The Process of Quilting

There are two best things about making quilts. First, there is the initial process of thinking about the person who will receive it. ( I rarely make a quilt for us.)

The second thing is just doing it.

Usually the recipient gives me some guidelines about what they want, and they never want anything classic, and they always want something really hard to do. This is my great challenge and I love to do it!

They tell me that they love dogs. So dogs it is and I scour the fabric stores and the thrift shops for images of dogs and when I have collected these I spend hours putting the collage together, and then hours appliqueing them into the final image. And of course I must invent many of the elements from my vast stash of many colored fabrics.

I apply all these elements with careful stitches onto an appropriate background, usually made from some kind of classical patchwork. All the while I am thinking of the recipient of this quilt, and this is really the best part.

I listen to music the whole time, and when I need to spin more bobbins for the sewing machine I take a break and go outside and water the lettuce or look at the moon.

I am a self taught quilter so my quilts are incredibly idiosyncratic. (The ladies in the quilt store are quite appalled!) Nothing classic about my quilting!

Here is an early photo of a landscape quilt for a dear young man who is graduating from college in a month. He didn't want dogs or anything specific so I went for images of his life as a redneck Floridian. (The back side of the quilt will be quite sedate.)

I have discovered that boys and men love quilts just as much as the women do.

After making so many quilts I have learned so much. My quilts are much stronger now and can take a lot of abuse. I know that young people don't wash stuff very often so I give them colors and constructions that can stand up for a long time.

But the bottom line is that I love to do this quilting thing for the people I love. I am happy thinking of them curled up under these basic covers, warm and enveloped and sharing my DNA ( and the dog hairs) from so many hours of work. I am happy to think of the many folks who have been facing life threatening issues who are curled up under my quilts and I love to think of the students who may be scrunched up under my quilts while they study or make love, or the babies sucking their thumbs under a fluffy quilt, and the newly weds happily hunkered down with their new responsibilities under a king sized Molly quilt.

So, back to squaring up this new quilt! Got to get the binding on, another few hours to think of my good friend who'll receive it.

Firefly magic

Just at dusk, before it is thoroughly dark these days the edge of the woods fills with a million flickering lights of the seasonal fireflies. And behind them is the harmonic resonance of the frogs, tuned together into such a magnificance of nature, who could not be awed?

Before dinner I went out to the vegetable garden with my five year old grandson and I introduced him to the bliss of eating fresh raw English peas and finding little new potatoes like treasure from underground. "Grandma Molly! Is this pod plump enough?" he asks. I show him how to tell and he stands there happily pulling off those fat pods and finding those incredibly green babies all lined up in their green row boats and ready to be eaten. We find some carrots and roll a number of pea pods into a collard leaf to take inside for dinner with the nine potatoes we dug.

We are fresh (but very tired) from hours in town where we have been pursuing our complicated real estate deal that has included selling two houses and combining our families into one new place. Our daughter has a wonderful new 1925 restored bungalow in old northeast with a carriage house on the back. It will be up to us to remodel this for us. Quite a challenge! We do not worry because our main home is here (in paradise) on the edge of the Green Swamp, not in spitting distance of anything man made. Still, it will be interesting to make something unique out of this and we don't flinch, having done this many times before.

Late this afternoon when the shadows were long and dark and grandpa was making dinner from the garden, Quincy and I drove out in the golf cart to explore the pastures. He asks me, "Why do you have two houses?" I try to explain this, giving him some simple history of our situation. I tell him that no way will we give up our ranch and that our new place in back of his new house will just be for us to come to not so often. And we want to come to his place because we love him and his mom and want to have a place to see our friends we have known for ever so long.

Five year olds keep you honest! So many questions! But Quincy knows in a deep way that this place is his. He's comfortable in the bedroom that used to be his mom's, and his tether is so long now on the place!

He knows what we do, and expects to go with me to my classroom volunteer gig at Lacoochee Elementary School on Tuesday. We are discussing the possible cooking activities!

It is not only the fireflies and the magic of being here in such a paradise. It is the getting to know a small community of local folks who really care and show up and help each other- Richard and Kathy, Virginia and Norman, the Greens, Judy, Nia and Dave, and Cpl. Hink, Kristen, and so many others who in their quiet ways really make a difference! Whatever we are, black, white, hispanic, we care in all the small communities across the land. It is so affirming and keeps me from the despair I could easily feel right now being an American.

The Spring Garden is producing!

This blog has gone a bit south because my computer access has been limited due to technical problems. However, I am trying to get going on this puny mini netbook whose connection will crash at any moment.
The spring garden (sorry, no photos yet), has been struggling because there was such an abundance of cold weather, then followed by really hot mid days. The lettuce has not been truly thriving, but we are eating broccoli, asparagus and arugula most nights. There is always something kin the garden to sustain us and our friends. I am salivating in advance of the English peas that are plumping up for a feast this next weekend. Cucumbers, squash, tomatoes, carrots, beets, beans, onions and potatoes are all potential at the moment.
Every night we are trapping armadillos, possums and raccoons outside the vegetable garden fence. We think the raccoons are the varmints who empty the bird feeders, and the armadillos are intent on breaching the fence around the vegetable garden, and if they are thwarted they just dig really deep holes in the yard so I keep the hoe handy. I renewed the flags on top of the fence to discourage the deer, so far successful.
Dollar weed has invaded the vegetable garden, no matter how deep the mulch, and each day I pull out what I have the energy for. We replaced a large jute mat we had on the porch so I took it out to the garden and plunked it down on top of the dollar weed, covered it with mulch, and so far at least that section looks pristinely free of weeds.
What I love about gardening in central Florida is that every year is different! So, this spring we haven't had any love bugs or caterpillars to notice. (yet!) But we have gnats to hate! The hummingbirds came back right on schedule, but where are the chimney swifts? The monarch butterflies are applying chrysalises to everything and the owls make noisy love all night.
The stars are bright and I look for bats in our bat house. Iwalk down to the pond to look for what's there. Maybe alligators? Certainly kingfishers and Florida ducks hunkered down for the night.
I see five deer out by the feeder, two fawns.
And now, I must tend to the voluminous watering schedule we have during the dry season.

Spring Swamp

Our beloved Green Swamp is full these few days: an abundance of water from the el nino rains, a rarity in this usually dry time. The river is flowing out of its banks and the newly green foliage is an intense light green, a joy to behold. Ibis and ducks and the occasional otter are happy. On the river today, we saw no alligators, but we know they are there. These Florida rivers running into swamp are certainly a jewel. The high water has flushed out an amazing amount of trash and we saw some styrofoam cups and even an occasional cooler thrown out by careless boaters.

Tonight, I hear the deep harmonic resonance of a million frogs croaking in the dark. On top of that are the sounds of the nocturnal insects.

We had a few young people visiting us this weekend, young men on their spring break from college. Our special friend, Stephan, wanted his house mates to see the real Florida. Stephan has grown up in Florida, son of environmental scientists.

My first viewing of them was to see one young man in cell phone mode striding around the pasture trying to get a connection, oblivious to the swallow tail kites overhead. The other young man was hunkered down at his computer trying to get an internet connection. Stephan was out checking on the property with his binoculars.

We had a wonderful dinner with them and Stephan's parents and brother Phil. We ate ribs off the grill, and by request, I made my famous exploding volcano cake. (Dry ice is the key.)

So interesting to see these young adults who are so accomplished and smart. Because I am old enough to be able to be totally eccentric I can ask hard questions at the dinner table. Seems that this generation is really NOT interested in politics or those dicey questions of ethics. It's
' whatever'.

There is, however, another group, and I count Stephan in this, who maybe do not demonstrate in any political way, but they are thinking and acting about being conservators of our planet. These young adults plant gardens, take responsibility for their environment, and think about careers that will help the world we live in. (I also think that the technophiles can do this!)

I just wish they would get up on their hind legs and be more vocal!

It has been a lovely spring season, despite the oak pollen that slays me.