Pokey Bolton of Quilting Arts asked for you to send in a picture of something homemade that you had made for Xmas. I sent in a picture of the collage that I made for my friend Marion, and it is on the
Quilting Arts blog. (Of course it is on my blog too, but this is almost like being published.)
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I hid out at home today and found this great story in some of my genealogy stuff:
Grandma’s Apron
When I was a little child, grandma’s garments made little impression on me. Her apron was a big affair of dark printed cotton, slow to soil, and edged around with bias tape. It’s uses were limitless.
The apron made a “basket” when she gathered eggs from the hen house late in the afternoon. If there were fluffy, yellow chicks to be carried to the back porch during the sudden cold spell, they made the trip peeping contentedly in Grandma’s apron.
When those same little darlings grew into henhood and liked to peck and scratch among Grandma’s flowers, she merely flapped her apron at them and they ran squawking to the chicken yard. And I can see her yet, tossing cracked corn to the hungry flock form her apron.
Lots of chips and kindling were needed to start fires in the big ivory colored cook stove in Grandma’s kitchen. Sure she carried them in her apron. Vegetables and fruits, too-lettuce, radishes, peas, string beans, carrots, apples, peaches, all found their way to the kitchen in Grandma’s carryall.
While things were cooking, it was a handy holder for removing hot pans from the stove. IF the men working in the field weren’t too far away, the apron waved aloft was the signal to “come to dinner”. At threshing or company time, when the long dining room table was crowded with hungry folk, Grandma hovered about passing aromatic dishes and flipping the big apron at pesky flies. When Grandma came to visit the apron stood ready to dry childish tears. IF the little ones were shy, it made a good hiding place in case a stranger appeared unexpectedly.
The apron was used countless time to stroke a perspiring brow as Grandma bent over the hot woodstove or hoed the garden under a blistering sun. In chilly weather, Grandma wrapped the friendly garment around her arms while she hurried on an outside errand or lingered at the door with a departing guest. Hastily and a bit shyly, it dusted tables and chairs if company was sighted coming down the lane. And in the evening when the day’s work was done, Grandma shed her garment of many uses and draped it over the canary’s cage.
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I got a strange call from my son today. I was expecting that he would receive his christmas present today. He did get the box,but the present was for a friend in Florida. I had them in identical boxes, and just put the wrong address on the boxes. She and my son have had "issues" in the past. so it may have been a freudian slip! Anyway, he was very puzzled over why I had sent what I did! Can't say much more or the secrets will be out!
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Snow may descend, so I don't know if I will make it to my Mother's house this weekend, may have to postpone until next weekend. Either earley or late, Christmas is still Christmas!
Atop the Arc de Triomphe, 
Tulierres Gardens, Paris France
