Some weeks ago during a telephone conversation with Aunt Elizabeth, she was telling me about her room at the retirement facility and mentioned that she slept in the bed that had been grandma W’s. I asked if she was also using a quilt she or grandma might have made but she said no. I told her I would make her a quilt for her 93rd birthday on May 11th; one she could use when she napped. I planned to use the sewing machine to piece the top and sew the flannel backing, but would not use batting.
I had committed myself to a very tight schedule which became even tighter as I took days deciding on the pattern I would make. I also had to solve the problem of finding a table with the right height for my portable sewing machine. As luck would have it, my son found a marvelous antique drop leaf table at a local thrift shop so I didn’t have to get mine out of storage.Because our family was among the true pioneers that helped settle the country and were homesteaders in South Dakota, I chose to do a Log Cabin for Elizabeth. Of the many quilts I’ve made, I had never pieced or quilted a Log Cabin. The blocks are made of light and dark fabric strips sewn around a small center square dividing the block into diagonals of light and dark. There are many ways to assemble the blocks of a Log Cabin quilt, each design having its own name. I chose to make the Log Cabin Star. I used five different light colored fabrics and five different dark color fabrics for the strips and red for the center square. The center color of either red or yellow represents a light or lantern in the cabin.
As the work progressed, the living room slowly lost its identity and turned into a Hodge podgy assembly area of scattered fabric strips, rotary fabric cutters, star charts, and stacks of finished and unfinished quilt blocks. All of which Mimi, the cat, believed were her new toys. At times it was a toss up of whether I was in charge or Mimi was. When the top with the center star was finished, I backed the colorful blocks with soft pink flannel and got it in the mail just in time for it to be delivered the day before Elizabeth’s birthday.I wasn’t able to reach Elizabeth by phone on the day of her birthday. The following day I received a phone call from a son telling me she had suffered a stroke on her birthday and that she had not seen the quilt before the stroke. I send loving thoughts to her every day and pray she regains a measure of health so we can continue our phone chats. I miss them.
While browsing the thrift shop for a sewing table, I spotted a lovely necklace in the glass case by the cashier. I knew immediately what it was and asked if I could see it. I had seen a PBS television program the night before on Pearls and recognized a type of elongated pearl that is becoming rare due to the pollution of the waters in Japan where the pearls are found. It was a stunning necklace and I bought it for a ridiculously low price.
Off and on through the years I enjoyed beading but never worked with pearls, but now I decided to learn how pearls were knotted and to make necklaces for myself and members of the family.I started by going to the library and reading everything I could find on the subject. The next step was practicing on imitation glass pearls. The overhand knot is simple but the trick is to know when, where and how to tighten it. The knot is important, but learning the tricks of fastening necklace clasps equally so. Undoing a bad knot is a hassle and I quickly learned that total concentration is a must. Once I spent an untold amount of time undoing a knot in the middle of a string then making a bad knot in the place I had just untied one! It’s easy to let your mind wander when the rhythm of knotting verges on rote.
The trip to the bead store to buy real pearls was a delight. The clerk was patient and willing to answer all my questions. I bought 5 strands of varying colors and sizes. I had never seen the process done and the only photo I could find on knotting was one on the internet showing how the cord was tied in an over hand knot. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, so undaunted and treading where angels fear to go, I started creating necklaces. My first failure came after knotting about a dozen pearls. Because of a bad knot that resisted all my efforts to untie it, I had to cut each pearl from the cord and start anew. I’m please to report that I finished all five necklaces without further problems. When I showed them to the clerk at the bead store he told me I had done a very good job of knotting. I’m giving these necklaces away and I’m already busy knotting the next batch of pearl necklaces.
