On a sunny day in February, we loaded up cameras and quilts and headed out on a ride-about.
We drove to Indian Springs State Park, where Jim and I can both travel down memory lane way back to our childhoods. Our personal histories are not quite as old as the park – established in 1927, it is the oldest state park in Georgia.
Jim and his Dad enjoyed the swings at Indian Springs around 1950.
My sister went to college near this park and my parents and I would visit and take her there for a picnic. Jim and his family went there for visits, too. It’s possible that our mothers carried quilts to Indian Springs, too. Their purpose would not be to photograph the quilts, but to sit on them on the ground.
On this day, we hung quilts in trees, draped them on benches and railings, hung them on gates. I think the stone walls, lovely trees, and big rocks are a nice backdrop for textiles of all sizes.
The largest quilt we carried was Seventy and Still Wearing Jeans, a quilt I made for Jim’s birthday a couple of years ago. We posed it on fences, stone walls, and on a really big old stump. Details about this quilt are here.
Smaller quilts, like Dots and Vines, were at home on smaller perches.
The quilts with those vibrant hand-dyed solid fabrics are most photogenic, I think.
The story of the wool schoolhouses and the small log cabin quilts will be detailed in upcoming blog posts.
Their first date was at a church gathering for an all-day-sing.
They grew up in the same county, attended the same high school, but it was a long commute between their homes. Twelve miles represented a fortune in time and money – in the early 1930’s, times were tough.
So they wrote to each other. And one heard about a sing that was going to be at High Hill Church, in a far corner of the county – some ten more miles from each of their homes. But families took Sundays off and went to such gatherings. They planned to meet up at the sing, and the courtship became official.
They married a couple of years after that sing and went on to live and prosper in that same county…the “til’ death” part lasted 52 years, all spent in Turner County. Prosperity didn’t come quickly – there were hard times on the farm – but happiness and contentment flourished. My sister and I benefited from two loving parents.
This art quilt I call First Date tells a story of their lives in Turner County and includes evidence of many memories.
I found a map of Turner County printed in the 1930’s in an antique store and transferred it to fabric. The colors in it and in the photos of my parents from that era dictated the whole piece. (And ya’ll know I lean toward browns….)
I made a legend for the map depicting the church where they had their first date with a heart shaped button. Other beads and french knots show the location of their homes and church home.
I included do-dads from a milliner’s supplies (my mother was one of the last to give up the habit of wearing a hat to church), bits of tatting, lace, buttons.
There are remnants of one of Daddy’s suits, a bit of lace from one of Mama’s dresses.
A fabric flower is made from barkcloth much like the living room drapes we had when I was a child.
I made this and mounted it on canvas several months ago. I haven’t shared it before because I’m not quite happy with it on the canvas…I keep looking at it, wondering if it’s best that way. I may add a frame or may remove it from the canvas and finish it more like a quilt. But …here it is, as it is.
Update…since writing this post, I found a couple of relevant photos..
A photo of my parents shortly after their marriage in 1935.A photo of High Hill Church made in the 1930’s shows how the church would have looked on the occasion of that first date. It also reveals how appropriate the name is. In the flat terrain of Turner County (average elevation 407 feet), High Hill sits at a dizzying 420 feet above sea level.
I’ve been baking. Among the things I’ve explored lately are teacakes.
The word “teacake” transports me through time. When I was a college freshman, living a new quasi-independent life, but homesick at times, I went to the campus post office to find a package waiting for me.
When I think of teacakes, I am transported to a memory. A college freshman, living a new quasi-independent life, but homesick at times, I went to the campus post office to find a package waiting for me.
The package was from Aunt Nellie. A shoebox full of tea cakes. They were wrapped in waxed paper, layers and layers of tea cakes. The box was heavy – full of love.
My suite-mates and friends on the hall in the dorm were as excited as I was. A couple of us went across the street from campus and bought a jar of peanut butter. Part of this memory is that we had to put on dresses – because girls were not allowed to wear slacks in town. We could wear “pant suits” (not jeans!!!) to class, but if we left campus, we were “representing the school” and had to dress appropriately.
Back to the tea cakes. They were fabulous! I ate Aunt Nellie’s teacakes all my life and loved them – but these were especially memorable. Because that box was filled with love from home ( I now realize she must have been missing me terribly in those days) and shared with loving friends who impacted my life forever!
I don’t always put peanut butter on my teacakes, but sometimes I do. And that was a critical element when the box arrived from home…I had to share them with peanut butter!
I don’t have Aunt Nellie’s recipe – when she died, my mother asked if there was anything I especially wanted from her house. I had a long list including her “receipt book”. The book was a spiral bound calendar from some insurance company. But she used it to write down her recipes. When I got it, I immediately searched out the teacake recipe. It said; sugar, flour, butter, egg, soda. Nothing else.
That was all the information that she needed…a reminder of what ingredients to include. That was insufficient information for me.
The recipe I used is one from the White Lily Baking Company’s website, with a few modifications of mine. I omit the nutmeg and add 1 teaspoon of almond extract. (Update: Since writing this, I’ve made them using lemon extract instead of almond and they are the best yet! Lemon tea cakes don’t need peanut butter or nutella – they are great on their own.)
The photo at the top has teacakes on one of Aunt Nellie’s plates.
On Valentine’s Day, I made some teacakes that were heart shaped….and we upped our game adding Nutella instead of peanut butter. Oh, yeah!
And speaking of hearts, I’m still making stuffed ones. I’ve added a few more red ones to the big bowl. And, I baked heart-shaped buttermilk biscuits on Valentine’s Day.
Note: My Aunt Nellie was such an important figure in my life that I’ve written about her again and again. She’s one of the Spinster Sisters, and she’s featured in Miss Nellie’s Country Garden. I mention her every time I talk about geraniums and often when cooking. Typing “Nellie” in the search box will keep you busy reading for a few minutes, at least.
In the week leading to Valentine’s Day, there is red everywhere.
A mockingbird is enjoying some holly berries in our yard.
And the nandinas are displaying lots of berries. Yes, I know they are invasive, and they are bad for the birds, and we clear out some. But my mother and Jim’s mother both loved their nandinas, so we don’t remove them all. And the berries this year are big and red.
In my thoughts leading to a GBI Red project, I found these blocks that have a lot of red. I like a focus block as a start, and sometimes an orphan block sparks an idea. The two blocks on the right are Maggie Bonanomi designs.
I have a couple of these Beligian linen tablecloths with red stripes. I love red/white/tan as a color combination, so that leads me to see possibilities.
And, there is this. Red and white is a tried and true combo. And, in one of our forays through an antique mall, I found this linen tablecloth with embroidered red signatures. I’d love to know the story behind it. Was it used at an event like a wedding party, or a going-away party where guests signed the cloth?
I presume Percival and Marian are husband and wife, but I don’t think they embroidered their names at the occasion. Did they write their names on the cloth and then someone else did the stitching in red? Some threads are heavier than others; some stitching is tight, some is loose. So maybe more than one person did the embroidery – or one person might have varied her stitches to more accurately match the signature.
Interestingly, Jim has an ancestor named Margaret Hudson. We didn’t buy this in the area where his great-grandmother lived, but perhaps the antique dealer did…. Certainly that’s not a unique name, but to find this is quite interesting.
What will I do with this? I’m not sure…but there’s a story there!
Even the Christmas amaryllis has decided to grace us with red once again…
Everyone knows I love my blue fabrics, but this time of year, red always shows up in something. As Valentine’s Day approaches, red is on my mind.
I began making red hearts before Christmas this past year. This small bowl held the first grouping. As is the case with many explorations, I couldn’t stop until I played with more and more fabric combinations…so the little bowl grew, too.
No self-respecting lover of vintage linens can ignore the beauties that are red. The collection above includes tickings, vintage woven pieces, and a lovely cross-stitched tablecloth.
My shelves that hold commercial fabrics has plenty of red, too. I especially love the reds from French General. ( I used this collection almost exclusively in Miss Lily’s Baskets.)
Hearts are a favorite motif of mine, so there are hearts made of things other than fabric around the house, too. Above are a compressed wool one, an enameled bit of jewelry, a metal one, and a pottery heart.
In the photos above, you see the two sides of the collection of hearts. The usual “fronts” on the left, the “backsides” on the right.
Remember GBI Blues? This stack of delightful reds makes me think I need to work on a companion, GBI Reds. Uh-oh, we all see where this is going, don’t we?
I’ve written about hearts many times before. WordPress has changed some ways to label things, so I’ve added a category for “hearts”. If you click on that word in the category list on the right, you’ll see a listing of all posts about that topic. (I haven’t updated everything yet, but “hearts” and “red” are current.)
After my latest post on quilts posed at New Hebron Baptist Church in Pike County, I thought you might like to see more photos of this beauty from the past. On an earlier visit, Jim captured images of the vicar and the interior of this church while I enjoyed memories of my childhood that this place triggered.
We visited this idyllic spot for the first time as part of the Slow Exposures Photography Exhibition in 2019. The organizers included a display of some of the photographs from the volume Historic Churches of Georgia.
A church that should be in the second edition of the book “Historic Rural Churches of Georgia,” New Hebron Baptist Church near Concord, Georgia is an idyllic and picturesque place and is what you might expect when you first open your eyes in the afterlife. Thanks to Vicar Dwain Penn for the tour of New Hebron and his hospitality.
A church that should be in the second edition of the book Historic Rural Churches of Georgia, New Hebron Baptist Church near Concord, Georgia is an idyllic and picturesque place and is what you might expect when you first open your eyes in the afterlife. Thanks to Vicar Dwain Penn for the tour of New Hebron and his hospitality.
Jim’s words from his facebook post about New Hebron
In my journal writing of that day I noted that Vicar Penn doesn’t call himself a pastor since he “has no sheep.” He explained that the church has had no members for several years, and is therefore no longer affiliated with any denomination.
At the time of our visit, services were conducted once a month, on Sunday afternoon at 3:00 p.m. That allows people to attend their regular church and enjoy this spiritual place, too.
They sometimes host special events here, too. Sacred Harp Singing Schools have been held in this church. Oh, how I would love to hear those songs echoing off these unpainted timbers!
The church, built in 1908, was seen in the movies Cold Sassy Tree and Mama Flora’s Family, but most of the time, it’s maintaining its position in a bucolic scene on a quiet country road.
Dots and Vines went along on this trip, too. Here she poses on the back door of the church. The story of this quilt is here: https://sandygilreath.com/dots-and-vines/
