ties that bind

I finished Amanda's book late last night. If you are a reader of her Soulemama blog, you will be very happy to know her book has the same "having a chat over coffee" feel to it. It is filled with some of my favorite projects she has shared previously, plus many new ones.

But the main idea I am walking away with is how handcrafts tie the generations together...especially us women. I found my mind wandering this morning to thoughts of my dad's mom, my Grandmother Hays, who sewed and crocheted afghans. She made me pretty nightgowns and matching Christmas outfits for me and my brother. She taught me how to single crochet. And my Grandmother Williams (hi grammer!) who showed me how to make rag rugs from scraps. She also taught me how to clean a fish...but that is a post for another time.

It made me think about my mother, who is an amazing seamstress. In fact, so good she made most of my prom dresses and even my wedding dress. She is the one who taught me to sew (or tried to).

In typical Eren fashion, my first sewing project was a skirt pattern way too advanced for my new skills - complete with pockets and a zipper. She tried to talk me into a more simple pattern that had an easy elastic casing at the top. But I was too cool for elastic! I couldn't show up to 6th grade wearing an elastic waist skirt and exclaim "Look what I made!" No way, Mom!

I'm not sure how my mother remembers this story, but I remember it being pretty much a nightmare. I wasn't the straightest sewer ever to chair up to a machine. And she made me rip out each seam that didn't meet her high standards! She probably remembers it something like an impatient young girl wanting to be an expert at something without the effort it required....who, me?

Needless to say, she tried her best to help me. Explaining why it was important to be so exact. Now that I am participating in this little quilting bee, I get it. Mom...twenty something years later...I GET IT!

Passing down a skill like crochet or sewing connects us of who we are and where we have come from. It ties us to the amazing women who have come before us. Women who also had little ones pulling at their aprons asking for juice. Women who also had to tend a garden, do the laundry and take a meal to a sick neighbor.

So Amanda's book has me feeling a bit nostalgic today. And it moved me to get out five unfinished Dresden plate quilt pieces that I brought home with me last summer. They were with some patterns and fabric of my great-grandmother Hays's. So, we are assuming they were hers. I have laid them all out and carefully ironed them thinking all the while about their original purpose. Each one is amazing in itself. And am now dreaming up ways to use them in our home.

Thank you Amanda for your book! For reminding us how handcrafts not only bind us to our families but to eachother.  And even more, thank you Grandmother Hays. Thank you Grammer. And thank you Mom! I am who I am because of you all.