Easter Synopsis

Happy Easter everyone! We had a great weekend and I finally got around to culling through my pics to share with you. There was egg dyeing with a little crayon resist on Saturday. Eleanor was not at all patient with this process. She’d make one 1/2 inch crayon mark and announce “That’s eee ’nuff!”, insist on plopping the eggs in the dye herself and almost immediately yell “That’s eee ’nuff!” and want to remove them from the dye. Most of the eggs she did were extremely pale.  All of Seth’s eggs ended up some variant of green. Once he found out you could dip in more than one color though, things started to get more interesting.

Sunday morning started with the easter baskets I already told you about. Here’s Seth’s showing off his favorite item received (a packet of sunflower seeds) and Eleanor with the finger puppet I made (inspired from here) on her head. I do not know why she’s wearing it on her head. I turned around and there it was. She kept it there for a good 10 minutes. Maybe it was in protest because I made them a tad too small so they’re a bit hard to put on.

Then there was the egg hunt outdoors. I tried to get away from the plastic eggs, but I ran out of energy and it was the one thing Seth remembered from last year and was looking forward to. I ended up  doing a combo of plastic eggs and the real eggs we had dyed.

Seth was fast as lightning so hard to photograph and Eleanor spent a lot of time picking herself back up because she kept tripping when she saw an egg. She was that excited.

Finally we went for a hike to look for signs of spring. I’m hoping the hike becomes one of our easter traditions as it was probably my favorite part. I had snuck a copy of The Best Hikes of the Twin Cities by Kate Havelin into Steve’s easter basket so we picked a hike out of there and set off.

By the end of the day we were tired and happy. How was your Easter?

Easter Baskets

From this:

To this:

To this:

I purchased the yarn a year ago with no where near enough time to whip up these easter baskets. So happy I finally completed them this year. I was able to knit and felt all 4 in about 2 months which is somewhat of a mirracle for me.

I have this silly notion that maybe these will become heirlooms like my grandmother’s quilts. Pulled out at easter every year, cherished memories, lovingly stored away for the years to come. I’m sure they won’t have the fortitude of a hundred year old quilt. But maybe, just maybe my kids will want to take them with them when starting their own  family some day.

I’d love to show you a great picture of them all gussied up for the big event but a late night, slightly blurry, mom’s so tired from staying up late to do this shot will have to do. Especially since there was no way I was waking up before the kids after staying up late to finish a few last minute crafts, namely  Sarah of Mrs. D. Lighful’s jelly bean bracelets and CraftPad’s bunny finger puppets. Both a big hit and both took me longer than expected.

Click on the picture to get more details of the contents. Seth’s favorite? The sunflower seed packet – be still my gardening mama heart.

Update – Silly me! I forgot to mention where I got the pattern: A Second Treasury of Magical Knitting by Cat Bordhi. The pattern is crazy different but that’s part of what makes it fun.

Redwork

This quilt has fascinated me as long as I can remember. It was made by my great grandmother the first year of her marriage.  Imagine – one year. All this loving stitching. The embroidery, the piecing, the hand quilting.

Again the signature on the quilt has proven ever so important. Name, place, date – 1894. No, I’m not quite named after her. I’m named after my grandmother, who in turn was named after her mother (the maker of this quilt), who was named after her mother. It’s quite an honor and was actually a little painful for me not to name my daughter Anna.

Redwork was quite popular back in the day. (A little thank you to my knitting circle for help with the term redwork.)  I’ve heard it said that many images were taken from magazines and greeting cards. Wouldn’t it be something to know where these images came from? Did she copy them from cards given to them for their wedding or did she make some of them up herself? Too bad she didn’t have a blog for me to read about her process.

There are many images of flora & fauna:

Scenes of people:

As well as the unexpected. Gnomes and elves?!

And even a mystery. Who is E.D.? I don’t know. It wasn’t her husband. Maybe a child lost?

Thank you Great Grandma. You’ve left quite the legacy.

Quilting Tour

I was inspired to document the family quilts that last time I was at my mom’s house. The lighting was poor for the little time I was there. Even so, the number of pictures I took was daunting. I just got so excited by the details and the history of it all I took entirely too many pictures.

I’ve never quilted but I’m fascinated by it. Someday I’d like to give it a go, but for now I’ll keep to small projects. My mother has done some fabulous quilting including this cowboy quilt for Seth. I believe this quilt is the reason Seth has commented on how his Grandma is MUCH better at sewing than his mom. While this may be true, did he need to say it with so much emphasis right in front of me?

Anyway, back to the lineage. My grandma did not quilt to my knowledge. She was much too much of a 50’s modern woman for that. Her sister however, did try her hand resulting in the Dresden Plate quilt you see above that was completed in 1927. (I just love how some quilts are signed & dated. Making a mental note now to do so if I ever make one.) The true quilter of the family, however, was my great grandmother. The rest of the quilts in this post are hers.

There’s the Flower Basket quilt:

The Crown of Thorns quilt:

A couple very tattered, well loved quilts from my mother and uncle’s childhood beds:

A postage stamp baby quilt. (pretty sure my mom didn’t show this one to me until I had no use for a baby quilt on purpose)

Another postage stamp quilt, but just the top with a note to my mother:

But wait. I’ve saved the best one for……….. the next post. I mean, how many photos can I put in one single post after all? I promise it’s the best one of all. I think I took as many pics of it as I did of all the rest.

Doorway Puppet Theater

Unbelievable that I haven’t posted this yet. My sis made it for the kids – a fabric puppet theater that hangs in the doorway via a tension rod. There have been several performances, mostly when we have dinner guests.

The pattern is out of Bend The Rules Sewing by Amy Karol of Angry Chicken fame. I was going to make it for the kids myself until my mother not so subtly told me not to. Realistically she didn’t have anything to worry about as project completion is not my strong suit.

Ellie even made a lovely matching storage case for it.

Someday I’d love to see a tall basket in the sunroom with this sticking out of it, another version that’s basically a white sheet for shadow puppet shows and a whole passel of puppets.