Following a Thread

Years ago I claimed one corner of the family room as a sewing corner. I hung a few things on the wall, including a counted thread pattern that came from my paternal grandmother. I put the yellowed newsprint in an inexpensive frame and never thought much more about it. The other day I took it down while dusting and found a story. My grandparents lost a farm during the Depression and my grandfather died around 1940. Though it all my grandmother raised three healthy children. She was loving, kind, and very frugal. She used a magnifying glass to count stitches in photos of needlework so she could stitch the design without buying the pattern. When I looked carefully at this pattern, I found numbers Grandma had penciled near the embroidery key.

This pattern was written in German and published by the J. Wiehller Company of Berlin. The title, "Dumpfaffen" means "old world finch." The color key directs the birds be stitched in red, gray, and browns, making them similar to the purple finches in my yard. I began to wonder if Grandma inherited the pattern from her mother, Agatha. Grandma didn't buy many patterns. Perhaps my great grandmother brought it to Nebraska when she immigrated from Prussia in the late 1800's. She was 18 or 19 years old when she came with her parents. 

I gave up dusting and searched for notes I made while having a conversation with my aunt and two of her cousins, three Agatha's granddaughters. They have passed away so I can't ask them about this pattern. However my notes reminded me that Agatha learned advanced sewing skills and hat trimming while still in Prussia. She stayed in Marienburg, away from her family, for six weeks to learn those skills. Rumor has it that while she was there, she pierced her ears and learned to dance, quite a statement by a young Mennonite girl in Prussia. These ladies were quick to add that these were only rumors and no one knew for sure if they were true. Regardless, my great grandmother liked to make things. She also loved music and composed at least one piano piece. Her four sons sang as a quartet. Her daughters pooled money to buy a piano for the family. The three ladies I visited with remembered Agatha often sang to her grandchildren as I sing to mine. As a purple finch lands on the bird feeder, I wonder if Agatha liked to watch the birds. 

I am a saver of old family stuff. Sometimes I look around and wonder why I save it. I want my children to take only things they want. Stuff accumulates, makes clutter, and takes up space. For me, the stories that go with the stuff are more important. I am writing some of the stories and putting them in a notebook. They won't take up much space. As I followed the thread of this story, I finished a shawl. Maybe I'll dust another day. 

Once Upon a Quilt

Once upon the 1980's, I made each of my children a Christmas Quilt. These were not small wallhangings but quilts for their twin beds. Both of the quilts were hand pieced and hand quilted. How I hand quilted bed sized quilts with two young children is a bit of a mystery. At the time, I enjoyed quilting as much as I now enjoy knitting. I finished Kate's quilt in 1986 and Aaron's quilt a few years later. Kate's quilt is made of alternating blocks of Christmas motifs and those cut from a cranberry red print. Many of the Christmas motifs came from a coloring book and others from assorted quilt magazines. As I recall, we chose some of them together. I embroidered, pieced, and appliquéd figures from the nativity, a Santa, a reindeer, a candy cane and more. Each year, we got out the quilts after Thanksgiving and put them on the beds. Then both of our children grew up and the quilts, wrapped in clean sheets, were stored in the linen closet.

Last December, Kate and family were visiting. I got out her Christmas quilt. She and her oldest little guy wrapped up in the quilt. I sent it home with them. Now the quilt spends December and most of January on E's bed. His favorite block is the one with a jingle bell at the end of the long hat atop an elf mailing a letter to Santa. After Christmas last year, I walked into their home and E. came running toward me with the jingle bell. He handed me the bell and remarked, "It is all my fault." I assured him, the bell coming off was nothing to worry about and quickly sewed it back on.

This year the quilt came out again. Kate, being a thoughtful mother and daughter, explained how Grammy sewed the quilt with fabric and thread. E. loves to look at the quilt and find the jingle bell, the fuzzy sheep, the candy cane with a ribbon, the star, and more. As Kate asked me this year, "Did you ever think that when you made this quilt, that thirty years later there would be a little boy who would get so much joy from it?" The answer to her question is, "No I wasn't thinking about grandchildren." I did hope my children would look forward to getting out Christmas quilts through the years and I think that despite, their sometimes harried mother, they did.

This quilt story hasn't come to an end because E. has a younger brother who is fourteen months old. E. also thinks the Christmas quilt belongs on his bed. So I have begun again. I haven't done much quilting in the last few years but I still have my supplies. Thank goodness I saved the coloring book and most of the patterns. In the quilting archive, I located a set of red and green quilt blocks made but never sewed together. Now they will be a Christmas Quilt for M. After I finish the motifs, I will machine piece the quilt top, add borders, and have the quilt machine quilted by a local woman. If I tried to hand quilt it, M. might have children of his own before the quilt is finished. Five blocks are stacked in a basket with quite a few more to go. Once upon a new Christmas quilt, . . . The End.

Handmade Books from Mom's Carbon Copy Trick

My brothers, sister, and I went to college in the days before personal computers and cell phones. Tablets were made of paper. When I wanted to call my parents, I went down to the lobby of the dorm and put coins into a pay telephone in order to call collect and reverse the charges. In those days, hand written letters were a special treat. Mom wrote weekly. Since I was the oldest, I was the first to trundle off to college. As my sister and brothers left home, Mom put carbon paper between paper so she could type and send the same letter to all of us. She referred to this as her "carbon copy trick." Often these letters began with a poem she had composed. She wrote in rhyme about ordinary and funny things that happened to her. One of my favorite poems is the tale of how she accidentally locked herself into the dog kennel over the noon hour, climbed onto the top of the dog house, and jumped out with nary a bruise or broken bone. As my sister-in-law said, "that could have gone so wrong," but it didn't.

My sister and I saved quite a few of the poems so I decided to transcribe them and make them into a book for my siblings and their children. I enjoyed arranging and formatting her poems into book pages. My printer prints only one-sided pages so I transcribed the poems and then copied them into landscape orientation. I printed those pages and used old-fashioned cut and paste to arrange them in booklet order. Next I printed the pages on resume paper and folded them into two signatures. I used some variation of a pamphlet stitch to sew the signatures together and then attached them to a cover with a variation of the three hole pamphlet stitch. I improvised with stitching so don't ask me exactly how I did it. As my grandmother would say, I stitched "by hook and by crook."

I experimented with the cover which I wanted to look like an envelope. I used art paper designed for charcoals and pastels and tore a booklet sized strip. First I folded up the bottom of the strip lengthwise to make a pocket. Then I folded that strip twice to simulate an envelope. I folded one side flap into a triangle and made a slit for the point. I tucked informal photos of Mom with the recipient into the pocket and tied a ribbon around the entire booklet. Then I made eleven copies, one for each sibling as well as my children, nieces, and nephew.

Like anything crafted by hand, the booklets are not perfect. I found a few typographical errors before I handed them out. However Mom would not have cared. I loved rereading and working with her poems. She had a great sense of humor, especially about herself. Whether she was whipping cream for the infamous orange torte or walking her black lab in the snow, she enjoyed life. Her personality shines through the poems and I wanted my family to have copies. I handed them out to most of my family last weekend. We enjoyed soup, semmel (a German Mennonite hard roll, recipe from my Dad's family), conversation, family stories, and laughter. Life is good.

Happy Zinnias

Weekend temperatures are predicted to range between 39 and 55 degrees. I plan to finish a few outdoors chores on these cooler days. Hopefully, the zinnias, roses, and a few sprigs of lavender will continue to bloom in my yard for another week or so. If not, I will let them go. I rarely cover flowers but let nature have her way with frost.

 I planted zinnias because the bright flowers require little work but bloom all summer. For example, I planned to thin the plants but never did so. The zinnias didn't seem to mind. After one summer storm with wind, my husband and I were staking up tomato plants. Since the zinnias had also blown over, we wrapped twine around the flowers and two short stakes at either end of the plants to bring them back to an upright position. The hearty flowers never stopped blooming and grew even taller. Perhaps the closely planted stalks support each other in the wind.

Zinnias also remind me of my Mom. She struggled to grow vegetables and flowers in the hard clay soil around our home. She liked zinnias and frequently planted them. If I remember correctly, they were one of the flowers that thrived and bloomed. Toward the end of her life, Mom had a stand of red zinnias. After she passed away, I found a jar of zinnia seeds on an old table where she kept plants and gardening things. On the top of the jar, was a piece of masking tape with my name. She must have picked the seed heads early in the Fall before she got sick. On a sad dreary day, I took those seeds home and planted them in my garden. Twice I gathered red zinnia seeds and replanted them the following Spring. Then because red zinnias made me sad, I quit gathering the seeds. Eight or nine years have passed.

This year when I selected cucumber seeds at the garden center, the pictures of zinnias on seed packets tugged at my heart. I purchased and planted a packet of a large multicolored variety. The bright colors made pretty summer bouquets for several family dinners. In September, I put some in a Mason Jar and tied bright ribbon around the jar for my grandson's third birthday party. My sister remarked on the bright flowers and we talked a minute about Mom. Earlier this week I picked another bouquet of zinnias. My daughter, Kate says the flowers look happy. She is right. These zinnias make me happy and my Mom would have loved them.

Sharing Summer's Bounty

Summer weather with rain in June and seasonable heat in July and August produced a great crop of tomatoes and herbs. I've harvested chives, basil, oregano, sage, oregano, and lavender from the bed of herbs next to the house. Parsley, a biennial crop, was sparse and went to seed early. I was going to cut it back but found a monarch caterpillar feeding on a stem. I left the scraggly plant alone because drought and decreased habitat have created hard times for butterflies. I hope the parsley will reseed itself. Three weeks ago I noticed honey bees in the oregano. Again, instead of cutting off the flowers of the plant, I let them grow. I have plenty of oregano but have seen only a honeybee or two in my yard for a number of years. I am happy to leave the oregano flowers for them.

Earlier in the month, I tried to give excess cucumbers to the neighbors and no one would take them so they went into the compost. Currently basil and tomatoes are delicious and plentiful. I gave tomatoes to my daughter and my sister. Today more tomatoes ripen in front of a window in the basement and wait on the kitchen counter for eating and sharing. Yesterday, on one of the hottest days in August, I canned tomatoes. While I know adding humidity and heat to the kitchen increases my energy consumption, tomatoes do not wait for a change in weather. Besides my locally grown pesticide free tomatoes taste much better than any trucked in to a grocery store. As a good friend of mine once said, "Come December, opening a jar of home canned tomatoes is a little taste of summer."

As I worked yesterday, I thought about the way my great grandmother preserved food for her family. Charlotte lived her adult life on a farm in south central Nebraska where she and her husband reared nine children. In the early 1900's, gardening helped feed her family. If her garden and fruit trees didn't produce, they had less to eat. When she canned, Charlotte and her daughters pumped water and built a fire in a large cookstove. Ventilation consisted of opening a window or stepping outside into the hot Nebraska wind. When they finished preserving fruit and vegetables from the garden, they pumped and heated more water for scrubbing pots and pans. Then, instead of ordering a take out meal because she was too tired to cook, she prepared, served an evening meal for her family. Then her daughters pumped and heated more water to wash more dishes.

My aunt recalled Great Grandmother Charlotte kept a beautiful garden until the day she died. She loved to be outdoors and enjoyed growing fruit, vegetables, and flowers. No doubt, the flowers fed her soul while the other produce fed her family. I'm sure neither her vegetable garden nor flower bed ever looked as messy as mine do right now. Weeds, tomato vines, and tall zinnias mingle together. When I go out to harvest tomatoes I can barely reach the red orange fruit in the middle of the garden plot. I made some garden notes for next year which include better spacing for tomatoes and a much smaller bed of perennial flowers. In the meantime I've plenty of tomatoes and basil and I can get other ingredients at the local grocery store and farmer's market. In spite of my out of control garden, life is very good.