handstitcher/IL's Page

Excellent job of matching the "feel" of the vintage quilt.  Looks like it has been there since the beginning.  Well done!

Great!  Glad to help.  I'm sure it will look great and I'll look forward to pictures.

Hello, I love your story of your childhood together with your memories, sounds wonderful

Yes, they do!  DH wisely bought one of the models designed for getting up pet hair, and with a HEPA filter ('cause I'm asthmatic).  Once you pick up the shoes and other miscellaneous clutter and define the area where you want it to work; it just chugs along by itself and turns itself off when it is done.  I just don't hang around in the same room.

I think that is one advantage of quilting...we can express our feelings of loss or success of life through fabric!

We are headed to Omaha today for a liver biopsy and a repeat pancreas biopsy.  There are two types of pancreatic cancer, and they need to know which type he has so they know how to treat it.  Each one has its own treatment regimen.  

He is doing well.  Still rides when the men move cattle.  (DS saddles his horse for him because he has lost some strength.)  Still gets out and about and does what he wants.  I am hoping he'll continue to do so for as long as he feels up to it.  

Thank you for asking.  And how is your daughter?  

I'm sorry to hear it, handstitcher.  Hopefully the red tape will be resolved soon and she'll be able to get treatment.  

We've had some frustrating setbacks with my dad's cancer diagnosis and treatment as well.  But interestingly enough, each one of those setbacks has resulted in a blessing that we could not have seen beforehand.  I hope you'll be able to see some silver linings in the midst of disappointment and frustration.  

Prayers sent for your daughter, her doctors and for you.  

I wish you could see the wool quilts close up - the pictures don't do them justice in showing all of the various random  piecework from small, oddly shaped pieces.  No rhyme or reason at all, and not "crazy quilt" style either.  I was a little hesitant to suggest that they reminded me of the Gees Bend quilts, because I hoped that wouldn't be disrespectful.  I just found it very interesting that two similar styles of quilts made in the same general time frame would be found so far apart geographically, especially since the Gees Bend quilts were in a pretty closed community.  

The quiltmaker's crazy quilts were definitely different than these wool quilts.  Also, the wool quilts have no fancy stitching on them, but the crazy quilts were heavily embroidered.  

As for letting them go, I didn't feel they ever really belonged to me.  I felt from the beginning that they belonged to family somewhere, I just didn't know where to start.  I was surprised but very excited when I found out that my friend was a descendant.  I mostly rescued them because I couldn't bear to have them burned or sent to a dumpster.  He'd already burned some, which makes me cringe.  

I was delighted with the little cotton quilts and wouldn't have minded keeping them - the quilting on those were very fine.  But again, they weren't really ever mine to begin with, so I haven't felt badly about letting them go.  They wouldn't mean anything to my kids, since no one in our family made them, and they will mean something to hers.