Quiet Morning

Musings on Life and Beauty, Quilting and Sewing

Around 4:30 a.m. I heard the click of my front door closing as my parents left for their journey home.  Two hours later I was quietly getting my oldest two students and husband out the door for the day while the other children slept.  They have no school today.  The house was so still… the only noise being the breeze making it’s way through various open windows throughout the house.  It’s a cloudy, cool morning.


My life is loud most of the time, so I chose to sit quietly in the stillness of the morning for a bit.  From the living room couch I watched the curtains flutter in the wind as I tried something new:


I’m finally caving in to the hand quilting trend.  It was kind of nice to snuggle under the quilt I was working on while being productive!


It lasted long enough for one stitching line in one small area before I heard the sound of footsteps upstairs.  Then came quiet voices and a “Mommy!” from the three year old.  A few seconds later there was an eruption of sound and my real day is officially begun.  I’m off to do laundry, pay bills, clean the house, prepare food, organize play dates, and so forth.

But there is also this single running stitch to smile about.


A beautiful start to a gray but happy day.

HH

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Joy, week 38

JOY in 2012



Here, we are, another Sunday night, another week gone.  The air is cooler, the sun rises later each morning, and our outdoor evening activities end earlier.  It was a productive week, yielding success in many small projects around the house.  I cleaned out cupboards that aren’t any fun, like the cleaning cupboard, the medicine cupboard, and so forth.  It feels good, though, to be digging out in those little problem areas that bug you when you’re in too big a rush to stop and fix it.

The week was also full of  activities.  Parent/Teacher conferences at two different schools, practices, games, social commitments.  I’m so grateful that we’re making this all work.  Yesterday my awesome husband took over all the games for the day, taking the whole family with him to Tooele to give me several hours alone at home.  I did a deep cleaning on all the bathrooms and wow, did it feel good!

My parents came to town this weekend and we had a great day today.  My sister came down from Logan and we all went to my brother’s house in Spanish Fork to celebrate the blessing of his baby.   A really great night.  We’re still in the thick of it tonight, so I’m going to be brief here.  There’s much more I’d like to write, but it is enough to say that this week I felt joy, lots of it, for lots of reasons.  More than once tears of gratitude pricked at my eyes, tears of laughter were wiped from my cheeks, and smiles were abundant.  We turned the music up loud, danced and sang to our favorite songs, spent peaceful minutes quietly reading together in the same room.  We ate good food, shared conversations, prayed together, joked together.  In short, we were a family, and it was awesome!

Have a great week!
Jennifer

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Sashiko Embroidery

Stitching

Once upon a time I loved embroidery and always had a project going.  Then all of a sudden I had so many little ones who wanted my lap every time I looked like I might sit down that I let the hobby go.  Lately, however, (and also as my children get bigger) I’ve found myself looking with interest again at various embroidery projects.

Early in the summer I came across some photos of Sashiko embroidery samplers.  Sashiko is a Japanese style embroidery and I was intrigued, so I ordered a couple of them.  It wasn’t until we went to the beach that I finally started one.  Interestingly, as I took my first few stitches I was sitting outside near the sidewalk watching my children play and a woman in her 70’s walked by in a group.  She glanced at me and said, “Is that Sashiko?”  I was completely surprised by her comment, answered that yes, it was, and it was my first attempt.  She said, “You’ll love it!” and kept walking.

So I finally finished it and she was right.  I love it.  It’s easy, relaxing and fun.  I like the graphic design and it was really fun to stitch something on navy colored linen.


The question now is what to do with it?  I was originally planning on a pillow of some kind, but when I’m honest with myself I have to admit that more pillows in this house merely means picking more things up off the floor.  They NEVER stay where I put them, and they usually end up with something unsightly wiped across them.   Making a pillow sort of flies in the face of my mission to simplify everything in our house this month.


So now I’m wondering how it might look as the center block in a quilt.  Hmmm.  It might just work.  What do you think?

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