Trumped

It's been a while since I sat down to put pen to paper.  My last quilt was the graduation quilt for my niece Caroline.  Since that time she has gone to college, graduated, gotten engaged to a young man who owns a cattle ranch and is basically living her dream.  Her little sister graduated and I put together a colorful quilt for her.  This quilt I secretly named, "Trumped".  You see it was during the time before the election, and the Donald was campaigning.  I was busy putting together this lovely lap quilt.  My son stopped by and I proudly held up the completed quilt top for him to look at.  He said, "is that a swastika?".   I looked down and my quilt and back at my son and uttered a 4-letter word.  Several times.  I don't know that it was a true swastika but it certainly resembled one.   My son snapped a photo and texted it to his wife and she responded with, "is that a swastika?"   He responded with, "my mom is saying a lot of really bad words" to which she replied, "it's a very nice swastika".
Again, my most used tool, the seam ripper, came out of the drawer and we went to work.  The quilt was finished in record time and presented to a very happy graduate. 

If I would just slow down and pay attention.

The Bucket List

While all of my friends are making their "bucket lists" I have created a list of instructions for my family.
Things you CAN NOT do if I die
1. If I die suddenly, say in a car accident, you CAN NOT put flowers and a cross on the side of the road.
2. You can not advertise my memorial service on the electronic marquee at the Citrus Fair
3. Please do not list my cats as survivors in my obituary (especially by name)
4. If you don't want my craft stuff please burn it. Don't donate it to Goodwill.

#4 came about when we started collecting Owl "stuff" to hand out at our Soroptimist meetings. There was a needle punch owl in a frame. Debbie gave it to one of the members, and she in turn donated it to our end of year auction. During the auction she said some old woman had made this and when she died her kids just donated it to goodwill (very likely). We all laughed at her description and her comments about if she dies and her kids don't want her stuff.....and I thought OH NO! This could be so true. I have so much crap that only means something to me. I am a collector.
I Can Make That! and so there are the piles. Pin cushions, jewelry, greeting cards, quilts, hats, all in various states of progress or planning, and if I were to fall off the face of the earth tomorrow I am pretty sure there is nothing there that anyone else would care to have!

So I started thining it out. I cleaned and organized and packaged up some of it and sold it, and donated some of it to goodwill (it's okay if I do it...but not if someone else does it for me) and then I have the rest of the piles left. There is for example that bag of 50 ties to make hats with. I am not yet ready to part with those. My son needed a tie the other day and I drug that out and he looked at me like I had lost my mind. Maybe I have.

My sister had my dads jewelry making kits and she went through them and then asked me did I want them and I said yes please. I came home one day and here on the porch were 3 boxes. One of them was a large fishing tackle box. I spent a lot of time sorting through his stuff. I bagged some of it up and sold it. I kept some. The fun part was when I got this brilliant idea to share all of his rocks. His grandkids called him Pop. So I purchased some small bottles and sorted rocks and filled the jars with them. Then I made labels - "Pop's Rocks" and each grandchild got a jar of Pop's rocks for Christmas in 2009.
Maybe I should make my own jars for my stuff - Mom's Marbles......buttons, threads, glitter, rocks, odd pieces of jewelry.....:)

I have to go finish some of my projects now.....