Tiptoeing toward Christmas

It is the day.

I finally dragged out the decorations, turned on Christmas music and dressed the tree in a few garlands, ribbon, and ornaments. It looks quite festive.

I have great intentions of making a tree skirt. In fact there is one half made in my 'to be completed' pile. I believe it has been there for about five years. I look at it every year and somehow never get around to finishing it. I've packed it up and moved it, but can't quite seem to find the time to finish it. Maybe for next year....

While setting knick-knacks around the house, positioning our stuffed reindeer family, Mr. and Mrs. Claus, the nativity set, and Santa and reindeer, I kept wondering what I'd use at the base of the tree. Then inspiration struck.

Another antique quilt. If you'll recall my last blog discussed the crazy quilt that now covers the table near my husband's chair -- by the way so far nothing has been broken. Whew!

I keep my antique quilts packed away all year. Can't really enjoy them very much that way. They aren't heirloom quality, they are sentimental quality. I remember sleeping under the flower garden quilt that Mom had made before she was married.

She may have worked on that while trying not to worry about the Great Depression that settled on the land while she was graduating from high school. She may have stitched those hexagons together around the happy yellow centers as her parents were packing their things to move from the farm that the bank had repossessed.... But my memories of the quilt include only good times, happy dreams of a young girl.

So this year that worn, but still colorful quilt, encircles the base of my now decorated Christmas tree. A few presents lay atop it already. And I wouldn't be surprised if before the evening is over, three cats will have staked out a snoozing spot on it.

Yes it is an antique, but more than that, it is a link to family. And this year, I need all of the links I can forge.

Christmas -- something old, something new....

It has been a bah-humbug kind of year. Where normally we're decorating as soon as the lethargy from Thanksgiving turkey lifts, I'm just today getting the tree put together and standing it in front of the window. No decorations on it, yet, but the lights work.

One of man's best inventions -- the artificial tree with lights already on it. We could have bypassed all of those years of Derrol struggling with lights and then lamenting "when one goes out they all go out." Of course my favorite bubble lights are no longer part of our tradition. Too many years of trying to get those little suckers to stand upright and bubble...we gave up. Can you even buy them any more?

Now it is artificial all the way. We even invested in one of those fiber optic trees -- almost as good as bubble lights. And that is where my something old, something new comes together. This year I'm feeling adventurous. My husband, the clutz when it comes to breakables, makes it necessary to put all breakable decorations in safe places. Long before children I was 'Derrol' proofing the house. But this year on a table in the same room with my husband's favorite chair situated strategically across from the television, I am placing breakables.

The lovely white and gold gilt ceramic set of carolers and Christmas trees that my mother-in-law gave us is sitting beneath the fiber optic tree (a short three footer). The whole arrangement is resting on the antique crazy quilt my great-grandmother made. The carolers in their Victorian coats and hats, stand beneath a Victorian style street light. The quilt, a pattern from the Victorian era fits perfectly with the setting and even seems to embrace the new fiber optic technology. Wouldn't great grandma be surprised at that. When she was decorating trees, they still used candles -- real candles.

It just occurred to me that my great-grandmother would have been making this quilt, sewing the stitches, planning the squares, collecting the fabric, embroidering the designs during that pre-1900 era. That's goosebump worthy. Just think, a quilt has been around to see history made from pre-Civil War times. It is older than the automobile....what stories it could tell. I wish great-grandma was here to tell me why she chose the motifs she did and who the initials stand for and what those people mean to her. So much history in a quilt.

Maybe it was a Christmas gift? Maybe it is decorated with memories from her own Christmases. But for this year, the quilt, the carolers, even the little fiber optic tree come together to make a Christmas memory for us. The room is full of memories and family, even though we're miles from those we love.

By the same token I'll drag out the Christmas stockings -- made when our children were little and full of Christmas awe and hope.

Maybe with all of these old things, something new will develop and I can find my way past bah-humbug and embrace that Christmas spirit once again.

Family Heirlooms as Art

Shirley Roeder a friend and member of the Town and Country Quilters made the first photo quilt I had seen. She featured photos of her son's experiences in high school. Like most of us, she copied the photos onto fabric and set them together with boarders to make a traditional square patch of photos and frames. If I remember right the photos tended to fade and those first photo quilts had a short life span.

Technology has opened up all kinds of possibilities for using photos and fading is no longer an issue.

FiberArts Magazine, 2004, offered a look at what some artists are doing on the topic of Immigration and the photo included here was drawn from that article.

The photo also reminds me of the quilts made using traditional patterns such as the Ohio Star or Churn Dash that has traditional 12-inch patterns with a large quilt-size version of the pattern that comes forward from the use of color and piecing choices.

I also like the idea of using ephemera or photos of accessories and ephemera to tell a story about someone. To make a quilt of Mom -- I would include photos of her hands, her bible, the stained glass window of the church she attended from childhood through adult. Her glasses, her pies, recipes, letters, favorite books, her crochet hook -- all would remind me of stories and memories. And these pictures would probably be set together in a flower garden design or that pattern would be incorporated. Maybe a double wedding ring or the big bold Bethlehem Star. Being a teenager in the 1930s certainly impacted her life and much of her quilting reflects the patterns of that era.

Just thinking about a loved one for only a few minutes would give you plenty of ideas what to include to remind you of them and the memories you have of them. At the site Stories Untold: Jewish Pioneer Women the artist has set pages of handwritten diary in blocks along with a photo of the diary's writer. She used various quilt block patterns to further enhance the message and memory. A few other ideas:

• Think about combining ink stamps with photos.
• Lay out your quilt as you would a scrapbook page
• Embellish with doilies crocheted or tatted or knit by the photo subject, or add antique buttons or scraps from their clothing or a lace collar.
  
• Use the subject's favorite color or as Shirley Roeder did, set photos together using school colors.
  
• Include a glove or sock or other clothing in its entirety
  
• My father always used a red bandana -- use those as quilt squares
• My uncle worked for the railroad -- include logos, items and signs and symbols of your quilt subject's work or employer.
  

Once you get started, there is no stopping the possibilities of what to include. Setting those photos and ephemera together in a unique juxtaposition -- now that's the challenge.