Something Else for the Twins

Recently I blogged about my grandmother's childhood rocking chair that I was bringing to Anja when we travel there for her first birthday.  I'm sure she will let Ronan use it, too, but as the next female in the lineage, the rocking chair, if it survives, will be hers to pass on in the next generation.

Here is another item from my childhood that I'm bringing to my grandchildren.

This doll crib was made by my father for probably my second Christmas.  

It is a facsimile of the crib that my older brother and then I slept in as infants.  I think he made our actual crib, too, but that is long gone and wouldn't conform to any modern standards anyway. 

My first thought was to paint this white to resemble Anja and Ronan's modern cribs, but when I looked at it, I realized that the finish was is pretty good shape, the decals were pretty much in tact, and it just had a nice vintage feel to me.  Or maybe I am just sentimental.  

If you look to the bottom left of the decal, you can see a line of tiny stickers that spell out 

"M-A-G-G-I-E."  I removed some other random stickers when I washed this crib today, but I decided to leave the MAGGIE since it is going to her children.

I had the original mattress and pillow, so I covered them both with a removable fabric cover... I had the fabric, a rather gender neutral juvenile print with alphabet letters and items that baby could identify.

If you look at this picture of the crib, you will see that it has a side rail that goes up and down, just like real cribs back in the day.  Anja and Ronan's cribs don't have that detail.  In their cribs, the mattress can be raised and lowered.

I had enough of the fabric to make a coordinating crib size blanket and a larger square doll blanket.

Here is the crib with the teddy bear that was on the rocking chair.  That way you can see the size better.  It's a perfect size for a typical baby doll.

Anja and Ronan are probably still a little small to be playing with baby dolls, but I like the idea that they will have a few things that their mother and I played with when we were children.

A Story of Survival

In a previous post, when I was looking at activity in our garden and slope early in spring, or perhaps late in winter, I mentioned the sad state of our prickly pear cactus.  This cactus was originally brought back from a trip to Phoenix in 2011.  It suffered some damage from the long car trip and then was actually relocated at least twice in our yard due to some landscaping issues and a quest to find a spot that was both sheltered and received full sunlight most of the day.  We were pretty sure we had found an ideal spot for it, because last summer it filled the area with lots of exuberant growth.

When we were at the Outer Banks last fall, we brought back a couple "paddles" from a similar prickly pear that was flourishing in the front yard of the house we rented and added it to area.

Then this winter, on the one day that we had significant snow cover, some neighborhood kids cut through our yard and ducked under our deck to go down our slope.  The cactus was right in their path, but camouflaged by the snow.  No doubt it was pretty brittle from the severe cold, as well.  So, needless to say, when we inspected the cactus this spring, we needed to remove probably 75% of it, because the "paddles" had been disconnected and were dead.  So we feel like we are pretty much starting from scratch this year.

Last year this whole area was covered with cactus, now we are down to just a few scattered plants.
However, for the first time ever, we have cactus flowers!  I'm thinking this must be the OBX cactus.

These two new green "paddles" are growing from what was likely the original cactus we brought back from Arizona.  In the first picture you can see a slight reddish tint to the plants in front of the flowering cactus.  We had selected this particular variety of prickly pear because they tend to get some reddish fall coloring.  I don't know if that is true of all prickly pears.  But in the few years we had this cactus, I never remember it flowering.

I love the vibrant yellow color of the flowers.  This was a cluster of three and the middle flower opened a couple of days ago and is now shriveling.  So I figured I had better take a picture before the remaining flowers left us.  They are really quite beautiful.

This close up shows the almost translucent petals and the rather elaborate center of the open flower, below you see the remains of the first flower in the center of the two open blossoms.

We were told you can grow varieties of prickly pear quite far north into Canada, but they still seem pretty exotic and out of place to me in non-desert gardens.

An Antique for Anja

In a couple weeks I will be traveling to Maine to celebrate Anja and Ronan's first birthday!  Here are today's pictures of the little guys.  If you look just above Anja's curly hair (wishful thinking!) you will see Ronan peeking around the side of the green chair.  But I've included another picture of him with a somewhat pensive expression.

I have been putting aside a few things to bring to them, since we will be traveling by car and that provides the luxury of carrying larger parcels with us.

So, as the oldest daughter of the oldest daughter of the oldest daughter of the oldest daughter, I will be bringing Anja my grandmother's childhood rocking chair!

I was delighted to find this photo of my grandmother, Margaret Falkner, sitting in this very same rocking chair.  She was born in 1898, so I am going to date this photo as 1899.

And here is a little closer up.  The photo is not in good condition and quite dark, but she was a sweet baby and I love the very lifelike toy rabbit she is holding.

In this same collection of photos, I had a second photo that shows Grandma Margaret with her sister Clara, who was born in 1899.  This photo is really in nasty shape, but it is a little lighter and you can see more detail of the bottom of the rocker.  Clara's chair is similar but has a different back.

I don't know for certain, but I think that my grandmother was also the oldest daughter in the family.  She had an even younger sister named Louise and a younger brother named Joseph.  I remember Great Aunts Clara and Louse and Great Uncle Joe.  I believe there was also an Aunt Mathilda on that side of the family, but I'm not sure where she is in the birth order.  Perhaps I will find another old family photo that will clarify that!  

I'll finish with one more picture of the rocker... this time with a stuffed bear sitting in it.

I hope Anja enjoys her rocker!  Maybe I will get a photo of her sitting in it... or maybe not.  She's pretty active!

Delectable Mountains

Today the Mountain Jam Circle is meeting for lunch with our friend from the Folk Heritage Committee to turn over the Shindig quilt we have made for the 2014 raffle.

All three of us in the circle, Cheryl, Alice and myself, chose the fabrics... Alice made the suggestion of the pattern this year.  We like to have something with good visual impact, since the quilt is seen from a distance when it is shown on stage, and of course, the reference in this traditional pattern to "mountains" also made it a fitting choice.

Alice did all of the fabric prep and cutting and she and I pieced the top at our spring retreat at Lake Logan.  Then Cheryl worked her quilting magic!  Finally, we all met at Alice's and did the hand sewing on the binding.

So here is the 2014 Shindig quilt:

It measures 72 inches x 72 inches.

And here is the circle, finishing the quilt:

And finally, a close up that shows some of that exquisite quilting:

Someone is going to invest $2 in a raffle ticket this summer and take home this lovely quilt!

Short and Tweet!

Recently a couple of loyal followers commented that I hadn't put up any blog posts lately.  So, I thought I better remedy that problem, since I need to keep all the friends I can!

Today I had the luxury of having a couple of undisturbed hours in my sewing room and I decided I would make a "president's block" for the most recent president of the Asheville Quilt Guild.  It's a tradition that guild members make blocks to honor the past president that he/she then is expected to fashion those blocks into a quilt.  Last year's president, like her two predecessors, requested a specific theme, as she plans to donate the quilt to a women's shelter.  It will hang in a room that they call "the bird's nest" at this facility, and so Yolanda asked for 10.5 inch blocks in "subdued colors" that would go along with a "bird nest" theme.

My friend Alice suggested that I could get some inspiration by googling "coloring book page" images of birds, nests, bird houses, etc.  That got me going and last night I used her suggestion to find a simple picture that I could modify for my design.

So, here's my block for Yolanda.

The fabric shapes are cut out and fused onto the neutral cream background fabric.  Since I had time and since I also had some skinny points that might not hold their fuse very well, I decided to do a machine blanket stitch to more permanently hold down the pieces.  I think the blanket stitching helps to define the shapes a little, too.  I'm not sure if the colors are really "subdued," but except for the browns, they do sort of lean toward pastel.  All of the pastel pieces were scraps of Laura Wasilowski's hand dyed fabrics left over from a workshop I did (and blogged about) last year.  

Since I'm a better "starter" than a "finisher," I'm always delighted when I can actually complete a project!