This time of year we see hearts in abundant numbers. This symbol of love is everywhere, and often seen in shades of red.
I love the heart motif and have it all around my house and in quilts I’ve made. This year I’ve been adding to my bowl of blue hearts in the breakfast room. I made a few last year and in the past couple of weeks, I’ve been adding more.
I’ve used ribbons, buttons, and lace to embellish some of them. In other cases, I just stitched and stuffed some of my favorite fabrics. I added French knots to one. On another I stitched pearls from a rescued strand I bought. The fabrics include barkcloth, vintage ticking, African indigo batik, hand-dyed linen, bits of an old quilt, and fabrics from well-worn clothing.
This bowl of stories sits on the breakfast room table. It warms my heart (pun not intended, but appropriate, I guess) to recall memories associated with each element.
Oh, I can use red fabric, too.
Photo notes: The pitcher with heart is part of my Rowe pottery collection. The wooden bowl (and possibly some of the spoons) is by my favorite wood carver, Ralph Smith. The heart-shaped bark basket holds memories of St. Simons Island where I bought it many many years ago.
A few days ago, I crashed a party. We were on a backroads jaunt and I remembered that some of my friends were attending a quilting retreat at a nearby wildlife refuge. I asked Jim to make a stop and let me say Hello. He asked, “Can you just pop in? Were you invited? “ I assured him, “It will be fine. They won’t mind. They will all be happy to show me their projects.”
Angie was piecing some animals. Mary was working with baskets. Jean had stars on her design wall. She had discovered that her alternate blocks were cut from directional fabric, unnoticed until they were put on the wall. She had lots of advisors to help her decide how to deal with this dilemma.
Joyce had two big appliqué projects: a Baltimore Album that just needs a few details and a border attached, and a fabulous Kim McLean pattern all with big pieces of Kaffe fabrics. Joyce is one of our guild’s charter members and she still produces more quilts than several of the rest of us combined! She was sitting beside Hilda, her BFF for more than FIFTY years. They have worked on many projects and been to many retreats and heard many stories in that time, don’t you know?
Dewey was there with his longarm machine and an eight-foot table. He had already quilted two quilts at the retreat for other participants and was doodling on his machine while he waited for others to get backs prepared for him to quilt their tops.
Here is Donna working on a One-Block Wonder. And Dewey had just finished the quilting on her Friendship Garden before the retreat. Now she can add the binding and label and it’s done!
Mary had run to the store, but her work-in-progress is here. Mary is the organizer of this event. Someone has to take charge and she does it well! She reserves the space, organizes the guest list, plans the food, and assures that everyone has fun. And she is successful, because these people plan their calendars around Mary’s retreat dates. Because of her, the sisterhood thrives.
Lynn was putting the finishing touches on a garden scene, while Eleanor was working on a batik project complete with labels to insure that every block ended up in exactly the right place.
We are Bed & Breakfast travelers sometimes. When we leave home, we like adventure. B&Bs provide a unique experience every time. And, in thirty years of enjoying this, I can’t think of one that didn’t prove to be positive. Of course, there was the one where we stopped and looked around, but choose not to stay the night because it seemed spooky to Jim.
We’ve stayed in B&Bs in the mountains, at the beach, in warm weather and cold (oh, my goodness was it cold once in Charleston – and our room was at the back of a long addition to an antebellum cottage. We thought the heat must have been distributed from the front to the back). We’ve enjoyed them in small, medium, and large cities, and in out-of-the-way places that made us wonder how guests ever found them often enough to keep them in business.
I suspect some of those people remember me as the lady who takes a sewing basket wherever she goes.
The tiny desk tucked in a corner made us think of all the creativity that had come from such quaint attic spaces. Jim commented on the quaintness at the same time that he said he would go insane ducking his head all the time. My reply was that many creative people did just that – went insane.
The make-do decor in B&B’s is always interesting. Many time inn owners have clearly been decorating on a budget, saving the big bucks for luxurious towels, fine soaps, and good food. This kitchen faucet intrigued us. Perhaps repurposed, it extended past the perimeter of the sink in most positions. Fun and funny to us!
Sarah Beth, Sarah Bob, Sarah Frances. Margaret Ann, Lou Emmelyn, Mary Frances; all are common names in the South. And with women, both halves of the double names are used on a daily basis. Shortened forms of Mary Elizabeths I’ve known were Lilly Bet, Mae Liz, and the ever popular Mary Beth. To get the right perspective here, you should read the list aloud, slowly. Very slowly. Put a little twang in there. Now you’ve got it.
es of popularity. In one generation, almost all the Sadies have died out. Then there is a rash of little Sadies running around. I think that particular name is beautiful, because it is beautiful, and the Sadie (actually in her generation it was Sadie Belle) in my life was a beautiful person. She is the woman pictured at the top of this post. There was a beautiful Cleo in my life, too. But I’m not hoping to see that name resurrected. The same goes for Ena Belle, Maudie Lee, and Mary Etta. Those don’t roll trippingly off the tongue.
In the South, if a woman doesn’t have a double name already, we make it so by adding Miss or Aunt. Miss Lily, Miss Emily, Aunt Gladys (though no kinship exists) were big in my life. And then I became Miss Sandy.
Miz Sadie Turns 80 was made for my mother-in-law in 2004. The blocks are the traditional Ohio Star blocks, finished at 9”. Sashing is 1” wide (beginning my insistence that narrow sashing separates, but doesn’t overwhelm the blocks). The overall quilt measures 63” square. It is pictured here hanging at the Georgia National Fair in 2004, one of the first quilt competitions I entered. It won a blue ribbon, and Miz Sadie was so pleased that she asked if she could have the ribbon, too. The quilt hung in her home with ribbon attached, as long as she lived there.
The label is a 
Grits are a staple in any southern girl’s diet. We have them for breakfast sometimes, but all my life I’ve had grits at sunset more often than at sunrise.
Every time I make grits, I think of my friend Ferrelle. Ferrelle owned a wonderful cooking, kitchen, and gift shop, and served up fabulous ideas for enjoying life. We once had a conversation about grits which “upped my game”. Ferrelle’s advice included using stone ground grits (we favor the yellow ones from Nora’s Mill in Helen, GA), cooking them with chicken broth rather than water, and adding a bit of cream right before removing them from the heat. Oh, my. They are so rich and creamy. I vary the flavor by adding different cheeses at times, and cooked, crumbled bacon on top adds flavor and garnish.
Photo notes: Since I seem to think everything should be a story in cloth, I’ve begun stitching on a Nora’s Mill bag. You see images of the front and backside. More work to be done, but I know you’re hungry, so go cook some grits.
It’s the time of year when I buy things at the grocery store that I would normally never allow past my lips. Some candied fruit (I don’t even want to know how that is accomplished), a lot of sugar, butter, nuts, disposable baking pans.
I’ve found some shortcuts to Mama’s process. I sometime buy nuts already shelled, and bake the concoction in small foil pans. Once the cakes are cooled, they are ready to wrap for presentation to appreciative friends. I know fruitcakes are the punch lines for many jokes, and I know we are all more conscious of our diets these days, but most reactions I get to the fruitcakes I share are of the “oh, I love this – it takes me back to Christmas of my childhood” type. And when I take a plate of sliced fruitcake to social gatherings this time of year, it’s always emptied.
Mama’s Stirring Fruitcake
I love to sew with red and green fabrics during this time of the year so I often start a new project for my sewing serenity during the season. In the days of Christmas 2008, I began work on what became Pomegranates and Poinsettias. I was spending quite a bit of time with my mother-in-law, Sadie, during a time of failing health for her.
sampler background (as does everyone else who sees this quilt), and when I decided to add buttons for the berries, she giggled like a little girl. Imagine, putting BUTTONS on a quilt.
Neither of them ever married. This photo was taken sometime around 1912. They were 18 and 15 at the time. Within ten years, their mother would be confined to a wheelchair, their older sister would die in childbirth, leaving two young daughters to their care.
During WWII, the teacher was offered “script” as her paycheck (a promise for money from the state someday), so she traveled further to work in a naval ordinance plant. The younger worked as a switchboard operator and in so doing, connected many families to news of their beloved ones. She was the first in town to get the word that the war was over, running down the stairs of the downtown office to spread the news.
Details of quilt: A vintage photo (circa 1912) of two unmarried sisters was printed on a remnant of a vintage linen tablecloth. Hand-guided, free-motion machine quilting was used to add detail, lace collars and beading were added with hand stitching. The linen background for the photo was attached to a vintage linen log cabin quilt made from silk. A vintage cotton doily was used for the label.
There’s something iconic about a man in overalls. To me, it means he is unpretentious, hardworking, honest. Someone with whom I would want to spend time in conversation and in hugging.
Maybe all that is why I was so intrigued by the man in this quilted piece. I snapped this street photo the minute I saw him. Since then, I have come to know who he is and have secured permission to use his image in my art. He, like my Daddy, is worthy of long conversations and hugs.
The quilt measures 10” x 18”. The photo is printed on vintage linen fabric, hand painted, then quilted. I used cotton thread, using hand-guided free motion quilting on my domestic machine. It is layered with raw silk, a remnant of denim, and a worn reclaimed quilt fragment. The label is a vintage cocktail napkin. (I found this one with the rooster in an antique store ramble just as I had finished this piece. Perfect!)