Another Birthday

My birthdays have always been sort of privately personal to me. I don't get overly sentimental about my birthdays, and like as not, I may forget about the whole day. Except I have children and a sentimental sibling, and they seem to think that the older I get, the more they should remember it for me. I am no longer worried about getting older. I did that at 30.I appropriately freaked out about being 30. The birthdays in my 30's were chaotic. My husband died just before my 33rd birthday, and the rest of the thirties were busy raising the three children and trying to start an art career. At 40, I began to think more about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. At 50, it was time to put some of those ideas in motion, and at 60, it's now time to have fun with how things are working out. I know I want to be always creating something with cloth and thread, spreading color about with paint or flowers, and just plain enjoying the fact that I think May is the coolest month of the year. That''s a birth date to me. But I'll also have a birthday coffee date with my sister, movies with my son, more coffee with my daughters and a leisurely stroll through a fabric store, or my favorite nursery and craft store.

Piecing the Blog

This is the first post to my Blog titled Sew Long. I'm going to treat this like a quilt or a garment. What shall I make? Or write about? I think I'll make a small blog of squares just to test my colors! I have sewn all my life. At first, a bit secretly in daydreams, as no one could touch mother's sewing machine. I played in my grandmothers embroidery basket and scoured around in my mother's sewing "pantry" when she was not home: bulging pattern envelopes stacked like files , boxes of buttons, heavy drawers loaded with fabric, mysterious tools, the "good" scissors, the closet with garments hanging within. I read anything that had to do with sewing, reading over and over again paragraphs of words I did not understand, awaiting for the day I could join 4-H and sew like the older girls. Alas, that day came, I was sick with an epidemic flu and could not attend, I had to catch up, and this girl desperate to sew was stuck with a Mom who could sew, helped with 4-H, but had no patience or inclination to teach her daughter. She just should know how. So I grew up, moved away, and began my own adventure with thread and needles.