Carrying On the Traditions

We’ve had a lot of funerals for members of our church this year. At last count, I was up to five. Back in 2004, we had nine in one year.

We had lots of wonderful older ladies in our congregation and they are all gone now except for Margaret, who will be 99 in October. (Hi, Margaret! 👋🏻 ) A lady named Kathryn passed away a few months ago. Kathryn was an amazing quilter and cook and was the first woman elder in our congregation. Her daughter called me last week and wanted to know if I would take her mom’s Singer sewing machine. It’s a Singer 600—one of the last models with metal gears—and I knew it was in great shape because I had helped Kathryn with it. I don’t need another machine, but I have been finding people to pass some of these on to and I am sure I can find a good home for it.

[When Margaret moved to Indiana, she bequeathed me her collection of canning jars and not a canning session goes by that I am not blessing her generosity.]

I met the daughter at Kathryn’s house the other day. We went through the quilting supplies and there were quite a few that I can use or pass on to people at church. I know many of us will be happy to have something that passed through Kathyrn’s hands. I brought home a box of quilting and sewing books and these gems were in it:

I love vintage sewing books. They have such great information.

When JC Briar and I were together in June in Oregon, we talked about the concept of a “stash executor,” who is the person that your relatives call to handle the disposition of your sewing and crafting estate after you are gone. I have some informal stash executors, but I probably ought to formalize those arrangements at some point.

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I’ve been working on gathering my class materials for my Quilting Mayhem classes. The knitting classes already have handouts and I know what I want to teach. The fitting classes are more difficult to prepare for because some of the class content is unpredictable depending on who is in the class and what questions they have. I want to cover topics that are relevant to the students in the class. Theoretical concepts are great, but it’s better to have some real-world information. Thankfully, I keep some of my failed muslins because they make great class samples.

I wore my black Kona Crush Free Range Slacks yesterday and I think I need to knock out a few more—they are so comfortable.

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The squash are taking over the garden, literally. Some of the vines have grown out into the grass and I said to the husband that I wouldn’t be surprised if the Georgia Roaster plants—of which there are only two!—climb up and over the greenhouse. That is what happens when you put pig manure into your garden.

Last year, I got six or seven Georgia Roaster squash from two plants. I tried counting what was out there yesterday and gave up at 30. My friend Anna, who has a catering business, is very excited as she uses a lot of my squash in her recipes. And the winter squash will keep for a couple of months.

These are some of the Georgia Roasters.

There are some enormous buttercup squash, too.

I need to make a thorough survey today of the garden after my dentist appointment to get the permanent crown on my molar. There are lots of tomatoes out there but they aren’t ripening as quickly as I expected, although we are usually harvesting tomatoes well into September.

The husband came home with a bag of cucumbers from one of his homeowners yesterday. He said the guy tried to give him zucchini, too, but thankfully, the husband refused politely. 👀