Hand-carved chair backs. (All pictures by Marylin Warner.)
Hand-stitched dish towel.
The sampler Mom began, and I finished.
Dear Mom,
Let’s build on my assignment from elementary school. I was given the word “Home” to look up in the dictionary, and then I was to ask at least three people what the word meant to them. (For those of you who are wondering what’s going on, “Home is…” was the title of last week’s post.)
Let’s pretend that our assignment word this week is “CREATE.” The dictionary definition is “…to generate, to bring into being, to shape or forge.”
Instead of interviewing people directly, let’s look at some examples of things created during your life, Mom. First, in the picture above, is the hand carved chair top from your mother’s dining room set. Grandma’s dining room table and chairs now grace cousin Beth’s house in Georgia, where the “girl cousins” enjoyed our meals when we got together ten days ago. We’re not sure who did the carving of the ornate faces, but Grandma’s chairs were a source of fascination for all her grandchildren and guests. Why have plain chairs, when you can create conversation pieces and works of art? (I always thought they looked like Old Man Wind blowing up a storm.)
While the cousins were sorting through and dividing the collectibles and keepsakes, we found examples of crocheted and tatted edges on pillow cases and sheets, plus stacks of hand-sewn dish towels. Some of the towels were hand-stitched in ornate details, but I chose the simple-stitch one of a nursery rhyme because of the creative change: “…and the cup ran away with the…knife?” Looks like a stitcher’s sense of humor to me!
And remember the cross-stitch sampler of your motto: My Days is Complete… I Heard a Child Laugh. When I moved you and Dad from the house to assisted living, I found the unfinished sampler tucked away for safekeeping. I got matching thread and finished it and had it framed. Now it hangs on the wall for your great-grandchildren to read and know how both of us love to hear children laugh and be happy.
This week when I came to visit you, Mom, I brought a quilt we found among the boxes of quilt pieces and handmade keepsakes. Your mother made this quilt many years ago, and the “girl cousins” send it to you with love, to cuddle beneath as you heal from your hip surgery. When I tucked the quilt around your shoulders, I thought of your “First” quilt that now hangs on a wall in our house. You were in your teens when you hand-stitched twenty different birds on twenty squares of cotton salvaged from your father’s and siblings’ white shirts and blouses. You, Grandma, and some of the aunts hand-pieced the squares with green and pink cloth, and then hand-quilted the entire quilt top to an under-side. You once told me it took you almost a year from start to finish, sewn in the evenings during the fall, winter and spring months. It was too hot to sew in summer.
Based on these and many other examples, I would add this to the definition of “CREATE”: “…to add artistic expression to the making of practical, useful necessities; to leave a uniquely personal signature on even common things.”
Maybe our blog friends will share their definitions and examples of the word “Create.”
While Mom recuperates from hip surgery, she stays warm under a quilt made by her mother.
The Bird Quilt, the first quilt Mom made.
Things I Want To Tell My Mother 