The overwhelming urge to hibernate through the winter is lessening with the daily increase of sunlight.
I’ve been by the woodstove dyeing, spinning and pin weaving as well as knitting Alpaca hats through the last few months.
I can smell spring in the air and the perennials are poking their heads through the ground. This year I will garden…beginning with cleaning up the debris from last fall once the snow and mud have cleared away and the warming winds of spring kiss my face.
These animal prints in the snow were found in the same place I photographed prints last winter.
This is the first snow of this season to stay on the ground and it is a pleasant addition to the holidays.
My photographs of animal prints have been the most popular item on my web pages. I hope you enjoy these prints.
A dear friend gave me these vintage Red Work Blocks – 53 of them – that have been passed from woman to woman for many years. The story of this set of blocks has been lost to time, but I certainly contemplate the life of Grace Thayer and her seventeen year embroidery project.
One block short of a completed quilt top, I wonder if there was a 54th piece or did Grace plan to complete the final square when she sewed the top together. Did she die before beginning the last piece? For now I am using a new 8″x8″ muslin square which also highlights the difference in color, weight and weave from the late 1800′s pieces.There are two identical squares of Scissors and Button Hook. Did Grace forget she had already embroidered that design?
After removing the stack of muslin blocks from the plastic bag I received them in (not a good idea for fiber storage), I scanned each square into the computer as they looked – creases and all. It was several hours of work that I grew bored of rather quickly. How long did it take Grace to embroider each square? How long each day was she able to bend head to hands by dim light to create designs from everyday Muslin and the Turkey Red embroidery floss popular in the 1880′s?
I will display a grid collage of the pieces in this post, and I will create a page showing each piece for close up examination.
Interest in Red Work has increased in recent years. Originally Red Work Quilts were finished without batting and sewn square to square as a summer bed cover. Check out these sites for the history of and patterns for Red Work Quilts.
RedWork Plus
Pretty Impressive Stuff
the knowledge of all herbs and fruits
and balms and spices,
and all that is healing and sweet
in the fields and groves…
It means carefulness and inventiveness
and willingness and readiness…
It means the economy of your grandmothers
and the science of the modern chemist;
…it means thoroughness and…
art and…
hospitality…
…and it means
that you are to be…
…loaf givers.”
Ruskin
