art
Family-themed art is a look into one's living room; it depicts celebration, crises, and the quiet moments of familial interactions.
Fabric of Life
The Fabric of Life Nearly sixty years have passed, but I clearly remember the day when a coworker came into the office with a fabric work-of-art. The colorful piece, her first effort at quilting, received “oohs and ahs”. When I joined the group admiring her craftiness, my overly confident young adult reaction was, “I can certainly accomplish something like that!”.
By Linda Massa5 years ago in Families
Cousin Craft Day!
My sister and I grew up in a small town, with a very big family. Family get-togethers - and we had a lot of them – were filled with dozens of kids running around, aunts and uncles everywhere, tons of food, and loads of fun. Everyone always had the best time. It was fun growing up in such a large family – you always had someone to play with and there was always a birthday or milestone to celebrate. Because it was a small town, our cousins all attended the same schools, and were often in the same classes. Our grandmother owned the local newspaper, so all of the kids spent time working and playing in the newspaper office after school and during the summer.
By Suzanne Delaney Wilson5 years ago in Families
Bags of fun
Not every joy is self-made Sometimes a bunch of like-minded, get together to create happiness. Crafting and stitching are not just hobbies in our family. But an activity to create joy together. From a very young age, I have seen my mother sewing forks and inners for me. Her artistic sense never took off its flight as she remained a homemaker. Her aesthetic sense and design changed from one direction to another. It showed even in her creative cooking.
By Devi Vaidehi5 years ago in Families
Seams
Nine days before the pandemic began, I married my best friend. We cherish our time together and spend hours having coffee and coming up with creative ideas for book titles, museum themes, and writing lyrics for his band. When I met his family, I finally understood why he is such a creative and energetic person all the time -- all his family is!
By Dolly J. Maass5 years ago in Families
STRONG STURDY HANDS
Recently my grand daughter Eliana asked me to teach her to sew. You see, I take sewing very seriously and this eight-year-old knew she could not find a better teacher than her grandmother. I have a state of the art sewing room filled with all the latest gadgets. In fact, my sewing room is like a museum. Proudly displayed is my mother’s Singer sewing machine (which is older than me). I also have my Godmothers old Singer sewing machine which was probably her mothers’ machine because it has the large metal foot base. This was one of the first machines used in sewing however you did have to pump the foot base back and forth to get the machine to sew a stitch. On my walls I have framed old original sewing patterns that date back to the 1930’s. I also have proudly displayed on the wall an Artist Proof picture by Alonzo Adams. This picture has a woman quilting who has a spot-on resemblance to my Aunt Tina. Ironically, the Artist named the picture, “Strong Steady hands” because back in those days all quilts were made by hand.
By Linda Chandler-Jacobs5 years ago in Families
I only received one gift at graduation: a pair of scissors.
My brothers and I were raised in Appalachia, a region that was once the western border of the United States, satirized as “red neck,” and anthropologically documented in the FoxFire chronicles. In 1964, it became the site for President Lyndon B. Johnson’s war on poverty. We grew up in Montgomery County, home to one of the state's land grant universities, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, known more commonly and simply as Virginia Tech. The local community was a strange blend of the highly-educated and backwoods moonshiners.
By Bobby Zokaites5 years ago in Families
Finding Happiness
I do not begin to know where the creative spirit comes from, or why some people are so gifted with it. But I do know that sometimes creativity sprouts in the darkest of times, and can haul one’s spirit back into the light of day. This is how it was for me.
By Anne Krinock5 years ago in Families
Quilting My Family Tree
My passion is quilting and I use my scissors to cut up fabric and then I sew it back up in a myriad of patterns. As a young girl I thought that quilting was something that only grownups could do. I would thumb through the worn pages of my Mom’s quilting books to admire the beautiful patterns and I relished the quiet moments sitting with my Grandma Nancy at her kitchen table watching her hand sew. The needle making graceful dives into the fabric between her nimble fingers. Fabric pieces joining together was magic to me and It wasn’t until I was much older that Grandma Nancy offered to give me small sewing lessons during our holiday visits to Pennsylvania.
By Sara Stephen5 years ago in Families
Finding Happiness
I do not begin to know where the creative spirit comes from, or why some people are so gifted with it. But I do know that sometimes creativity sprouts in the darkest of times, and can haul one’s spirit back into the light of day. This is how it was for me.
By Anne Krinock5 years ago in Families
The Fabric Scissors
Scissor mastery was achieved early in my family. In fact, I learned so young that my only real memory of children's round-tipped scissors is seeing the shiny new pair that appeared in my box at the beginning of each school year. If they were on the list of school supplies displayed at the local variety store, they were purchased exactly as specified. My mom wasn't exactly a rule follower, but she was properly respectful of my teachers and their wishes. But we both knew those scissors were just a polite gesture.
By Janet Lewis5 years ago in Families
Spaghetti Al Dente in the Window
I would kill to look through that window again – to see my nonna and nonno waving back at us as our old red Honda Chevrolet pulled out from their driveway. To look back at their home, that to ten-year-old me stood as tall as the empire state building and as disheveled as the leaning tower. I feel shaken at the thought of a new family pulling down the discolored kitchen wallpaper, repointing the brick fence that outlined their vegetable garden, or replacing the gas stoves that boiled an inconceivable number of pasta dinners.
By Daniel Bosco5 years ago in Families
Mother Lucia’s Last Pair of Scissors
I was almost 10 years old when my mom decided that I was ready for a significant honor. Like many of the milestones that gradually separate us as adults from the carefree days of childhood, that particular moment remains clear in my mind.
By Suzanna Fitzgerald5 years ago in Families
