My First Day of Spring

It's the first day of Spring,yayyyy! It was a beautiful day, 79 in the house and 81 outside. I opened the windows and turned on the attic fan to draw out the heat. Didn't work. I was almost tempted to turn on the a/c, but that didn't make good sense when thought out, it's too early in the year, so I decided to sit outside enjoy the sunlight, while crocheting and took a walk around the neighborhood. Neighbors are out walking, sitting and barbequeing. It sure smells good. Plants are blooming, my buttercups are up and out. My hostas' are peeping through and the bamboos have turned green.

The kids are out playing, riding bikes and walking. Everyone is enjoying the weather. What I should have done was walk up to the park about three blocks away but I didn't wear my tennis, I had on my Nike flip flops so that wasn't good for treading through grass, plus we got plenty of rain last night.

In our subdivision there is an apartment complex, riding or walking I look for one particular apartment, this one you can't miss. There is always a chair aside the patio door. Well, today, just as I had figured the older lady that lives there was out sitting in her chair, reading a book. She never ceases to amaze me or maybe I should say she never let's me down. I can always count on her to sit on that patio with book in hand. That's when I know it's a nice day, a good day to be out and a great day to be alive.

National Quilt Day

I had wanted to make this post sooner, on National Quilt Day, which is today seeing that my mother was a quilter. Maybe, hopefully jump starting some of you who may have an interest in the art, but that didn't happen. I couldn't get blogger to open for me and I've been trying all week.

My mom didn't make those fancy type quilts and didn't use a rotary cutter, a gridded cutting board or plastic templates. She didn't buy fat quarters. She used scraps from my stash, I made an outfit a week sometimes two from 1967 up until the mid 90's. I also sewed for my kids, my mom and an aunt.

My mom used the good old fashioned dress shears for cutting and made her templates out of anything from newspaper to paper bags. She didn't use a sewing machine, everything was done by hand. Mom kept a shoe box that she would store her pieces in, they were stacked neatly and nicely, color coordinate, the works. Every evening she would come home from work, eat dinner and start cutting. Once she had filled a box it was time to start putting those pieces together.

She would sit in a comfortable chair, needle and thread in hand and a thimble on her middle finger and go to work until bedtime. All the while watching TV and talking with her sister, my aunt that lived with us. Once she had finished a top, she would make what she called a sandwich, batting and a lining and sit in that chair and quilt it all by hand. Sure it was time consuming, but I saw what pleasure it gave her and how relaxed she would be after a day's work, that I use to pitch in and do some cutting for her when her box ran low.

I use to love to watch her work. I made my first quilt at 17, a red a white patch work. My favorite color was red. A year later I made a diamond design quilt. I didn't quilt again until after I had my second son 21 years ago and that was a job. I quilted a baby quilt with his name, date of birth and weight and did it on a sewing machine. I haven't quilted since. What I learned about the sewing machine method was, I didn't like it, it was much too cumbersome.

I'd like to take this time a salute all the avid quilters, a worthwhile and useful craft to keep us warm in the cold and brighten our cloudy days.