Aunt Jane of Kentucky...

by Eliza Calvert Hall , the the story of a Southern quilter

My Grandma S gave me this book when I was 11 or 12. This is my original copy dated 1906. It's now available online through Harvard Edu here. I'm sure you'll enjoy the chapter entitled " Aunt Janes Album".

Here's an exerpt from it...

"How much piecin' a quilt is like livin' a life. Many a time I've set and listened to Parson Page preachin' about predestination and free will and I said to myself, if I could just get up there in the pulpit with one of my quilts, I could make life a heap plainer than Parson's making it with his big words. "You see, to make a quilt, you start out with just so much calico. You'll go to the store and pick it out, n' buy it, but the neighbors give you a piece here and a piece there and you'll find you'll have a piece left over every time you cut out a dress and you just take whatever happens to come. That's predestination. "But when it comes to cutting the quilt, why, you're free to choose your own pattern. You give the same kind of pieces to two persons and one'll make a nice patch quilt and the other one'll make a wild goose chase. There'll be two quilts made of the same kind of pieces, but just as different as can be. That's the way of living. "The Lord sends us the pieces, we can cut 'em out and put them together pretty much to suit ourselves. There's a heap more in the cutting out and the sewing than there is in the calico." –Eliza Calvert Hall, 1898

While fishing around for info on Eliza, I found this sweet poem....

A Treasure

by Mildred Hatfield

It's more than a coverlet, More than a spread, This beautiful quilt That graces my bed.
It's laughter and sorrow, It's pleasure and pain, It's small bits and pieces Of sunshine and rain.
It's a bright panorama Of scraps of my life- It's moments of glory, It's moments of strife.
It's a story I cherish Of days that have been, It's a door I can open To live them again.
Yes, it's more than a cover, This much-treasured quilt, It's parts pieced together Of the life I have built.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Felon cooling off

the begininings of spring

Sewing and Bookworming

I'm working on hand quilting this months guild project. Couldn't quite stick to the pattern given and ended up with too many half squares. Made use of them anyway. I'm so out of pratice with precision and 1/4 seams. The months blotto block pattern is a paper pieced courthouse step using brights. I've gotten as far as getting the fabric pulled out for that. Paper piecing is not my bag.

Sis' library at her Beulah house... book love runs in the family...

I've had my nose in books
and there always seems to be several going at once... at the moment, one is Clara. .The Ford's are fascinating, not only because I grew up in Detroit, but because they were real people who shared their dreams, their lives and their legacy. The book is more factual than narrative but leaves imagination full out open to the oppulent yet down home ways of Henrys other half. Ironically one of Claras favorite places is not too far from here at the Huron Mountain Club. The Club is a mysterious local legend.
A CQ block is definitly being planned around Clara.




After reading the Forest Lover this summer I got interested in the life of Emily Carr
and found the book, Hundreds and Thousands, one of Emily's journals, in my sisters library. I love her descriptions of color and perception but it's her quirky, often difficult life that gives me a source for courage in moving on with my own creative calling.


I've finished all the Mitford books by Jan Karon and started the Father Tim series, Home to Holly Springs. I missed the August book sale in town so the pickins are slim for winter. But I did see a used book store in Houghton... I'll have to check it out when we get up that way.
It's a cold clear night here and the stars are out by the billions... I love the awe of nights like these!