The season of Traditions

It is a snowy wet day here in Alberta and I enjoyed the day out with my friend, L. shopping and having a belated Birthday Lunch. The lunch was delicious and so was the time spent with a good friend. I did some Christmas shopping and checked out a local pottery guild sale. I found some very nice things for very good prices so I have a few pieces of pottery for friends and family on my list. Christmas shopping is something that I do all year round. As well. I like to keep some things on hand for gifts in case I have forgotten someone's special day. My mother has always had a gift box and I seem to have carried on that tradition.

I have a harder time having gift box items for my main man and the boy. It is harder for me to buy for my immediate family than anyone else. Sometimes I run out of ideas and so I fill up their stockings with things that they need- socks, underwear,coffee coupons for Tim Hortons- a popular Canadian coffee house(we do have Starbucks and Second Cup coffee places too), and other things that are consumable.
Yes even socks are consumable- at least they seem to be in my house- We have a large bag of one sock wonders that seem to have lost their mates. Does anyone else have that problem? I buy the males in my house socks in sets of 6 pairs that are all the same and that still doesn't solve the case of the disappearing socks. Maybe the dryer eats them or the dog or......

Our son will celebrate his 21 birthday next week. I am not sure where the time has gone... He is wonderful young man just finding his way in the world... We are still looking for that special birthday gift that recognizes that he is officially an adult.

In the meantime the Christmas buzz permeates life... My school children are excited and reflect the anticipation of the season. The joy and innocence of young children and their overwhelming belief in the spirit of Santa Claus fills me with warmth and pleasure each and every year. in the meantime, my students are busy learning their song for Christmas concert- "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth". They will look so cute all dressed up and singing on our school stage.

Today's quilt is a quilt that I showed in a local guild show around 2004. It is a double wedding ring quilt that is large enough to use as a cuddle quilt or on the Christmas table. I made this quilt to honor my father's mother, Olive. My grandmother was a quilter who made quilts out of whatever was available. She was a farm woman who was a great canner( she would put up 300 jars of wild fruit in a year) and baker( my mother still uses her dark fruit cake recipe for Christmas). Olive worked hard all of her shortened life- she passed away when she was 43. She had many health problems and unfortunately she died before I was born. Grandma Olive would have used feed sacks and recycled clothing to make pieced arcs instead of the continuous arcs of this double wedding ring quilt. She would have pieced and quilted her quilts by hand as they did not have electricity in the farm house that was my father's childhood home. I had the benefit of using acrylic templates and a rotary cutter- her tools would have been cardboard templates and scissors. Our technology may be more developed but the techniques would have been similar.

I would love to have one of her quilts, but I don't think that there are any of them left. I like to believe she would have liked this quilt even though is a modern take on a traditional quilt. Personally, I am very fond of the rich colors and the way the flowers lay in the rings. If I did another one, I would have fussy cut the centers of the quilt pieces. The binding needed to be true bias binding to go around the scallop edges.

Its been a while since I made a new Christmas quilt I have some gorgeous Laurel Burch fabrics gathered for a Christmas quilt but it will have to wait until after Christmas.

There are some really beautiful Christmas quilts out here in Blogland. If you have time, do check out some of the links on my sideboard- you will find some really wonderful pieces of work that people have lovingly created.

Last week I mentioned that my husband, Bruce went looking for pieces of the meteor that fell on the prairies in November. For those of you who might be interested in checking out my husband's meteorite adventure you can find photos of it here...http://skyriver.ca/astro/bruce/meteorite.htm


In the meantime, I will be preparing some snacks to share for our last quilt class on Monday and shopping for my loved ones. Oh and making nuts and bolts and making the odd bracelet with beads and putting up some more Christmas decorations and....the list grows by the minute... I did get the Christmas Village up as well as the Stain glass in the dining room window- Next to find the Christmas Santas and Snowmen for the mantle..

'Tis the season of traditions and celebrations...Remember to take time to savor the time spent with family and friends - to me, that is really what I hope our season will be all about..

Happy Quilting,
Regards,
Anna