Appreciating Little Dreams

Musings on Life and Beauty

I have some big dreams.  We all do.  Some of them, I believe, will come true along the way, some will never happen, some will evolve into different pictures and weave their way into my life at least partially.  Every once in a while the world feels scary and fear grips my heart as I wonder how we’ll make our dreams come true for our children, especially.  Of course, all we can do is our best, leaving the future to the Lord.  But with so many big things out of our control, I’m learning that I am happier if I notice the little dreams that come true in my life.

Last weekend I made my family our favorite fall dessert:

my rustic pear tart.
I pulled up my post to make sure I remembered the measurements correctly and a sentence in that post caught my attention.  “Pears at the end of the summer, fresh from a local orchard.”

My heart stopped for a minute.  That’s not the story of this pear tart.  This pear tart carries the tag, “Pears at the end of the summer, fresh from my backyard tree.”  A feeling of warm happiness washed over me as I realized with total clarity that the fulfillment of a dream is embodied in that statement.  It’s not a huge, grand dream, and it certainly isn’t a dream that most people have.  It won’t pay for college or be the defining characteristic of my children’s upbringing.  A lot of people I know grew up with it like I grew up with a lawn in my yard.  They would never label it a dream; it was just part of life, something they didn’t have to think about, always there.   But I had it, the happy picture in my heart of my home with fruit trees in back.  The happy picture of our family carrying baskets of fruit inside together.  This is why I love my cherry tree so much.  It’s part of the picture I treasure.  But pears?  Pears are something special.  A little dream, come blissfully true.


When we sliced that tart into ten pieces and ate it together, what I felt was reverence.

Another little dream:

Saturday afternoon my daughter and I began harvesting my lavender for the last time this season.  I let it go too long, but I was enjoying the sight of the bees so much, and leaving the color in the yard made me smile.   The plants have done well this summer, growing large and beautiful, covered with more lavender than I anticipated.  Harvesting lavender is a happy activity.  There you are, arms, hands and face surrounded by the heavenly scent of fresh lavender, enjoying the silvery green color of the stems against the rich purple blooms while the bees work around you in happy companionship.


Saturday night I popped into a local shop for a minute.  The owner came up behind me to say hello as I placed an order for a favorite drink to take home and share with my husband.  We talked about some tempting lemon cookies on the counter and then her face grew serious as she put her arm around me and told her girls behind the counter about my lavender shortbread cookies .  I smiled and promised to bring her some, then said, “Just this afternoon I was outside cutting my lavender for the last time this year.”  I watched the look on her face and realized, “I’m living a dream.  It’s a small dream, on a small scale.  It’s not a lavender farm, but it’s my lavender.  It doesn’t help with the laundry or the cleaning, but it’s a dream and I’m lucky enough to live it.”

I walked to my car feeling terribly blessed.

Those two realizations opened my eyes to so many more little dreams come true.  The joy of a three year old curled up in my lap reading Goodnight Moon with me.  The discovery of a book that moved me to tears.  The happy closeness of my husband who is my life’s greatest dream come true.  The dream of motherhood come true all around me, growing and bulging until it’s so huge I sometimes forget it’s a dream.  A stack of freshly washed and folded white towels.  Having a guest room to share with family.  Pumpkins on the front porch.  Driving down a tree-lined street in the fall.  Prayed for growth and development happening in a child’s life.  A quiet evening at home laughing and playing UNO with my family.  When I really look for them, I realize there are little dreams come true all around me and it fills my heart with gratitude.

Gratitude is a nice feeling to live with.

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Collection Quilt Progress – sections 5-7

Quilting and Sewing

I am making steady progress on my Collection quilt, finishing sections 5-7 in the past couple of weeks.


I was able to assemble six of the sections and loved having it come together!  I have two more sections to go and then the quilt top will be completed.


I am following the general color scheme of Carolyn Friedlander’s original quilt, but using fabric from my stash.  It is fun to mix and match as I work with the colors and the prints to achieve what I want.  Section five (above) was particularly fun to plan as I chose the bottom print and built the section from that point.


I had a little mishap with fabric placement in the bottom right corner where the applique is hard to distinguish from Sarah Watson’s awesome print, but I decided to leave it and enjoy the little things about this Collection quilt that will make it mine.


Section 6 features another Sarah Watson print that I just love, paired with Anna Maria Horner’s gorgeous Loominous stripe.  I took a couple of risks with this section.  First, the print is much larger in scale and in contrast than anything I’ve included in the quilt.  It’s also busier, and I worry the applique won’t show up well at a distance.  Additionally, the weave of the stripe made me worry about using it for applique.  I hope it holds up and that there is no risk of it coming undone.  I was very careful while stitching these blocks.  I must say that I love that blue and am happy to have it included in the quilt.


Section seven was one of the most fun blocks to stitch, although I didn’t read the instructions carefully enough at first and had to re-cut all the applique fabrics.  The second try was a success, however, and I continue to learn!

I remember when this Collection quilt pattern was first released.  I loved it so much but was intimidated by it.  I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to just make it.  It isn’t as hard as I thought and is such a unique quilt design.  It is also smaller than I thought it was, and I am thinking about adding borders to make it bigger.  My children are growing so much that they rarely reach for the small quilts anymore; everyone wants them larger.    The question is, what would I use for the border?


I have selected my fabrics for sections 8 and 9, and have only to make time to cut and baste them.  Once that step is completed, it is easy to find a few minutes here and there for some stitching.  I will share more soon!

Jennifer

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Ice Cream Soda Quilt Blocks 1-10

Quilting and Sewing



I shared my first ever English Paper Piecing (EPP) blocks earlier this year, and now there are ten of them.  The block, designed by Jodi of Tales of Cloth , is called Ice Cream Soda and it’s been a great learner project for me.


I continue to use this project to practice fussy-cutting, both by showcasing certain images and also by using the fabric to create repeat designs as the sections are sewn together.  This is not a natural thing for me (it makes me cringe a little that fabric is wasted) but I do feel that with practice I am getting better at seeing new ways to use prints.


I am also trying to pull out favorite prints and include them.  I did this with a particular print that is out of print and precious to me.  I was so proud of myself for cutting into it and now I can’t find those block pieces anywhere!  I remember doing it and have searched high and low but cannot find them.  They were with the rest of the blocks I cut out at the same time and how one of them went missing is beyond me.  I really hope it turns up somewhere!  Such a bummer.



When I last posted about this project I had tried two different methods of sewing the pieces together.  I liked the way the flat back stitched pieces looked (because I couldn’t see any stitches) but I just couldn’t seem to hold them together firmly enough and my points were off.  It was also slower.  So I have gone back to the method of holding right sides together and carefully stitching along the edges.  The stitches are more visible but I am a little quicker.  On this project I believe the title “slowest sewist” is appropriate.  The schedule for the stitch along says I should have most of my blocks done by now, but I just finished the first month’s blocks.  Lots of slow catching up lies ahead, and that’s ok.  I am making these blocks to improve my skills in preparation for making a La Passacaglia quilt.


When I put the blocks together like this I feel excited, like maybe I”ll actually have an ice cream soda quilt top that I like when I’m caught up on all this stitching!  At this point I have no plan regarding color other than to use lots of it.  I figure I have plenty of time and blocks to go and I’ll be able to adjust as necessary along the way.

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