I had two jobs to do this summer. Two, that’s it. The first was to finish my quilt from hell. The second was much easier; sort through three boxes of photos and make decisions about their future. It didn’t seem like too much to ask…but summer is officially behind us and I am ready to move on to my fall tasks, yet one summer job remains undone. Anybody else in the same boat?
Project One: I was excited when my friend, Kathy, asked me sometime early in 2013 if I’d make a quilt for her bedroom. We picked out a pattern with nothing but triangles. This was perfect for her love of geometric shapes, and I’d have to enlarge it, but that would be easy.
Then I mistakenly let her catch a glimpse of the cover of one of my quilt magazines that featured a large, wheel like pattern.
“What about combining the wheels with the triangles? You can do that, right?”
As my logical, know my limits brain said “No, I don’t think so”, my desire to please, always up for a challenge heart said “Of course. It will be fun.” I have spent years teaching others the art of saying no and all I could say was yes.
So with a slide rule, compass, and protractor in my pocket protector, I tackled this project. I was a Home Ec major in college, because it was the only major that didn’t require math. I am not kidding. I was always grateful my parents didn’t push me into the advanced math route because I doubt I would have been able to maintain my illustrious C+ average in high school.
And now, 44 years since my last math class, after spending months of making triangles fit with circles, and calculating the correct obtuse angle to create the polygons or pentagons or whatever I needed to make the darn corners work, the quilt got done this summer. Check that project; it is now on Kathy’s bed and looks wonderful. But it will always be my quilt from hell.
It was then time to move on to Project Two: The Picture Sort. Easy to do while watching TV in the evening, with the perfect table to spread them out and leave them – you get the idea.
Immediately, this turned into a walk down memory lane. Actually, a very long walk down lots of lanes – family of course, vacations, friends, pets – oh my gosh, how many pictures of Scooter and Shadow, Magic and Sherlock did I need! And decorated rooms in the house. Are you kidding me! Baskets, antique purses, my dad’s baptismal gown, flowers, flowers and more flowers, all hanging on walls at different times, and apparently worthy of pictures every time. Oh my – easy decision about those pictures however.
I labored the longest on the family pictures for two reasons. Mom and Dad have been gone more than 30 years so those pictures have special memories for me. So special that they almost make me forget that as the fourth of four children, I have about three pictures of me that weren’t school or family photos.
Needless to say, I need a few more weeks. As we’ve pulled the shade on the official end of summer, I move into my fall routine which does not include sorting pictures.
So am I alone? Who else has summer projects they need to finish? Let me hear from you so we can share the books we read, the movies we saw and the trips we took, when we should have been doing what we set out to do in the first place. Summer, summer, why have you left me so soon?
Meghan asked me to find a lost picture of Maddison's school pictures for her graduation party. Sure not a problem! I spent hours and I do mean hours tripping down memory's lane. Then the journey was taken again when the kids and I sifted thru pictures for Harv's memorial. The discussions and memories that swirled with that trip. What will happen to the future generations when they have no pictures to hold, pictures "erased" because they were not liked? So many memories happy and sad will be lost to new technology.
Great quilt!
Peggy, great point about the future of old photos. You are so right – they illicit so many memories and conversations. Thanks for taking the time to comment.
Thank you. A labor of love.