Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day!  May your remembering be bright, breezy, and as colorful as this beautiful Monday.  It never ceases to stir me to see the new flag placed by a veteran next to my father's grave and as I look out over the cemetery to see others flying, marking other graves of those who also served.  I am proud of you, Dad, for this and for so many other reasons.  And I still miss you...every, every day.

Buttons

Spring cleaning the attic unearthed a box of old jars that once sat on shelves lining a back wall of our old country home kitchen, from a time that now seems another life.  Not quite done looking at this luminescent blue Mason jar (dated 1848), I filled it with some yard sale vintage buttons and perched it on the window sill next to my sewing machine.  I really do love buttons, and this jar adds to an ever-growing stash.  Lately, I have been attaching vintage buttons to my knitting, like these white ones that went on this lovely little baby sweater, I made for a silent auction at church

The quirky, big, bright, unique ones have landed on a stack of button headbands I have been knitting for Christmas giving.  I bought some discounted Plymouth yarn (Sin City and Europa Tweed) and used a free online pattern to knit my way through the yarn and my button tins and jars.

The pattern is pretty simple:   You simply cast on 64 stitches, choose to knit in a k2 p2 rib or seed stitch, knit in the round for 3 inches and bind off. The little band that goes around the head band is a 5 inch strip of 8 stitches (garter or seed stitch) which you secure around the head band to crimp it a bit.
I used a 10.5, 16 inch circular needle.

And then the fun continues--you secure the band with a button!

And oh my, I have such wonderful ones to choose from!  I just read that one way to tie a quilt for binding is to attach a button.  Well, that certainly seems like a good idea to me.

A Disappearing 9-Patch Holiday Quilt

The quilts our sewing group sew for Lutheran World Relief are constructed within a few prescribed perimeters--they must be 60 X 80" and not contain any materials that suggest either religious or patriotic messages.  Our group interprets that to mean no fabric with Christmas or Fourth of July type images or design.  We do, however, get donated fabric that is clearly Christmas and other holiday themed and most recently, some kind parishioner even cut 11" squares (which we delight to receive) out of fabrics that while lovely were definitely Christmas and patriotic.

 

A while ago, I saw this pattern, A Disappearing 9-Patch technique that seemed like an easy-to-do, fun thing to try; hese patches presented the perfect time to experiment.  Since we can't use this quilt for Lutheran World Relief and since we are asked each Fall to give a Silent Auction item for the CROP Walk Silent Auction, using these squares for a quilt top for that purpose seemed like a good use of that fabric and my time.  So here it is...

The patches above (and more--a total of 5 group of 9 or 45 squares) were sewn together.

Then, each large square of 9 patches is cut in the middle, both ways (see above link for a good description of that) and arranged in any way you like.   This is a great method and quick way to make a different pattern from groupings of patches!

I may just have to make another one now for us or someone else.

May

 May brings flowers of varied hue, fresh green grass, and outdoor fun of all kinds.

After the winter just passed, this Spring and this May seem especially beautiful and especially welcome.  It has been a Nana intensive spell for me.  We spent almost a week in NC caring for our grandsons, while their mother and father took a well deserved break for some couple time on the West coast.  Both Jim and I have renewed appreciation for the juggling act and stamina required to raise children.  We managed to hold down the fort (although not always with energy or aplomb), making memories for us all; our boys are magnificent.

Yesterday, I made the trek to spend a day with our magical granddaughter, which made it a three for three grandchild week, truly a rare treat (why can't we just all live in the same town the way it is supposed to be!).  We did a lot of drawing, one of her favorite pastimes of late.

This weekend is graduation day here at Penn State, and our town bustles and bursts. Tomorrow, of course, is Mother's Day.  Rarely does a day go by, that I don't think of and miss my mother.  During times like last week, when I am immersed in my role as Nana, I recall Mom at the same time in her life (and my Grandma Herman) and wish for a conversation about those days when she was doing what I am doing now.  A different lens offers one a different perspective.

Today, I am off to a baby shower celebrating a new mom-to-be.   Life begins anew in more ways than one this May.

Happy May!  Happy Mother's Day!

That Nasty Nemesis

I dyed a big pink streak in my hair this week, a pretty randy gesture for this 60-something Nana.  Dying my hair is new for me (just never started) and dying it pink is really quite afar from my style and comfort zone.  Younger friends call it "hip" or "punk," neither adjectives generally ascribed to me nor desired by me.  But following a fashion or trend is not the reason I did it.  

A friend from church, a fellow teacher, a mother to two teenaged girls, and a strong beautiful woman is waging war against a rather virulent form of breast cancer.  I know a little bit about that nemesis who once visited me uninvited.  I was fortunate in that fight, the treatment was clear, defined, and successful.  Her battle may not be as easy, I fear.  She began five months of chemotherapy last week. She shaved her head this week to beat cancer to that punch; I admire that.

Her daughters streaked their hair and invited a few of us to do the same.  So I did, without hesitation.  The pink still jolts me a bit, and choosing what color to wear challenges me, but Mardi comes to mind every time I look in the mirror, and the comments this pink swoosh invite allow me to build awareness for this dreadful disease.

In addition to hair dye, I employed tools much more comfortable to me--my knitting needles.  I know the changes in body temperatures and fatigue that cancer treatment can wrought and a light, cotton summer shawl seemed in order for Mardi.  I used Cynthia's Make a Million Shawl pattern, the easy garter stitch version, and picked out this yummy yarn at her yarn store in Pine Grove Mills.  I delivered it this morning with my love and prayer for strength, comfort, and healing.

Mardi, her hair shorn but her eyes and smile as bright as ever, looked beautiful, her shoulders wrapped in it.  In those seemingly impossible situations when we stand by so helplessly, even small gestures matter...I know they do.

Happy Easter!

Holy Week Hope

Holy Week, that solemn reflective walk toward Easter, is upon us, and the church calendar is filled with services from Palm Sunday to Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  Yesterday, our church held a Holy Week service of different ilk--Spirituals, Prophecies, and Songs:  A Celebration of Hope.  Our amazing musical director organized and directed an ecumenical concert of choirs, bells, dance, and instrument, giving voice to hope-giving, life-affirming songs born of the suffering of our African American brothers and sisters. It was a spirit-moving evening unlike any I have attended during Easter week. After it was over, someone, who knows her fair share of sorrow, exclaimed, "I am now ready for Easter!"

As part of this orchestration of music and dance, our sewing group was asked to coordinate a quilt exhibit.  Legend and lore has it that abolitionists employed symbols as code sewn into quilts to help signal safe passage on the underground railroad, thus the connection between spirituals and quilts.  Our group was pleased to include the visual art of quilting into the this celebration.  

We put out a call for quilts that held family history and story.  The response was enthusiastic, over 50 quilts spanning the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries were promised for our display.   Yesterday, we spent hours of aesthetic and tactile joy, arranging these fabric artifacts on quilt stands around our church, their stories clothes-pinned to their tops.

The artistry and craftwomanship was amazing!   Beautiful embroidery and appliqué

as well as incredible piecing and hand stitching.

 The stories told by these family heirlooms and artifacts were truly touching:

a granddaughter's year in Germany...

a son's struggle with MS and a friend's battle with breast cancer...

a quilt with historical significance for our parish, made by the wife of Dr. John Harkins, a former pastor who served Grace Lutheran for 38 years, from 1918 until 1956.  

Our sewing group displayed our in-process collection of two dozen quilts we are making for Lutheran World Relief, coverings destined for people in need wherever that need may exist or arise.

In times of sorrow, art (in whatever form it might take--music, song, dance, painting or fabric) has the power to transport and transform, recasting toil and strife into strength, hope and faith.  In the midst of our Easter journey this week, it is good to pause, listen and look in reaffirmation of where ultimately our hope and future lie.