Wordless Wednesday Weaving

The note card holds the pattern for Bob's (my uncle) baby shawl.
This was done just weeks before he was born! (He's my age)
The photo of the card is taken on
simple weave dish towels that I'd done years ago

I know I usually do Wordless Wednesday; however, when I share the back-story, you will appreciate why I found the need to include my “preamble”.

So many interesting things I was given to go through!
This photo is taken on a simple weave buffet runner that I'd done in 2007.

Late last summer I had a visit from my Mother’s cousin (my second cousin). I hadn’t seen him for almost 45 years-because of living locations, not family feuds!  J  

Gorgeous fine linen cloth. 

Anyhow, he brought with him some of his mother’s (my great-aunt as well as my namesake) weaving and textile items. 

Just beautiful
The threads -refers to how the loom is threaded
The treadle- refers to the way the harnesses move;
Thus, creating various patterns.
Oh, I would have loved to have "played" on the loom with her!

It may not have seemed very exciting to others looking on (a metal card file box with index cards); however, he may never know the treasure I see it as! The cards all held patterns or samples of the completed patterns.

Before doing a large piece, it helps to see how the yarn/strings work together, how colors blend, or how it just "feels". Small sample pieces help the weaver decide BEFORE doing a large piece!

This was a card pattern my great-aunt had done for my great-grandmother!
I feel connected to a group of wonderful and creative women!!

Black and White, so dramatic!

For several weeks now, I have been scrutinizing the files carefully and am planning to make one of her patterns in the near future.

Fall Festive!
Love it!

Very fascinating!
The reed hook is what is used to thread the loom.
Totally cool that she was given this for attending a workshop 54 years ago!

I hope you've enjoyed seeing these old patterns as much as I have. 

Threads were so delicate.
So different from my wool runner that the pattern card is resting on.

Another day we will explore weaving in more detail and I'll share some more things I've created. 

My aunt used to make her own "fabric" and then makes clothing from that.
Example: skirts, coats, suit jackets, etc......incredible!!
Wish I could melt the years and have spent more time with her.

                                    I am still in the learning stages, so don't judge!  (smiles)

A Stitch in Time, Saves Nine

Friends' Quilt top that I am talking about.

As a very, VERY young child I had contemplated and analyzed that expression over and over. When I think back about it, it makes me shake my head and smile.  I had wondered how one stitch could equal nine stitches? So I rationalized that the stitch size would have had to be different! Even before I realized it was referring to nine stitches, I thought it was saying I had to sew something before 9:00 and I would have saved the day! I’m sure this related to my learning to tell time when I was 4 years old, and at that point in my development, I was obsessed with clocks and numbers. Now, remember, I did say YOUNG child!  J  Of course, later in my elementary years it dawned on me that it meant fixing something, before it got worse, would be beneficial.  (ounce prevention/pound cure type thing).

Pinwheel phase!

Well, I’ve gotten totally sidetracked, but what sparked this whole blog passage, is my involvement with helping a friend preserve a memento from the past. Last year, a sweet friend of mine had mentioned off-handedly that she has a quilt top that her grandmother had made for her about 26 years ago, tucked away in a trunk. 

Ohana making herself comfortable
on one of my daughter's quilt.

Her grandmother has since passed away, her mother isn’t sewing any more, and she doesn’t sew at all. I knew that her grandmother had passed away, but the other two tidbits of info, I didn’t realize until recently.  

I remember thinking it was so sad to have a quilt just tucked away; but, we were with a group of people at the time and I didn’t follow up with additional questions.

Jelly Roll quilts, not yet assembled.
Super easy for beginners!

A few weeks ago, I was sharing a quilting story with her, and she mentioned the quilt top again.  This time I followed up with her!

In a nutshell, I am going to help her get this quilt top out from her trunk and completed it so it can finally be used. I picked it up from her office last week and we laughed how the colors she’d loved and chosen as a teenager were not going to look so dashing in her master bedroom!  J  I am going to try to bring in some darker colors and prints to use as borders and backing, to make this appear a little less girlie….  J

Working different patten layouts
for Log Cabin quilt. Other daughter's 

There is just something “special” about wrapping up in a quilt.  My grown daughters call quilts “mama hugs” or “burritos of love”. I guess you must be getting the visual of how well they wrap themselves!  They are both away from home and have their quilts with them.  They’ve both said that whenever they’re having a rough day, crawling under their quilts just seems to make the problems lessen and them feel closer to home. 

Another look with same blocks.

I’ve chronicled the quilts I’ve made by various patterns for various years.  It’s amusing to see my “pinwheel” or “log cabin” phases. 

I’ve loved every quilt that I’ve made and have found “homes” for each of them. 

Knowing that a quilt I’ve made and given away to comfort someone when they’re chilled, sick, tired, stressed, or just in the mood to feel “cozy”, makes me feel as though I’ve achieved that “stitch in time!”

A more "toned-down" version of
the Christmas quilt.

If you don’t sew or quilt, I hope you’ll realize it’s never too late to learn. And what a great thing to pass on to someone, be it the skill of sewing or the quilt itself!

Tradition and Heritage

Great-grandmother's recipe that
Mom typed years ago for me.

Those two words don’t necessarily have to be related. You can have a tradition in your family that is part of your heritage that you do year after year as if to honor ancestors from long ago; or, you can have a tradition that is a ritual that you’ve only been doing for the past few years, but you want to keep it going. Sometimes what your children feel is a tradition, may only have been done a few times, but seems as though it has been their whole life to them.

My Great-Aunt Pat's son visiting and
carrying on Pickle tradition with
future generations!

Well, Bread and Butter Pickles may well be an example of Tradition and Heritage in my family. When I was young and still at home, it was my family’s tradition to make pickles.  The time it really comes vividly to mind was when we were living on the island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea. I remember working with Mom in the kitchen and I was finally old enough to be given the task of slicing the cucumbers.  She was so specific in the size that she wanted them sliced. While I was slicing, and slicing, and slicing, and my fingers were becoming more and more shriveled, I remember listening to her tell me how she loved the smell of Bread and Butter Pickles being made during the summer by her grandmother; and, how she helped do the very thing I was doing. I felt proud to be given the task, and suddenly the pruned fingers didn’t bother me so much. 

My daughters in the kitchen

I hadn’t really known my great-grandmother.  Although she died when I was about 6 years old, we were living in Hawaii at the time, and we had been in England before that. So, all I really have are the stories of what a great cook she was and a few photographs that I cherish and share with my daughters.

Back to the Pickles----

We continued with all the steps: 1) slicing the peppers and onions.
2) Combining with the cucumbers and salt (to bring out the water). 3) Bringing the vinegar, sugar and spices to a boil before adding the other three.

I still remember how my eyes burned from the onion vapors, my nose was inundated with the steaming vinegar smell, and don’t forget that my fingers were still pruning! BUT, this was my HERITAGE and it was going to be a TRADITION that I was finally old enough to participate with.

Onions, peppers, and cucumbers! 

The recipe has been in our family for about 100 years. I remember hearing (and need to ask for clarification) that someone had won a Blue Ribbon decades ago with that recipe at a County Fair. Through the years, Mom has made the pickles, sometimes, I’ve been there to help, other times not.  However, the recipe is in a cookbook my Mom had made for me back in 1982 when I was young and on my own.  I never made them by myself until 2002. My daughters were finally old enough and I thought it was time to carry on the TRADITION and teach them a fun side of their HERITAGE!

Jars filling up with Pickles.
Next stop- the water bath!

That first year that we made them (2002), the whole house smelled of onion vapors. We all had tears that wouldn’t stop….we couldn’t even see.  We had fans on, windows open, and still it offered only minimal amounts of relief.  This warranted a call to Mom.  We analyzed the recipe and the steps I'd done. We laughed when we realized that 100 years ago when they said a “large” onion, it was by natural standards. So when I used 8 large onions by today’s standards, I was mega dosing!  We all made notes and vowed to use better judgment in the future.

Later that same summer, my parents and grandmother came for a visit and the ladies critiqued my pickles. That means color, taste, and presentation had to be up to Heritage standards! (hee, hee). But the best compliment of all came after they’d left my house and had taken a jar of my pickles on to my Great Aunt Pat. She was the real chef in the family and she called to tell me that my pickles were wonderful. She said I would’ve made my great-grandmother proud. I felt all the years of those different generations melt away. It’s funny how some things you do are just in your blood.  Whether or not you think something is your Heritage, it has a way of finding you, sometimes without you knowing it.

Excited to see that Blue Ribbon

In 2004, I entered the Bread and Butter pickles in our County Fair and took home a Blue Ribbon.  That recipe had come full circle, and I felt such a connection to my Heritage.

I hope there's something you'll think of today to help carry on a tradition or share a bit of your heritage with your children or even a good friend! Little things like this connect us all.

                               

It's All About the Clan!

The Celtic music is playing in the background as I begin my blog today.  The penny whistle (tin whistle--so many names) is so spellbinding to listen to.  It actually begins to stir up many memories, and the topic I was going to write about today gets tossed aside until another day to make room for a fond memory today.

Yep! That's the Clan....1970 something---don't judge!

I am Scot-Irish by descent, and my brother takes his “Clan Tartan” and slogan, “ora et labora” very seriously.  Through the years, the women in my family each had a kilt that was the clan’s tartan.  I think the men in the family must have been slightly envious, because for years my brother really wanted something out of that woven wool.  Hmmmm, should I analyze this?

He has a plaque hanging in his home that is the tartan, with the emblem and the slogan.  I guess this still wasn’t enough.

This is the tartan color we wear for "hunting".
We have a red one for everyday use.

One day about six years ago, while I was shopping at an Irish boutique in Frankfort, KY, I happened upon a man’s driving style woolen cap that was our clan’s tartan.  It was definitely more than I normally spend for my brother, even at Christmas; however, this was so perfect, so HIM, that I decided to buy it!

I wanted to give it to him early. I couldn’t handle the excitement of trying to wait for Christmas, but wait I did.  And while I was waiting, I began to think that I ought to weave a scarf to match the cap, and still of our tartan! I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it sooner, but I was still new to weaving and spinning at that time. 

This is the FIRST thing I'd ever done on a rigid heddle.
Not the tartan, just a simple dresser scarf.   It's old now.

I had a rigid heddle table top loom back then, so it was a simple weave. I didn’t have a tartan book at the time (I do now) so I didn’t have the directions for threading nor a plan for how the colors intersected and created different colors.  I studied both my kilt and his cap for a long time and worked backward to figure out the threading.  Now when I remember how seriously I thought about it, I laugh; but, at the time it seemed to be a bit daunting.

I was going to spin the wool, then dye the yarn, then weave the scarf.  After much deliberation, and spun skeins of black and white wool completed, I decided he really wasn’t worth ALL that time, so I bought the woolen yarn. (I know….the “B” word. We don’t say it in our house.  “Bought” yarn just doesn’t have the same connection for us; however, it sure was EASIER!) I tried to assuage my disappointment with my course of action by trying to convince myself that he probably wouldn’t like it anyhow, and then it would’ve been a waste of my time.

The Tartan has Red, White, Black, and Yellow in it.
Here is some of my hand spun Black and White
...slow going!

I warped the loom, took a deep breath, and began.  I hadn’t completed too many rows before I was sure that I’d love the finished product. I knew he would, too. It took a few hours to complete- not too arduous, but still, it required me to sit in one position and focus!

The floor loom I use now....very different!

When the scarf was completed, I took it off the loom, gently washed it in warm, sudsy water so that the wool would “full”, and then blocked it for drying. It handled so nicely, looked so sharp, and felt so wonderful.  I was just certain that he’d love it.

Well, I gave it to him that Christmas, and he put them on Christmas Day……and later that spring, he still hadn’t taken them off!  His wife is a principal at an elementary school in Maryland and one night, near the end of the school year, there was an event at her school that he was also going to attend to be supportive .  Her words to him that morning, as she left for work were, “See you at the school later tonight without your cap and scarf!”  It never happened; when he showed up with his cap and scarf on, he claimed he never heard those words!

You know it’s a HeartFelt Gift when it’s appreciated and loved that much!