bits and pieces

The size of a quilt has no bearing on the size of your joy upon completion. Maybe on the size of your relief, or even on the size of your pride, but not the joy.
This little quiltlet will sit atop a table or be pressed into service as a doll blanket.(my granddaughter has already asked)
It was made with the left over bits and pieces of a much larger project. I will show you that one soon. That quilt will give you such a jolt, seeing the colors elbow to elbow that you may have to go and lie down for a while and contemplate something quieter, like fireworks.
This little quilt is made entirely of half square triangles which are strangely addictive to work with. They are sort of like a cross between a jigsaw and a sudoku puzzle. Very satisfying.
I decided this would be the perfect project to practice free motion quilting on. A nice bite size piece that I could quilt within an inch of its life.
I chose to heed two bits of advice- practice on something that matters and if you can't see it, why do it.
With that in mind, I chose yellow thread and set to work.

quiet courage

He seems to be gazing straight out of the photo.
My handsome father.
I wish you could see his hair but the army barber got to him first.
He had such dark, thick curly hair.
Doesn't he look brave?
He wasn't even twenty yet.
He volunteered.
He was trained at Esquimalt, on Vancouver Island.
My mother thought he might stay there. Might be stationed there on the coast.
Might ride out the war...
and then she received a letter from my father.
It was on Active Duty stationary.
He had volunteered for the Defense of Britian.
He was heading overseas.
A train ride all the way across Canada to Halifax.
Then the Queen Mary to England.
Anti-aircraft guns.
And then, the Liberation of Holland.
He was gone for weeks, and months and years.
My young father.
And then home at last to Canada.
He volunteered for the Pacific too but the war ended while he was home on leave.
There is something about this photo that I cherish.
My young father.
His eyes.
HIs level gaze.
His quiet courage.

your table

Have you ever been talking to someone and had a startling moment of clarity.
I love when that happens.
My friend had emailed me a link to marvelous meal suggestions.
Aren't meal suggestions worth their weight in gold?
Somedays it seems as though I have forgotten food.
It is as though all the meals of my life have swirled out of focus and I can't think what to make for supper.
I wonder what it is I have been eating all these years.
I wonder what it is I want to eat now.
I wonder.
It's not that I'm not hungry.
Or that I have forgotten the joy of cooking.
It's just that I have no idea at all what to make.
I just need a suggestion to jolt me into action.
A suggestion is sort of like a challenge I suppose and I love challenges.
On your mark, get set, go.
Go make this, or that, with these, or those and I am off to the kitchen, gratefully chopping and slicing.
I know what to do.
I know now what to make.

And that makes me think of default meals.
Those meals we tend to default to when all else fails.
They are also worth their weight in gold.
They are our true comfort food.
And they tend to shift and change over time.
When I was a new wife and a new cook, I made lasagne frequently. It was a default meal.
Stir fry and pizza have both been default meals over the years as has macaroni and cheese and sweet and sour meat balls.
I was telling my friend, that my default meal now is likely roast chicken for supper and soup for lunch when I had one of those startling moments of clarity,
I... have....become....my.....grandmother!
Wow, thanks grandma. I can almost feel my self sitting at your table.

70's

"Oh, I remember that," my daughter exclaimed, her voice warm.
There are still some fragments of the past, languishing in my garage (wow, what an understatement) and I have been determined to get to the bottom of them.
To unpack them.
To unearth them.
To free them.
And me.

The blue jean bag slouching on the bench was made by my teen age self in the seventies.
I lined it with a very funky print and painted the apple on the flap. I happily used it for a block of time.
Teen age time.

Days danced onward and my own daughter happily used the bag for a block of time.
Teen age time.
Maybe one of my granddaughters will find it is just the thing to sling over her shoulder and stride off into the morning.

x meets y

My grandchildren and I were bushwhacking.
Isn't that a wonderfully descriptive word?
Actually, we were just prowling through the woods, taking note of fungus and flower,
climbing over branches and ducking under branches and peering through branches.

We thought we were alone, but we weren't.
I should have known better.
You're never truly alone in the woods.
As we toiled north, a hornet sped south.
There was a collision.
My eyebrow and the hornets met with a thunk.
I meant to wave him on, no harm no foul, but universal language does not extend to gestures I guess.

Do you remember math class and turning word problems into equations?

A woman is traveling direction X and a hornet is traveling direction y. What will happen when x meets y?
I think the answer is Z.
Zap
Zot
Zing
Lesson learned.

hover near

While making grilled cheese sandwiches, avoid wandering off to ponder the mysteries of the universe.
Sure, the first side browns slowly, deceptively slowly, and evenly too,
but the other side toasts in a trice,
finishes in a flash,
burns in a blink.
Hover near.

blue is green

I love to make things.
I love to take what I have, and make what I need.
I needed a gift bag.
And a little card.
Brown lunch bags are a boon to mankind.
When I pulled one out of the corner cupboard, I could almost see the blue baby footprints stamped all over it.
I mixed up a smidge of blue and white paint.
I curled my hand into a fist and stamped away.
Hmmmm.
I took a second bag and stamped again.
The tiny wrinkled footprints I wanted looked strangely like Hobbit feet.
Who knew making baby footprints would be so tricky.
I've made dozens of them over the years in window condensation in the car......
My third try was OK.
I wisely stopped at one.
I folded a small piece of water color paper in half and stamped a foot on it too.
I had not improved with practice.
Still, I was pleased with the finished set.
They have a certain charm......
An ancient paper punch was pressed into service. ( no pun intended)
A small piece of ribbon salvaged from a forgotten balloon tied everything together.
It's a green, green world.