping a bit of myself that I can find at any time. No matter where I am I can just access a computer and there I am in cyberland.

So the world can see what I write...again, it keeps me on my toes.

I hope everyone who reads this has had a productive, happy and healthy 2009. I wish you a happy 2010. Let's all try to make ourselves and our world just a wee bit better every year.

Love,

me

"Dragon Chase"

I finished Chase's quilt and took it to his birthday celebration. He was, of course, excited about cake, ice cream and about a million new Lego pieces from the Lego store and an awesome Transformers chess set!

The quilt from me and the $$ from Poppie were appreciated but they will be more exciting the next time he is cold or broke. Its hard to go up against Lego's and Transformers. He is a really cool guy.

Happy Birthday, Chase!

Dragon Chase

My next quilt project is one for a grandson. I found fabric with large images that I can stitch. Its the first one I've tried without patchwork.

Ariana

My latest quilt has been named "Ariana". I made it for Tim & Doreen's daughter Corey who is expecting their first grandchild. The photo doesn't show it well, but there are little red hearts quilted into the white squares. I hope she likes it!

Page 25

After I bought a new book today, I turned to page 25 and inscribed my name, just as my mother had always done. Her fine, graceful strokes wrote out my whole name, long, taking up half the page. My handwriting has become rough and clumsy since my right arm was shattered and most times I shorten to initials.

Long ago, I'd come home from school and check the mailbox for the package from the book-a-month club, anxious for a new story and a new page to be autographed. Mother’s evenings were spent sewing or knitting so I would read aloud, shifting my voice to fit each character, lifting and falling with emotion and circumstance. I’d pause as I reached page 25, dragging a finger across the lovely blue letters, newly penned, spread like ivy near the binding of the page. My name looked magnificent, a tangible symbol of my mother’s pride. In the beginning it fell toward the back of the book but soon page 25 came early as my preference grew for thick books, full of descriptions and characters and far away places. Our lonely apartment could come alive with reference and imagination and mother and I would drift away, planning our own adventures.

We traveled, when I was grown, through Louis Lamour’s west and on Jack Kerouac’s highways, on rivers and oceans, hearing foreign tongues, matching stories and characters to places and people along our way.

I read silently now but I still write my name on page 25.

Kitchen Confessions

For the past week and a half I've tried writing about the kitchens I have known. It started as a writing exercise at the memoir workshop. We were to write our favorite and least favorite memory of the kitchen(s) where we grew up. I have had over four dozen kitchens in my lifetime and they all hold good and bad memories. The average for anyone my age would be eleven kitchens, holding that the "average" American moves every five years. Times have changed for my family and October marks the 17th anniversary in our present kitchen. Before our last move, I had never had stayed in one kitchen longer than 18 months. Sadly the current kitchen has been "under construction" for the past 17 years but if all the planets align and we keep our health, it may be finished in my lifetime.

I've started to write about these kitchens, the center of the universe of most homes. My mother loved to cook so we spent a lot of time there. I didn't have my own room for most of my childhood so it was where I did homework, worked on hobbies and played cards with my mom. My memoir, Kitchen Confessions, will be a collection of light and dark memories.

How about yours?

Quilting

I don't yet know what to name my newest quilt. It was designed for a little boy I have never met but I work with his grandfather and know John Michael will be an interesting and intelligent child.

This is the third quilt I have created this summer and fall. I sew them completely by hand and find the work enjoyable and relaxing. It's inspirational to go into a fabric shop and grab colors and fabrics that can become a piece of art.

This is also the first quilt in which I used templates to quilt the block. Each solid has a different design and then I just criss-crossed the nine patch squares.