I Hope Everyone Had a Blessed Christmas

Praying for peace, especially in Southern Sudan, in the new year.

While I Was Away (2) -- In Praise of Purlbee's 40-Minute Tote Bag Pattern

For other ladies across a considerable age span, I made tote bags with this pattern from Purlbee, which is perfect. I like that the tote is lined and also that it has width at the bottom, which gives the bag shape and more holding capacity. I made five totes in a three-step assembly line. I cut all the bags out at once on a cutting board--quilt-cutting fashion, then made the all the inside and outside bags, and then made the angled ends and put them together. To make it easy I used webbing for the handles and was relieved that it was very easy to sew with the machine. It was fun to match the outside and  inside fabrics. Here they are.

 

Cheerful bag for a young lady.

 

These blue bags are for ladies who live near lakes and the sea.

These two pink print bags were lined with off-white cotton from two old curtains.

It takes so little time to make these totes--which can be any size you like--that when a young visitor was unexpectedly coming, I made one real quick for her. This took 35 minutes, since I knew exactly what I was doing. So if you have your machine out and a stash of fabric, the 40-minute tote is a great spur-of-the-moment gift for someone or a great gift for a birthday with perhaps some baked goods or seeds in it or other little gift inside. I made this smaller bag of four fat quarters I had in my stash. I am hoping to make a couple totes for myself to take to work in the summer.

While I Was Away (1) ...

Happy to be posting again and hope I can do more as we come into the new year. After my daughter's wedding, I had to quickly get into gear for Christmas. After I got over my fear of changing the needle in my sewing machine (which turned out to be very easy), I got to work to whittle down my considerable fabric stash and make aprons, which all the ladies in my family--the young and the older--seem to get a kick out off. I used McCalls M5358, which produces an apron without having to work with pesky bias binding. In the middle you can relax in front of the tv and do hand basting, if you like, to take a break from the whirr of the machine. Aside from these in the photos, I made a dotted red Swiss one with red rick-rack, but in the last-minute rush, forgot to take a photo.

I think this is my personal favorite, as I love orange and yellow cheer.

 

Signature colors for my sweet aunt.

 

 

 

The lacing at the bottom and on the pocket came from old curtains I had saved. I keep fabric like a miser, so was glad I could find a place for the lacing. This apron, for my cousin, was my daughter's favorite.

 

Gray with hot-pink accents for a sophisticated bride-to-be.

I bought fabric for this one for a cousin and luckily guessed right for her colors. Very vibrant fabric and I love this apron--she's a great cook.

Although I stuck to same pattern, I didn't make the aprons in an assembly line, because I was afraid I would get confused and had never used the pattern before. I think it was best to finish one and then go on to the next. A real sewing whiz could probably make gift aprons in an assembly line without a hitch. One by one, from getting the fabric ready, cutting, and sewing the apron, it took on average of 8 hours apiece, perhaps 6 to 7 hours at the end. It would be faster for a seamstress.
I hope the ladies enjoy them as much as I did making them!

 

 

Botticelli Moments

I felt as if this painting, by Alessandro Botticelli that took my mother's breath away when she saw it in Paris, had come to life.... as lovely bridesmaids prepared my daughter for her wedding in the morning light with her sweet flower girl watching.

 

 

Late Afternoon Autumn Light

 

 

 

 

 

"O Lord my God, thou art very great!

Thou art clothed with honor and majesty,

who coverest thyself with light as a garment;

who stretched out the heavens like a tent,

who hast laid the beams of thy chambers on the waters."

 

Psalm 104





Was Early America Far More Convivial than 21st Century America?

While I have not been seeking it, I have come across  information about George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and life in Ohio in the 1830s that indicates that early Americans might have been far more convivial than we are today--Facebook and other social media notwithstanding.

Benjamin Franklin: a very friendly man.

 

Take Benjamin Franklin. According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal on the newly refurbished museum on Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia,  "Visitors should leave behind any midcentury notions of a nuclear family. The museum shows Franklin lived in households brimming with nonrelatives. In Philadelphia, for instance, he resided with his mother-in-law and grandchildren as well as 'houseguests, boarders, apprentices, and free and enslaved servants.'"

This corroborates Steven Mintz's Huck's Raft: A History of American Childhood, which reports that in early America, a family was considered everyone who lived in a household, including servants, apprentices, long-staying guests, adopted children or orphaned children living with the family, and anyone else on hand.

'Wherever Franklin lived, he established a household with friends and family members,' Remer curator] says. 'To his friends, he had this incredible ardor. He was so sociable.' Indeed, she says, Franklin had some 600 correspondents—people he wrote to on regular basis; these letters are 'not just quick notes' but 'are so full of warmth and love,' Remer says. 'These are people with whom he has real intellectual and emotional rapport.'" [emphasis added]

Then there is George Washington. According to Ron Chernow's George Washington: A Life, in the 16 years from their marriage til Washington departed Mount Vernon in 1775 to command the Continental Army, the Washingtons had more than 2,000 guests at their home, sitting at one time or another round the dining room table. Since Washington was a reluctant politician and wanted nothing more than to attend to all his business and agricultural activities at Mount Vernon, I think it would be wrong to assume that he was merely working to cultivate a social network as a means of gaining power. He and his wife simply loved talking and being with other people.

 

The Dining Room at Mount Vernon: Seems that places at the table were rarely empty.

 

The Washingtons also opened their home for long periods of time to various relatives and orphaned children. They adopted their two youngest grandchildren, after Martha's son Jack Custis died. It was always a full house at Mount Vernon, bursting with the sound of children and conviviality.

 

The last example of the amiability of Americans is from a fascinating book, American Grit: A Woman's letter from the Ohio Frontier, edited by Emily Foster. The book comprises letters written mostly by Anna Briggs Bentley, who moved to Ohio from Maryland with her husband and six children in 1826. The Bentleys moved near other Quakers, so they had a ready-made community around them, as they built their first house and struggled to eke out a living off the Ohio land.

 

What Mrs. Bentley describes in rich detail in writing to her mother and siblings in Maryland is that whenever anyone was sick in the area, a neighbor always appeared to help. When her own child was at death's door, she writes:

 

"We had set up with her ourselves til yesterday when they heard of it at Levi Miller's and Hannah came over in the afternoon, made pies and baked them, got supper. Susan Holland hailed Franklin when he returned from the Dr. When she was informed how Deborah was, she had her saddle put on [her horse], mounted her, and came here prepared to stay til a change takes place. Dear, kind girl. My hearts owns her as a sister. She is a most experienced and tender nurse. She has gone over the whole house, cleaned and put all to rights, and is now bending over the washtub after setting up all night. And she staid away from a wedding, too, to come."

 

 

Early American houses: filled to the brim? 

 

Such a scene is described many times in the letters, as neighbors always went to help a household that was in need.

The Bentleys also had a large household, not only of their own children, but of any hands they had hired to help them farm, of an older widow who had no money and came to live with them as a seamstress, and of nieces, nephews, and friends who came to visit for periods of time, as long as weeks and months.

 

You may also enjoy Bold Colors for a Courageous People. 

 

 

Light Tricks

Where did this strange box of light come from in the back corner of my kitchen, not adjacent to any window, I wondered this morning.

Ah ha, the mirror in the dining part of the room....

A wild beam of light is bouncing off a car as the sun hits its chrome and has found its way 50 yards away to the mirror in my house--the beam shooting upward on the right side of the mirror. This beam has also thrown this little sun onto my kitchen floor.

I look outside to find the source, but...

it's not to be seen, at least from my angle. Oh...

"the heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork."

 Psalm of David, 19:1.