Adventures in housewifery: Cooking, crafting, and not a lot of cleaning
I don’t know why anyone would get tired of seeing quilts, but don’t worry, I’m almost done. My phone died and I had not backed it up, so most of my pictures died with it unless I had posted them elsewhere. Luckily K had taken a bunch of pictures too, so I was able to snag some from her. I guess I’ll have to take my real camera out again until I get a new phone!
I’ve been thinking a lot about my grandmas lately. (Grandpas too, but they need their own post.) No particular reason, I guess, except missing them. I’m sure it’s a common thing to wish for more time, but I have been trying to remember the time I did have with them.
I distinctly remember one Easter being alternately thrilled and worried that I had to call them by Grandma and their first names. I was probably about four or five maybe and we weren’t supposed to call adults by their first names! They seemed to be okay with it though. 🙂
My mom’s mom was named Florence and she was an accountant. I’m fairly sure she tried to instill a love of math and numbers, but it didn’t work. This picture of Fancy will illustrate how I feel about math.
Grandma Florence had a drawer for both my brother and I where she kept papers and blank account ledger pages for us to play with. We always played store and banking with these. She had the Sesame Street Alphabet books which we would read every time we saw this set of grandparents.
I will also forever associate green jello with her. She always served green jello, sometimes with shredded carrots in it, and we had apple juice out of cute plastic cups. They were colored translucent plastic and in my young child mind, were simply fabulous. She would also make us chocolate chip cookies, which she would bring on visits in Quaker Oats containers. Although I didn’t know it at the time, this was a big deal, as Grandma was not a baker!
I don’t have many things to remember her by, but do have a pie dish, the orange Depression glass bowl, and very fancy china. We haven’t used the china yet, mostly because we just now had enough space to store it safely. I do have lots of good memories though. 🙂
Grandma Florence worked in a radio factory in WWII and measured glass rods to a very tiny and exact measurement. She didn’t really talk about that part of her past though. I do know my Grandpa rode all the way across country standing up on the train, so they could get married.
My dad’s mom, Grandma Shirley, also was involved in WWII as a nurse. She was a little more open about her past, but I now realize, only really about the happier parts. Having been through the war, she was the grandma who would just look at you and laugh if you were being obnoxious.
My love of quilting came from spending time with Grandma Shirley for sure. We used to make quilts together for the church ladies to send to Lutheran World Relief. Let me tell you, church basement ladies can be scary when they are all together. There was always lots of laughter and a lot of jokes I probably wasn’t meant to understand just yet. 🙂
Grandma Shirley did like to bake, so one of the ways I had to remember her was her aprons. I ended up combining her aprons and my aprons from a summer job into a quilt. She made all the grandkids quilts, so I thought it would be appropriate. Now, keep in mind, this quilt was made right when I first started quilting and didn’t quite know what I was doing… (It’s also upside down, whoops.)
I don’t remember if I used a pattern or not. It’s backed with a green and white checkerboard flannel.
Here are some of my favorite squares.
The bottom flower square is actually a pocket! There’s another strip of mini pockets along the top.
After my Grandma Shirley passed away and my cousin Angie got married, I decided that I needed to make family quilts. It would have been something she would have done and I wanted to honor her memory.
I have pictures of most of them, but a few I can’t seem to find. I made a cool guitar one for my younger brother, which I think has fallen apart. Of course, it’s one I don’t have pictures of. Also, two for my dad and my brother and sister-in-law’s wedding quilt.
Here are my cousins’ wedding quilts though.
Split Nine Patch for Angie and Nate with a friendship braid border:
Crystal and Josh got a Friendship Braid Vegas themed quilt:
And cousin’s kids’ quilts too, of course!
Lilah’s quilt is called “Oodles of Owls,” officially. Unofficially, it was “the drunken owl quilt” as I accidentally set the pattern wrong and the owls went flying all different directions. I also got really mad at it and threw it in a box for three months until it could behave. 🙂
Her brother Ollie’s quilt: I can’t remember if I named it anything other than “The Monster Quilt.”
It’s four of these squares put together. It is still the most complicated quilt I have ever made because it has tiny pieces.
And my cousin Kaitlyn’s daughter Maylee’s quilt: A Pastel Friendship braid.
While thinking about this post, I realized I don’t have good digital pictures of either Grandma, just printed ones. I’ll have to scan them one day and post them.
I hope you enjoyed seeing a little of my family history! I want to start keeping better track of what I’ve made to give away. Half the time, I forget to even sign them! Also, I am not allowed to start any new quilts until I have finished the very late wedding quilts that are sitting a box downstairs. Wish me luck with that!
How did it get to be Monday again? It seems like it was just Tuesday and now I need a weekend to recover from the weekend. We had friends over for a Driveway Movie Night, where we projected “Moana” on the garage door and watched it from lawn chairs in the driveway. Fancy got to see a dog friend again and did really well when the other dog was in the house. We were happy with that, as she can be territorial.
It’s pouring rain and thundering this morning; the perfect kind of day to stay home and do nothing. I don’t have that luxury, sadly, but do have French Onion soup in the crockpot for later which will be comforting.
Fancy had the right idea this morning. She hid under the bed and refused to come out. I was making chocolate ice cream, so bribed myself with that, otherwise, I would have been under there with her.
I was pretty crafty last week. Having to be in the basement with Fancy helped me get some more fabric cut up and organized. I had to start a new box for purple fat quarters, as I kept finding more of them. I also almost completely cleaned out a box with random fabric and crafty things in it. I also made 12 new tea wallets for Twinflower Fancies, or Hawthorne and Vine, a flower shop where they are also currently being sold.
When I sew these, I organize them in color groups based on what color thread they will be sewn with. I chain sew them as well. It doesn’t make sense to do them one at a time, as I would have to switch thread colors constantly. Normally, I wait until I have three or more in each color before I start sewing them up. I tried to expand my color range this time. I know I tend to stick to colors and patterns that I like by accident, but need to remember that it may not appeal to others as well.
Here are the green ones:
These three buttons were my favorites, I think, from the whole stack.
Here are the two black ones:
And the blue ones:
The octopus one might have to be my work tea wallet. I just love it and don’t know if I can give it up, despite already having a Red Riding Hood one in my purse. It’s just too cute.
It ws fun to go through the fabrics and remember what they were from as I was sewing them. This batch had a lot of familiar prints.
The owls are from a baby quilt for my cousin’s little girl. The dark green and vine print one is from a purse that I had tried to hand sew when I first started out. It was not a good idea and I finally got up the nerve to just rip it and reuse the fabric.
The geranium one and the holiday recipe one are both made from scraps of aprons that have been made for my Mom. When I bought the geranium fabric, the lady at the cutting table asked if I could adopt her too, she was jealous. 🙂
The gold treble clefs are from pillows I finally made the Husband this year after buying the fabric when we were dating. The blue and white waves with the boat is from one of the first skirts that I made.
All the other fabrics are from the stash. It’s nice to think if those special fabrics being used for something else too. That’s why I love scrap quilts so much too, there are a lot of memories in each of them.
Now for the gardening update:
I keep accidentally almost killing my lettuces. Plus, there are spiders living in them. Gross, hairy spiders, who have made a home in the lettuces themselves and in the pots. The Husband is going to have to cut them when, or if, they survive. I am not having spiders crawl on me. I think I’ll stick to farmer’s market lettuce next year. Any tips would be appreciated.
We have been getting some strawberries before the squirrel does!
These were all from yesterday and I found another one today. There are still a bunch of green ones on the plants too.
My peppers are looking good. The Mammoth Jalapeño has a pepper started. We’ll see how big it gets and if it lives up to its name. 🙂
The tomatoes all have some started. This one is the Roma, I believe and it had the most on it. I need to get some more stakes.
Here is the cucumber. This sucker is huge! It has a lot of flowers, but no starts yet. It keeps trying to escape into the yard.
My herbs are doing alright. The basil doesn’t look good. There has been a beetle that keeps eating it and it got very leggy and scraggly looking. It has yellow bottom leaves too, which I’m sure isn’t good. The oregano seems to have bolted. It keeps sending up flowers. I’m going to prune them off and see if I can get more out of it. Everything else seems to be growing well.
This week I have a few late nights, but most of my other days have a little more flex in them than usual. The weeks that my biweekly clients all come can get a little crazy, but it evens out with a few slower days occasionally. I’m hoping to get the fabric washed for the Rainbow Quilt and get it ties this weekend. Our friends are coming over this weekend for another sewing/video game day, so I can get some sewing done then too.
I also have a goal of canning three recipes, blackberry cinnamon tequila jam, nectarine orange marmalade, and dill pickles. I have some time tomorrow and a few other times this week.
I’m considering starting a “Simple Sunday” post which would be a quote or two, either funny or inspiring. I found my quote book from a while ago and was sad that the quotes I liked were just sitting in a book and not getting shared. It would be a good way to find out other quotes too, so I think that will start this Sunday.
Have a great Monday!
