A Fantastic Garage Find!

Isn’t life serendipitous sometimes? I had a moment the other day…

1964 Ford Galaxie

A little background would help. I have a husband. He has a project car, (Definition: a car that sits with all its parts removed). We have a garage. His project car resides in our garage. (See? A quilting blog you can finally show your husband! boyfriend! etc!)

Now don’t get me wrong here. I don’t want anyone jumping to conclusions or anything other thing. The car is a boat. It is so big that when you sit in the driver’s seat, you can’t lean over and touch the passenger door. It has personality. I love that car!

My husband’s car and its various, multitudinous parts occupy most of the garage. I have a quilt room which occupies a bedroom plus a closet and floor-space in another bedroom. You see? He and I both have “hobbies” and understand the necessity of space for such hobbies.

And now back to the story…a while back my husband came in from the garage with a couple of old boxes. He thought they were mine. I didn’t recognize them. I opened the first box and looked in at the eggs of the Golden Goose, the coins at the end of the rainbow, the flower wreath of horse racing.

I wrote Siggie Blocks on the box.

There were quilt blocks made by my Aunt Marie (of Marie’s Marvelous Makings). I had totally forgotten that I had her quilt blocks in the garage. The first box I opened were signature blocks. Over 300 of them!

The other box contained…a surprise for you lovely readers. I will writing a post about Box #2 in the future!

And now, I present a (very) few of those blocks!

I love the blue on the end with its nubbies!

Such a nice variety of browns!

Notice the third is a real 30s print

I love everyone of these red ones.

I had to ponder for a few months of what I wanted to do with them. I don’t belong to a guild where friends would sign the blocks. I don’t have 300 friends, much less 30. I could make a mini-quilt of siggie blocks of my friends. I don’t have a huge family who could sign blocks. You can see my dilemma.

It must have been one of those glorious days where everything went right and birds were singing. I realized what I was going to do! I am going to write all of my favorite books, one for each block.

I am addicted to reading. I’ve read ever since I learned how to read in school! A group of middle-school friends of mine went on a vacation to a lovely resort one summer, with two moms along. We had fun with the activities at the resort. But the major part of our days were spent reading!

I was thrilled to start writing down the books. My all-time favorite: To Kill A Mockingbird. Books that I bought for 45 cents from Scholastic when I was in middle-school that I read over and over. My favorite: Jennifer. My beloved Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden of my elementary school years. High school books brought me The Chronicles of Narnia and The Von Trapp Family Singers. Jack Weyland was my favorite author in college. My favorite book of his: Charly. Biographies of ordinary people in extraordinary times: The Bielski Brothers.

I kept writing until I couldn’t think of anymore. I kept writing until I had listed 252 books! Using 252 blocks would give me a beautiful queen quilt for my full-size bed.

My only quandary now is how to write the names on the blocks. It would take a daunting amount of time to embroider each book’s name. I’m thinking of writing the names with Pigma Pens. I have very nice handwriting, by the way.

Do you have any ideas of how to “write” names on the blocks? I’m not adverse to anything you suggest and I would dearly love to hear suggestions!

I’m hooking up with these lovely linky parties that have many talented and amazing quilters sharing what they are working on. You can go to anyone you choose by clicking on the sidebars on the right!

Surprises!

I love surprises. Who doesn't? Okay, my DH doesn't. Here's a man who would wilt if someone jumped out from behind the sofa yelling, "Happy Birthday!"

I like surprises. I had one a few days ago and today.

It is county fair time where I live. This year I decided to enter a few quilts. I've never entered a quilt in an adjudicated show. Knowing my quilts and their "individuality" (read "faults") I didn't expect to win a ribbon.

The first hint that something unexpected had happened. A fellow teacher emailed me that she had seen my quilts at the fair and congratulations on the two ribbons! Quite the surprise---not zero, but two! Then yesterday a friend mentioned having seen my quilts and the two ribbons.

Today my DH and I went to the fair; I was nearly bouncing up and down with excitement to get in the Adult Crafts Hall and see my beribboned quilts. More surprises. Three of my quilts had been given ribbons: a first, second and third.

My First Place Quilt: My Log Cabin Neighborhood
I took a class at Sisters Quilt Show four years ago. This pattern, by the wonderfully talented Vivienne Moore, was a class I took. It is paper-pieced and hand quilted.

My Second Place Quilt: Blue Christmas

I made three of these wall hangings a few years ago for Christmas. I made a blue one for my son's girlfriend who loves blue; that is where the name came from: Blue Christmas. I also made a green one for my daughter #2. I loved the blue one so much, blue being my favorite color, I made one for myself.

It is 20x20", is paper-pieced, and I machine quilted it.

Third Place Ribbon: Charming Hobos

This was a quilt top that my Aunt Marie made. She was of the old-school quilters; she was born in 1905. The quilt pieces were cut by hand and stitched together by hand. I inherited all her quilts when she died. I loved this quilt from the moment I saw it.

Once I got the hang of hand-quilting, I brought out this beauty and hand-quilted. It was only fitting for a hand-sewn quilt by my Aunt.

This picture was taken after it was quilted, but without the binding...you know how that goes. I'm lucky there was a "before" picture at all.

A few days ago one popped right out of the blue, totally unexpected. My DH and I came back from a few errands and as we approached the front steps, we saw it. A small yellow flower with its stem wrapped carefully in a wet paper towel. It wasn't even a flower from my own flower garden! There was no note, no Hi! or Have a Great Day! No signature, initials or hints. Just the flower.

What a sweet thing. I imagined a little six-year-old picking flowers, wrapping them carefully in a paper towel and delivering them around to different houses.

Do kids do that anymore? Can six-year-olds even go down the street unaccompanied by an adult?

Like the 56-year-old that I am, I feel sorry about some of "progress" that has happened since I was a child. The most heart-wrenching to me is children's loss of innocence and trust at such a young age. There's a lot of you, like me, could get lost in the memories of our childhood of traipsing anywhere in the neighborhood as long as you came in when Mom stood on the doorstep and yelled your name.

Then today there was a flower. As I brought it in the house, I wondered if it were a weed and it would droop by sundown. I did find a pretty little blue vase and put the flower in it. Two days later it is as fresh as ever.

What a small thing we can do to make another happy.