Sentimental Stitches

Last year I planted three perennials around the patio. A pink lily, pink carnation and a stargazer lily. They joined the white daisies, sweet peas, wild roses and a yet to be identified pink puff ball flower producing plant. It was suggested my new additions wouldn't survive the winter.
Well..........so far I've been pretty lucky. The carnation was the first to bloom and continues all summer.

The stargazer lily, my favorite because of their fragrance, has several large buds I'm watching every day. These have already bloomed at home in GR and Rob mentioned how he's noticed their fragrance and is protecting them from wind and rain to keep them lasting as long as possible.

During a trip to the Farmer's Market on Saturday I had to bring home one of the little serenity bouquets they were selling. The mixture of colors makes such a beautiful palette. The picture doesn't show the surprise peach color bloom that opened at the end of a that long, rather bare looking stem standing up right in the middle.

I know, what do all these flowers have to do with quilting? More than you might imagine. Have you noticed the new tabs sprouting up across the top of the banner. One is the Photo Gallery. It has three of Denise's Sally Post Floral Sampler blocks in there for you to see. I'd love to add photos of any project you've made from patterns on the site. Send them too me.

The second tab is Family History in Quilting. Remember when I told you I was going to document things about my Dad, kit quilts, embroidery and the role our family had in all of that? This is where that information and photographs will be going.

The third link (it's in the Side Bar to the right under Block of the Month) is the one I think you'll like the most. It's the Polka Dot Garden! What grows in the Polka Dot Garden. Wow, more than you can imagine!

Now don't go starting a block from this drawing, I'm still fine turning it.

My original idea was to use only polka dot fabrics or those that had dots on them. Then I pulled some solids, checks and stripes (with dots on them). They looked similar to this -

First things first - we'll need a Stitching Roll to keep our scissors, thread, needles and the block we're working on in. There should be a Tote Bag to put this new adorable stitching roll in. I think we'll need some Embroidery here and there, a couple of Cushions, Table Toppers, a Pincushion or two and ..........
I'll be doing photo tutorials of the way I do my Back Basting for applique, make yoyo dots and perfect circles. Just think of the fun we'll have!

There are some great patterns I have in limited quantities in the Online Store. Once they're gone, that might be it so if you're tempted don't wait too long. I'm also opening an Etsy shop and will put a link above the banner when it's open.

I'm going to try and send a newsletter hoping the site doesn't blow up like last time.

I hadn't planned on writing today until later tonight. Having the day off I was focused on finishing two quilting projects but after reading several posts on the CyberQuilters list about Passage Quilts I wanted to share something with you.

They had a link to a newspaper article that appeared in a paper in Illinois. It was very interesting.

On Monday I had deleted the note I started on July 20th about this special quilt but I think I was wrong in doing that, just as I had been wrong when I hesitated making the quilt I'm going to show you.

The quilt you see is the one I made for my Daddy when he passed away on July 20, 2001. My brother had been suggesting I make a funeral quilt for him for nearly two years but for some reason I couldn't wrap my mind around the idea. I finally relented and started the quilt on June 2nd of 2001 which was Dad's 90th birthday. The design for the quilt came to me all at once and flowed like a river to near perfection. I used Michael Miller Krystals for the fabrics. The Star of Bethlehem was chosen because it was Daddy's favorite quilt pattern.

It contains six colors, one for my Mother and one for each of us five children. Each color represents a Bible passage based on the hymn This is My Father's World which was the opening hymn of Dad's radio show during the 1940s.

• Yellow- The Light of the World (John 1)
• Purple- Fruits of the Holy Spirit (Phil. 1)
• Red- Jesus blood shed for us (John 3:16)
• Blue- Heaven (Gen. 1)
• Green- Earth (Gen. 1)
• Black- Death (Psalm 23)

I chose a musical print fabric for the backing.

Daddy passed away just as I was ready to start the quilting. A very special friend quilted and bound the quilt in one day so it would be ready to use at visitation time.
I had also made a miniature version of the quilt about 14" square that I hand quilted. It was delicately folded and placed in Daddy's hands for all eternity.

During his memorial service, the quilt was draped over the casket as the funeral pall and the sun coming down through the windows in the ceiling of the church shone directly on the center of the star and it just glowed. I knew then that making the quilt had been the right thing to do. Every year the quilt comes out of the trunk on Dad's birthday in June and stays out until the end of July for all of us to use.

Funeral palls are traditionally a black or white piece of fabric with Christian symbols embroidered. I have a small antique pall made of white cotton with black embroidery. It has a beautiful angel, flowers and a verse in what I think is German. I haven't been able translate it completely. Maybe I can post a picture of it and one of you will know what it says.

Having spent the last 10 years with parents in care facilities I think the idea of Passage quilts is wonderful. I'm going to contact the chaplin at Pilgrim Manor where my Mom is being cared for and see what their procedure is when a person passes away. They have different areas with different care levels so 4 or 5 quilts might be needed.

I'll give this a little more thought as I get back to those projects I wanted to finish today and will share the patterns I design for my Passage quilts.

I've been trying to remember when things started spinning out of control and think it might have all started the day I hit the black squirrel on the way to work. When I arrived at the store that day one of the girls who worked for me quit and most things since then just blend together. Fifty hour work weeks, hiring two new employees just as tourist season was swinging into full gear. We've been twice as busy as last year and I'm so blessed with the three ladies I have working with me now. They caught on quickly, have gone above and beyond the call of duty and are working full time hours when I hired them for part time. We are that busy!!!

I have not enjoyed sitting in the laundromat at 9:30 PM because it's the only time I had available to do my laundry and was out of underwear.

I have not enjoyed my glasses breaking in half and finding out they no longer make the frames so no possibility of ordering the little piece that goes across your nose.

I have not enjoyed (okay, I volunteered) driving from Traverse City to Petoskey and back after work to deliver giraffe purses to the store up there because we're selling so many you should be seeing green, yellow, fuchsia and turquoise trimmed bags running up and down the streets of America. If you've been quilting (which I haven't) and wonder what I'm talking about, here's a visual aide -

I did not enjoy being pulled over by the county sheriff on the way to work for going a little too fast on the curvy road around the lake. I think he took pity on me handing him an expired driver's license, registration and several insurance certificates he had to go through to find one that hadn't expired. All the time Clutch is barking, barking, barking like a typical Chihuahua and I'm trying to explain why I haven't renewed my license.

Clutch did not enjoy the Blue Angels being in town this week even though I did.

Neither of us is very happy about the long, long lines at Moomer's Ice Cream now that we've made them famous. Wish I had a nickel for every time I've given directions from the store to the ice cream shop.

I have not enjoyed that they've taken my favorite Asian Seafood off the menu at Poppycock's restaurant. I settled for a Whopper Junior that night.

I did not enjoy signing on to upload the Midget Block only to find the server had suspended the web site because they received over 100 complaints from AOL for spam coming from the site. I was already trying to deal with the drug information someone hacked into the script but this, this I had no idea how to handle. Paul worked with technical support and magically after three days we were back online. Not much of an explanation except that they reinstated the account because the complaints had only come from one service provider. I'm afraid to send a newsletter and have a glitch with AOL subscribers.

And finally, I did not enjoy learning on Friday that the store I'm working at will close on Oct. 15. They are tearing down (or renovating) the 1863 building the store is in so out we go. It looks like I'll be unemployed.

Through all of this I've been toting this pretty summer spread back and forth to work with me in hopes of tracing the blocks to share with you. I want to stitch it in pastels.

Thank you to everyone who sent notes and checked on me when the site was down. It's nice to know I was missed.

Guess it's time to put my big girl panties on, stop whining and make a plan. Things could always be worse!