A Gift of Memories

I've been searching for something to give to my 20 year old step grandson. He came into our family when he was 12 and he is dear to my heart. He's moved away to his first apartment and I wanted to give him something for a house warming present that would say to him that he's as much my grandson as the ones I share genes with.

I gave him my "Old Fisherman." I worked on that picture for about 4 years. Just about everyone who knew me at that time saw it because I carried it everywhere. I loved working on it and locking in memories of our daily life...the life that John was not a part of at the time. I loved that piece; I still do, but it was what I needed to give to John. It was like giving him the memories of our family that he didn't have. Now I just have to find the words to tell that to him!

A Different Perspective on Homeschooling and Stitching

A while back I wrote about how homeschooling would take away a lot of hours I like to spend on my various needlework projects, but then I had a different thought. In Germany, boys and girls are taught to knit in 4th grade. It's something that should be passed down to all our children. My Father-in-law told me about how the old fishermen used to sit around mending nets, or making new ones. He showed me how to do it and it is just like Macrame.

Since we homeschool, we have the option of making a curriculum that fits our kids and I'm going to set aside some time each week to pass on a tradition. I won't be able to do it right away, but I will try to work it in.

Celle and Memories

In years to come, when I look at this sampler, I will think about the long conversations I had with my mother and dad while working on this sampler. Since they are 88 and 84, I really treasure this time.

I don't know about anyone else, but I stitch in memories when I do my needlework. I can look around my house at my needlework and remember when and where I stitched so many pieces. I see my son as a toddler when I look at a crewel surrounded mirror. When I see my flower thread sampler, I think of the yearly trip to the Peaks of Otter in Virginia. My needlework charts my children's growing up years and when I go to the houses of some of my friends and relatives, I see the pieces I have done for them and remember that time again.

When I look at Celle, I will remember this vacation and the time I spent with my granddaughter, Eli (Elizabeth Anne), sitting on the porch watching the birds, and the time I spent talking to my folks. I'll also remember the genealogy side trip to Boonsboro, MD where I saw the same mountains and hills my ancestors knew, and the time I spent with one of my favorite cousins when I researched my Hawn family in PA. In every stitch, I think there is a memory.

I also stopped in Charleston on my way back home and saw the Southern Girlhood exhibit there. It was fantastic and being alone, I could spend as much time as I liked viewing it. I went back and forth between the samplers and a nice little bench out front where there was an antiques magazine on the exhibit. Of course, I would love to have had someone to "ooh and ahh" with, but only a sampler lover would have wanted to take the time I took reading each description and looking over each sampler thoroughly.

Free Rice and my Vocabulary

FREE RICE

What fun! This is a wonderful website. You improve your vocabulary while contributing free rice to the world's poor. Not only is a fun, but the vocabulary words chosen are linked to your score, so they are always appropriate for you. If you miss a fairly easy word, you are given more words at that level so you are never overwhelmed.

Why am I not finished?

Well, I've stitched and stitched last year, so why aren't my favorite projects finished? If I had an answer to that, I'd think I won the lottery. Yes, I've stitched, but it seems like my favorite projects have had to take a back seat to the projects I made for others. Why, oh why, haven't I taken photos of them? If I did, I could look at this list and feel like I have accomplished something even if I didn't meet my goals.

So, my New Year's resolution is to take a photo of everything I stitch, no matter how small. I wonder how long it will take me to slip up on that one? Still, if I make a resolution, I will be more apt to do it eventually rather than not at all. I am also going to resolve that one of these projects gets done this year. My best bet is "Grandma Meinen" so that is going to be my target. I also need to get some Christmas ornaments done. A good friend is stitching with me and she is also doing Christmas ornaments so we can keep each other on track. Anyone else is free to join us.

Stitching by candle light

In homeschool, we did something very different. I had kits for the kids to make felt animal toys. They were shaped as a ginger bread boy and a frog. The kids had to thread the needle and stitch in the small holes already provided and then stitch back the other way. The trick was that we were doing this as pioneers. As soon as the weather was cool enough to make a fire, I had their dad build one and we got 2 candles. The kids and I sat in the very subdued light and talked and sewed. They learned how it felt for our ancestors when there was no electricity. There were some unexpected dividends too. We all realized that all the family members would be sitting around the fire together and talking while they worked on their various tasks. Harnesses needed fixing, and tools needed sharpening, so Dad and the boys had things they needed to do also. Sometimes it would be a piece of whittling to make a whistle for the little ones. Mom would need to knit clothes to keep the family warm over the winter and the girls would also be assigned knitting tasks. The family would be together, talking about this and that and spending time together. Our lives today fling our families apart...to different rooms and different states. We learned to cherish our time together.

New cross sitch project

My sister has returned from Alaska and she brought a some neat cross-stitch patterns she got in Anchorage. She's asked me to do one of a Sea Otter for her Christmas present. That's like getting two presents (for me). I get to stitch a great piece and I check her off my Christmas list. I like this! It is a darling design, but I can see that it has a lot of floss that is of a similar color. I'll have to hope for good weather so I can stitch in natural light. I've found that even the new Ott lights don't work as well as being outside, although they are a vast improvement.

We picked her garden and my daughter-in-law's and managed to get a lot of tomatoes, so we spent all day putting up stewed tomatoes, chili and salsa. It was so nice to spend the day working together and just visiting. I feel such a kinship with the women of the past. Our modern world doesn't make room for a lot of the ties that sustained our grandmothers.

She also brought me some wonderful hand dyed wool for making socks. This has been the focus of this year's knitting goals. I wanted to master all the skills you need to make socks and the only way I could figure to do it was to just makes socks and more socks until I was totally comfortable making them. A friend of my mother's taught me an easy way to graft the toes of the socks and that was a real key. That's the hardest part of making socks, at least for me it is. My sister also got some sock yarn for herself too and wanted me to show her how to make them. There's another thing that hearkens back to an earlier time...in two ways. First, women handing down traditional crafts and second, spending time together. When you add that to how hand knit socks feel, you can see why they are so popular.

Drought

This peaceful stitching vacation is turning out to be more like going to one of those weight-loss camps where they keep you so busy exercising, you don't have time to eat! Virgina is having one of the worst droughts in many years. Actually, I began to see signs of it as soon as I crossed the Florida/Georgia line on my trip up here. The crops are in a pitiful state and it made me feel like crying.

My sister has a lot of plants in her several acre yard and a large garden also. I'm spending most of my days lugging hoses and sprinklers from place to place, hoping that the plants I watered in the morning can survive until it's their turn for water the next day. I feel like I do triage every morning and then head out to treat the most severely wounded all day long. I've never seen such drought. In the evening I hear thunder rumbling in the area and I see dark clouds gathering, but I have yet to see where it rained. I check with my daughter-in-law who lives nearby to see if they got the rain, but they haven't gotten a drop. It isn't the kind of rain that does much good anyway...just a few minutes of downpour and then the steam evaporates before your very eyes. Still, I'd love to have even that little bit of rain.

The garden is struggling along, and I am picking it and canning and freezing what I can, but it isn't much. We have had tomatoes and beans, so I am getting them put up, but there should be three times as much. Last year I had wonderful meals of veggies that came right from the garden to the plate. It has caused me to think of our ancestors who had to live almost totally from what they had grown. I guess I never thought of what a disaster is was to have a season of drought. I shouldn't complain.

So, I haven't had the time to stitch like I wanted. It's also hotter than blue blazes outside, so sitting on the porch isn't as inviting as it was last year. I spoke to someone at the grocery store and she said it was 106 in her back yard. That is beyond miserable. I have managed to do a lot of quilting in the air conditioned house though. I started a wonderful quilt for my granddaughter made from multiple shades of pink which she will love. I also cut out several quilts so I could have them ready when I went home. I shouldn't complain.

Stitching on vacation

It's been so long since I have sat down with Celle and done any work. I'm house sitting at my sister's again and thoroughly enjoying the time to sit on the porch with my books on tape and stitching in hand. I've done very little in these past few months because of homeschooling. I used to grumble about some of the text books I used to have to use, but I am seeing that creating your own material has some disadvantages too...mainly the time it takes.

My time is divided this vacation. I have a lot of quilting that I have to get done and I won't have the time to focus solely on my stitching. Still, it feels good to be working on any of the various needlework crafts that I enjoy.

A New Leaf

Spring is the time of new beginnings and this should be a good time to switch projects. I have worked very hard on Celle and it is now time to work on my other samplers. Since I will be going to Virginia to visit my parents, and house sit again for my sister, I am going to work on the Meinen Sampler. It is in honor of my mother's grandmother and it will be nice to stitch in some memories while we are chatting. This is one that is close to finishing, so I hope I can get it done while I am there.

That means adding some photos, both of Celle which I am thinking about retiring, and Meinen Sampler which is now active. I find it so interesting that I can be tired of a project and have no motivation to work on it and then 6 months later, I just can't wait to get back to it. I'll do a l.ittle more on Celle and then let it rest a while

Homeschooling and stitching

My daughter and I have decided to start homeschooling her son, Jacob. For many, many reasons, we are unhappy with his school situation. The biggest is that Florida has the FCAT and the teachers are having to teach to the test at the expense of true learning. Add that to the fact that the school has been in lockdown twice this year, first when a man committed murder and suicide and second when the police were chasing a criminal. The latter just as the parents were picking up the kids. This school is in a nice neighborhood in a small town and yet, we can't feel like we are sending our children to school in safety. Add that to the wonderful results relatives have had, and the fact that the last regular grade I taught was 5th grade and it tipped the scale in the direction of homeschooling.

This however is going to really put a crimp in my stitching. There are the lesson plans, correcting papers and gathering material that I'll be doing in the evening plus the actual teaching time. I foresee much fewer hours available to stitch. Isn't a shame that life gets in the way of stitching?

July Stitching - on vacation

In years to come, when I look at this sampler, I will think about the long conversations I had with my mother and dad while working on this sampler. Since they are 86 and 82, I really treasure this time.

I don't know about anyone else, but I stitch in memories when I do my needlework. I can look around my house at my needlework and remember when and where I stitched so many pieces. I see my son as a toddler when I look at a crewel surrounded mirror. When I see my flower thread sampler, I think of the yearly trip to the Peaks of Otter in Virginia. My needlework charts my children's growing up years and when I go to the houses of some of my friends and relatives, I see the pieces I have done for them and remember that time again.

When I look at Celle, I will remember this vacation and the time I spent with my granddaughter, Eli (Elizabeth Anne), sitting on the porch watching the birds, and the time I spent talking to my folks. I'll also remember the genealogy side trip to Boonsboro, MD where I saw the same mountains and hills my ancestors knew, and the time I spent with one of my favorite cousins when I researched my Hawn family in PA. In every stitch, I think there is a memory.

I also stopped in Charleston on my way back home and saw the Southern Girlhood exhibit there. It was fantastic and being alone, I could spend as much time as I liked viewing it. I went back and forth between the samplers and a nice little bench out front where there was an antiques magazine on the exhibit. Of course, I would love to have had someone to "ooh and ahh" with, but only a sampler lover would have wanted to take the time I took reading each description and looking over each sampler thoroughly.

June Stitching

House sitting for my sister in rural Virginia provided lots of opportunity to stitch and I got a lot accomplished. My sister has dozens of plants and hanging baskets on her wide wrap-around porches and a porch and yard full of bird feeders. I got books on tape from her library and sat on the porch watching the birds and stitching. Doesn't that sound like heaven? She also has a large flower garden with a goldfish pond and waterfall, benches and ornamental trees and a food garden as well. It's idyllic, but takes a lot of care, hence the house-sitting.

I also got my granddaughter, Eli, 4, and brought her over to make doll clothes and have a picnic on the porch. She enjoyed watching the little hummingbird defend his feeder from his "wife" and "children." He was so selfish, she thought he needed to go to "time-out"! Hummingbirds will share their feeders during the courtship and nesting, but once those hatchlings fledge, it's every man for himself! We enjoyed seeing the fledglings hiding in the bushes and attempting to sneak a sip of nectar.

Just as hummingbirds are more aggressive than I ever imagined, we also saw 2 bluebirds dive bombing squirrels at a feeder. What a shock! I had no idea they could be so aggressive either. Since they don't really use the feeder much, we figured that they must have a nest near; probably in the tree above the feeder.

There was even more raw nature to hear about when Mary Beth and Bobby returned. They have a screech owl box with a tiny camera in it and we have enjoyed seeing the owls care for the little babies, but one night an owl got a cardinal that was feeding on one of the feeders. Bobby checked the owl-cam and sure enough the owls were feeding the cardinal to the babies.

Meinen Sampler for May

I finally have all the siblings names done and am starting the border across the bottom. I didn't work on the sampler as much as I usually would since I was also doing Matter's Choice for a local needlework shop, but I am looking forward to doing more work in Virginia while housesitting for my sister. You can click on the picture for a better view of how the names turned out.

The more I work on this, the more enthused I get. Along with stitching and finding out historical details, I find that I am searching my own mind for memories of Grandma Meinen. I was 9 when she died, but I do remember her. On one visit, we drove up a country road to the house and I remember that she was out in her garden weeding, pinching back plants and picking radishes. She grew the long white icicle radishes. What an odd thing to remember! Still, it tells me something about her. My sister was a baby, so she must have been in her late 70's. She was still hard at work even then. By that time, Uncle Gib was doing the farming, so she didn't have that responsibility, but I am sure there still was plenty to do.

I think this was the same visit when we kids had a wonderful time climbing to the top of a huge haystack and rolling and tumbling down it. It seemed to me to be far better than playground equipment! Life on a farm seemed like the most wonderful thing but, like so many other things, the reality was a lot less enchanting. I can only imagine how much work there was to do.

Celle 1826 stitch-a-long May

It's stitch-a-long time again and this is where I am starting for this month's stitching. Since I am leaving for Virginia on June 2, I'm not going to get a lot done before June 1, but I will have time in Virginia to stitch, so I'm not worried. Having my stitch-a-long group really helps though. I probably wouldn't make up for lost time this month without it. Hopefully I can get another motif done this month.

The latest on the Meinen Sampler

Well, I've done some more on my Meinen Sampler and have gotten the middle names of all of my grandmother's siblings. Two of them had names that were very short and just happened to be born in a very short month, May, so I wanted to even out the lines.

In the process I found out that my great-grandmother kept a diary and that my Great Aunt Henrietta, who is 93, has it. That was a big surprise. I'd planned on getting more information on her, but never dreamed there was a diary. I'm going up to Virginia next week and my mother and I will put our heads together and see if we can find out more information. I'm getting so excited about this project. I only started out with a sampler, but I am getting more and more interested in her life. I'm hoping that I can get my mom to go with me to visit an aunt who spent a lot of time with Grandma Meinen when she was a child. More on this later.

Celle Blog Promises

(many thanks to fodey.com for this wonderful newspaper idea.)

Celle 1826 stitch-a-long

I made a lot of progress on my Celle SAL. I started each motif on the left side so that I can pick my work up and find an area that is suitable for my stitching opportunities. There are easy motifs to do when chatting with a friend or watching TV and harder ones to take advantage of time when there are no distractions. I find it so much easier to work this way. We do this SAL on the last day of the month and the first 2 days of the next. As can be seen from the dates on the photos, I kept on working until April 8th. I just had to get to the motif with a tiny bit of wine color which really perks the sampler up. It is amazing that such a little bit of color can make so much difference.

Progress on Meinen Sampler

I have been stitching up a storm lately. It is so beautiful out on the upstairs porch and I find it compelling. I know that heat and humidity will soon strike Amelia Island Florida and I will be inside forever grateful to the inventor of air conditioning, so I am feeling only a little guilty for being so trifling.

It may be hard to see on these pictures, but the fabric is actually a color called platinum, a very light warm beige gray. It is similar to the tan of this blog. It is a beautiful shade and works well with these colors. I am working on the large lawn area around the cottage which contains numerous odd animals. It is hard to put it down when one of them is emerging.

I'm also finding more about my great-grandmother...clues to the person she was. Mother said that she alwas greeted them saying, "Wie gehts." (I hope I have spelled that correctly.) When she left, she always said, "I go now." This is an important clue because her parents were from Belgium, a country with three languages, French, German & Dutch. Her father's name was Pierre, but he was also called Peter. She may have spoken some French, but this indicates that German was her native language.

Great Grandma Meinen

I need another sampler to work on this year about as much as I need a 6th toe, but the creative juices got going and I just had to get this done. It has been floating around in my brain for a long time now and suddenly, it was just like labor pains. I just had to give it birth. You can double click on the picture to get a larger size and then click in the bottom right to get it big enough to see my wierd animals. I just was looking at a sampler book and they followed me home.

This is the story of my Great Grandmother, Anna Marie Stoffel. She was born August 24, 1873 in Tilden, WI. Her father was born in Barnich, Belgium and her mother was born in Toernich, Belgium, but both of those towns are now in Luxembourg. They immigrated to Wisconsin in 1868. It was a rough land then. While I was doing the genealogy, I realized that Grandma's mother had made that long voyage with 6 children ages 2 to 12. She got off the ship on August 10, 1868 and took a train to Eau Claire, WI and then made the 30 or so miles to Tilden by wagon. Twenty-five days later, she gave birth to her 7th child!

Grandma Meinen came from strong stock and she would need it. Her husband, Peter Meinen died March 13, 1918 at the age of 47. Grandma was 44 and her youngest child was 6. Her only son, Gib, was 11. We don't think much about whether we have sons or daughters, but for a farming family it was critical. Fathers looked at each son as potential helper on the family farm. Land was cheap, but a successful farm took a lot of work. Daughters could help some, but not the way strong sturdy sons could. There were six daughters in the family before a son came along and Peter died before Uncle Gib was ready to take over. It all fell to Grandma Meinen, her older daughters and a hired man.

Just to work the farm was difficult, but in the late twenties, things began to get hard for the farmers. Rains didn't come when needed and prices skyrocketed. Things began to get out of control and then came the Black Friday when the bottom fell out. A lot of farmers had borrowed money when the crops were bad and they couldn't grow enough feed for their cattle. Their ancestors had cleared the land and poured their lives into it, but many of their descendants couldn't hold on. Many men lost their farms or sold out for a fraction of the value.

How did a woman with 7 daughters and 1 son make it on that farm? I don't know, but I am sure that it wasn't easy. It took determination and hard work. My mother told me about her story when I was doing some genealogy and I kept thinking that the story shouldn't die. I remember Grandma Meinen, but I was 9 when she died at the age of 80, so I didn't know her well. She raised a family who loved and supported each other and they were always close. They all raised fine families or their own. What a legacy!

I wanted to make this sampler to celebrate her life. I used a border I found in a French sampler book to represent her French Belgian ancestry. The scene at the bottom is a combination of French & German as was her family. I listed all her children, one of whom, Henrietta, is still alive and well at 93. The house looks like the houses found in the Belgian countryside and the animals don't look like anything I've ever seen, but they are charming. I couldn't find a nice flying bird, so I perched a blue bird on the chimney. He is way too big, but I couldn't seem to get him to leave.

I'm not sure I am finished with this sampler yet, so if anyone has any great ideas, feel free to speak up. I'll probably change it when I start to stitch. I am toying with the idea of doing it on 32 ct. Dirty Linen, but I'll have to see how it looks. The original idea was from a sampler made in 1905 in Wisconsin or Michigan, but I have changed it so much only the skeleton of the idea survives.

There are so many people in my ancestry that I'd like to celebrate. Someday I hope to have my sampler wall full of them...along with my 6 Permin Dutch/German samplers, And they Sinned, Dutch Beauty, all the samplers I have marked in Fine Lines and SANQ and about 50 more! If there was only enough time.