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Showing posts from June, 2019

Stitches and French Knots

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The more I looked at this photo of an Amish farmhouse and barns and outhouses and gardens that I'd taken on a back country road, the more it resembled a beautiful work of embroidery, what with its textures and colors and lines and thicknesses here and there.    I thought of my grandmother, sitting in her rocking chair, using her hands to create beautiful works of embroidery with a needle and thread. My grandmother taught me a few stitches. When I looked at the photo I thought some of the plants in the garden resembled t he blanket stitch or the herringbone stitch and the thickness of the green grass resembled a padded stitch. Little buds on plants made me think of her French knots. But I never embroidered a thing. I learned a few stitches and that was it. Not that I didn't want to learn more but I was in to sewing at the time. Now I wish I'd sat with her longer to learn more stitches and techniques. Any time with my grandmother was priceless-even when picking my

My Father in Suspenders in the Farmhouse Kitchen

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Did you ever look at an old photo and wish you could remember the moment? That's how I felt when looking at this photo of  me holding my baby sister. Behind us is our father. We are in the kitchen of our grandparents' farmhouse. To my left, with only a corner showing, is the kitchen table. My grandmother's woodstove was beyond the kitchen table. A built-in cupboard stood in the corner.  The door in the photo led outside to a small, cement stoop and beyond to the root cellar, pump house, barn, grain shed, chicken coop, fields and the creek. I'm guessing we were gathered for a family event. I'm guessing it might have been an Easter Sunday since my sister was born in January. But I'm only guessing. It looks as if there's still snow on the ground. That doesn't matter. It still could have been Easter. Seeing my father wearing a tie isn't surprising to me. He most always wore a tie, even when he went to the post office or grocery store.  My father mo