Pictures From My Life- February 9

Picture from blog of WomanWithWings

I just LOVE this idea.  And I have a large amount of clothespins and floss.  Something to work on while watching Netflix for the duration of the Olympics.  I like the competitions not the stories. I want to see ALL of the competitors, not just the winners or the Americans or the horrible accidents.

Long ago (and far away--but that's Star Wars) I would "shop" in the Five and Dime type store we had in Town (long gone).  A store that had a bit of everything, nothing expensive plus a little restaurant.  Which reminded me (I had forgotten) of "going shopping" with my grandmother when we shared a house with my father's parents.  We always stopped at Woolworths to have grilled cheese at the counter (1950's).

Here in Town (in the early years of living here before I made friends or had the internet), I would wander around the store, buy lemon drop candy, socks and then go down into the basement and select a handful of strands of floss.  Then wind them on little plastic paddles.  I numbered them as well--at first, so I could buy more when those ran out.  I even purchased see thru cases for the collection.

I did quite a bit of embroidery back then.  Very Victorian Stuff.  On jewel colored silks and velvets. I even began to teach small classes on how to make your own crazy quilt sewing caddy. Heavily embroidered with additions of sparkly beads.  I even crossed over into Baltimore style appliqué with silk ribbons.  Truth be told- my true love in fabric and thread is Baltimore appliqué. But I also loved primitive appliqué.

See how going deep into the past can awaken what you loved once and then forgot?  In my case--it's going deep into the Attic Boxes.

There is an entire appliqué quilt up there.  Competed blocks.  Almost finished borders.  Sawtooth--hand appliquéd.  Endless little triangles on both edges of the less that 3 inch wide borders.  I think the quilt would finish at double bed size. Was supposed to only be twin sized.  No machine work. The making of what is up there in the Attic Boxes-- possibly 3 years or more.  The hunt for fabric was endless. I kept running out--because I kept making more blocks--and then needed more fabric to make the wide borders....... which are deep and have a combination of all the block motifs  appliquéd--which means having the identical fabrics.  I never actually arrived at the point of making the wide outside borders.  People died. Friends were lost.  Jobs were lost.  I was lost.

So much History in that fabric.  In the Attic Boxes.