Disappearing Nine Patch and other thoughts
Mom and I just watched this amazingly simple quilt assembled on a tutorial by Missouri Star Quilt shop. Missouri Star Quilt Co. (info@missouriquiltco.com) What a nifty way to use the batiks! There is video to watch if your like us and need visual.

We were so excited our Farmer's Wife Quilt book arrived by Laurie Aaron Hird. We can't wait to start assembling our travel bags, this is going to be take along project for honestly several years. That's alright Rome wasn't built in a day either. We love the idea that each block is 6 inches so we won't be overwhelmed with the block especially if we don't like it. There are 111 blocks in the book with simple instructions. What made it really a seller for Mom was the cd that was included with the templates so she didn't have to calculate each one.

Can you imagine in the old days how they created these blocks? Mom has done some on graph paper just messing around to see how a block would look without cutting the material up. It wasn't hard to do because she had the block measurements already calculated for her, she just worked with the placement.

Did I ever tell you that Mom lived in a very old house with more issues than good things? I'm not going to talk about the house, we'll save that for another day. I am going to tell you about her gardens, she was a farmer in a way. They didn't have much money, so she grew all their vegetables for the year. She canned and froze as much as possible. They had soups, pickles and lots of canned vegetables. The canning jars used to be stacked in boxes and labeled in the pantry so as you worked thru one box you'd put the empty jars back inside before going to the next box.

In addition to her vegetable garden, she had seven perennial beds around the yard. People would always slow down and look at her flower beds. The sad part is we live so far away now that the beds are neglected at times. People have been stealing from her flower beds and taking the plants for themselves. This hurts my Mom immensely that people would steal like that. She worked very hard to have those beds. She goes up when she can. Sadly Mom has had to transport her favorites down here to preserve them from vandalism. Isn't that crazy, that people see no one home and take whatever and say to themselves well no one lives here now so its okay. No it is not okay! Stealing is stealing no matter how you paint your picture.