~:: More Relics of Joy ::~

Does this not look like summer?  It’s the time when, if you are little, you are already in bed, listening to the older kids, still running across the lawns, still playing in the twilight.  It’s when the fireflies begin to show – assuming you have any, which we, here, don’t.  How sad is that?

And here is a special package that showed up, all unexpected, in the mailbox.  Can you tell who is holding it?  HOW DID YOU GUESS?  This package is from South Africa – look at the marvelous stamps.  And the very sweet inner wrappings, held together with purple chenille stems, and sealed with a tiny star.

A gift from a very gracious young woman.  Made by her own hand, just for me.  A horse.

A much sweeter horse than I am used to, with silky mane and tail, which I have carefully formed to show you the wind.  I was so surprised to find this in my mail box, and so very glad when I opened it.

Have I already put this tiny quilt up?  It’s maybe 13 inches high.  I loved picking the fabrics for the eggs.

Another in the series of totems.  I keep making the children find them for me.  The amazing and gratifying thing is that they all still have them, and know where they’ve been kept.  I made these tiny totems each time a child went off to an adventure – camp, a family visit, a school trip, a mission.  This one has been kept with a love note, both of them tucked secretly into Cam’s luggage so very long ago.

He’s little.

And I think this fish was his also.

But this was the very first.  Ginna was headed to a week at girl’s camp.  It was the first time I’d ever sent her away.  It wasn’t so much that I was worried, but that I just felt so very sad.  I wanted to make something, a tiny thing, to send with her, in case she should be home sick, to remind her that she’s never alone.  And she loved frogs.  So one night, just as I was falling asleep, I simply knew how to make this one.  All of his parts came together in my head.  And the next morning, I made him.

He was the first one to be secretly tucked.

And that was eighteen years ago.  But here he is.  Still loved.  And still with her when she is away from home.  I am astonished.  And honored.  And I love her so much.

Anciently, we went to Santa Fe, and there, we found a little store that had tiny leather turtles with beaded shells.  I think, in those days, these were actually locally made and not Chinese.  We bought one for each of us.  But I don’t know where they are now.  I remembered them some years later and wanted to hold one.  So I made one of felt.  the pleasing thing in this for me is that I made a beaded rosette without knowing I was doing it.  I just figured it out myself.  And he’s cute.  I can tell you how.

I can’t remember what I’ve shown off and what I haven’t.  It’s an ornamental pillow cover, the design based on a scene I used to draw now and then.  I didn’t know I was doing applique.  I was just layering shapes on shapes, muslin on muslin.

I think I must have mentioned him before – the Christmas birds I made in college, one for each of my friends.  The wings were embroidered in a sort of zen state as I thought of each one.  The designs dictated by each friend’s personality.  I think I have two left.  I wish I’d kept all of them.

I needed a game.  So I took some ancient paper and made cards, two of each design, colored them with the children’s crayons and sealed them in awful plastic which, as you can see, did not age well.  It was a matching game, using all our favorite things.

And here is one more of the pillow cases.  There’s only one left – Cam’s wolf, which he says he has tucked away.  And I believe him.  This is Murphy’s.  I asked each to tell me his or her favorite animal.  They each had one.  Until I came to Murphy, who had three: hedgehogs, mice and – penguins.

The thing I love most about quilting is choosing fabric.  Especially for applique.  This mouse is, I dare say, one of my best picks.  It has both texture and concept.  And i love the shape of him – especially his ear.

But this guy I like very much, too.

And here is the penguin, on the back.

He disappears into the blue, huh?

Choosing the fabric for each case was fun, too.  And this is one of my favorite fabrics in the world.  Northwoods.

Here is the denim quilt I told you about.  Made of squares carefully cut from our collection of worn out or grown out of jeans.  I saved them for years, then finally took them out and cut squares out of every inch of them.  I made a few actual quilt squares, and kept a pile of those.  And a pile of the pocket squares.  And some seam ones.

At a subsequent Monday’s family home evening, I called the children together and let them choose their squares, then we spent the evening putting together each quilt.  The kids put the squares together like puzzles, pleasing themselves, and we pinned them all carefully.

In secret, I sewed them together, one quilt at a time.  then picked fabric for each back and put the quilt package together.  I took these to a long arm person because time before Christmas was running out.  But the long arm machine had a break down, trying to put its needle through all those heavy seams.  Still, she found a way to do the quilting, and I had another set of quilts to put on my children’s beds on Christmas eve.

This was Murphy’s too.  He’s the one who is living with me now, for however short the time, and so I have his things to hand.  Thus, you see them.  Soon this quilt, too, will live in another house.  And who knows how long it will last?  But as long as it does, I’ll be able to snug him and his family up, even from far away.

And I believe that this is the point of the whole thing – everything I’ve shown you.  It’s sending out a bit of yourself to make beautiful the lives you love, even when you can not be there to touch or smile or hold – across streets or miles or even years.  Maybe across generations.  Yes. Yes, that is the point.