That's another month gone.......

Do you ever feel that your life is flashing by your eyes while you sit back and watch?  Whoever said time goes faster as we get older was onto something, I reckon.

Stitches were taken the other day in the sewing room and two blocks were made.

 Our quilt group was asked to make a six inch (six and a half inches all up) block in pretty pastel fabrics which will be made into a quilt to be given to Margaret W, whose husband recently died.  I couldn't decide between the blue or the green, so made them both.  They have been pressed although they don't look like it; I will whack them with a bit of starch and press them again before they are handed over.

At the start of the year I decided that the centrepiece on our dining room table would be changed at the start of each month, so this is March......a little touch of green.  The mat seems to be machine embroidered and belonged to Kevin's mother;  I suspect it is Irish linen.  The bowl belonged to my mother, it's the only green bowl I own.

There seems to have been a fashion many years ago for table ware made to look like leaves.  This one was made by Royal Winton but I have no idea how old it is.  To me it has a look of the 1930s-1940s about it, perhaps it was a wedding present when my parents married in 1946.

Digging way back in my memory there was another green leaf bowl, a larger one.  When my younger brother John and I were small - I was four, so John would have been three, Ian was only a baby so was too small to get up to any mischief - we were swinging on the bottom doors of the old fashioned dresser cupboard in our parents' kitchen.  Even though we were only little kids we managed to pull it over on top of ourselves, I can still remember being trapped by my tartan skirt.  Of course my parents, being careful young folk with not much money to spare, kept special pieces on the higher shelves which meant they fell further........and broke, including the larger green bowl.  My mother was in the back yard hanging out washing, heard the crash and came running to see what had happened.  She told me later she didn't know whether to kiss us, or kill us.

In The Great Flood of October 2017 anything and everything on the floor in every room was damaged.  In my sewing stash room every hanging I had ever made (and a few quilts) was stacked on the floor waiting for me to go through and decide where to hang them them.  They held an awful lot of water for we don't know how long, and there were some spectacular colour runs.  A few have been since washed with colour catchers but to little avail.  All that work gone for nothing is upsetting, but I have a choice: to persist with the washing, perhaps spoiling them more in the process, or to toss them all out.  I had the pleasure of making them and I have photos.  They will be tossed, and I will make new hangings.

So to that end, yesterday a kit purchased in Canada several years ago was taken from its box, and it will be worked on - and immediately hung when finished.  It's a lovely autumn scene by Edyta Sitar called "Holding On", raw edge free motion quilting, and I am looking forward to seeing it done; it will bring back memories of our autumn trips to Canada.  When I saw it made up at a craft festival I just had to have it but haven't been game to work on it since because I thought my skills weren't up to it.......but what the heck.  Finished is better than perfect, right?

A couple of days ago the uke group played at a local aged care facility, we had a few front row conductors and some very enthusiastic singers joining in.  They even have Happy Hour, the residents were served with a glass of wine or a beer while we sang for them.  However - there are still locks on the doors.

"Avoid talking of personalities.
Avoid speaking of your birth, your travels and all personal matters, to those who may misunderstand you, and consider it boasting.  When induced to speak of them, do not dwell too long upon them, and do not speak boastfully."

Er.....yes.  Probably. 

Enjoy your days!