Show Pins Quilt

 Several years ago I found this long, narrow, already-quilted piece on a Free Table at a guild meeting. I don't know who made it. I took it, not sure what I would do with it. Eventually I decided to turn it into a quilt on which to display my pins: quilt show pins, pins from work, school, church functions, and pins from my various travels.

Today I put on a binding, a hanging sleeve, and now the pins are officially in their place. I am sure I used to have more pins, but without an official spot, they have been mislaid. That's OK. I like the ones I could find.

My church pin includes a president's pin from the year I was president of United Methodist Women (I was a terrible president). Travel pins hale from Scotland, Czech Republic, Panama, and the states of Washington, New York, and Florida. 

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Do you have pins from various experiences of life over the years? What do you do with them? Do you put them in a specific place?

Panama Memories

I am so grateful for my trip to Panama. Here are some fun memories:

riding a boat through the canal (we were close enough to the canal wall that I could touch it)

hanging out with my sisters:

beautiful scenery

swimming in the Chagres River and in the Caribbean Sea:

Happy memories forever.

Our Little Tree

Over the years we have had a wide variety of Christmas tree types in our home. For years we used only real trees. In the last ten years or so we have switched to artificial. In "old age" these are so much easier to deal with! Also I like them small so they don't take up so much space, which is at a premium in our living room.

This tree is only a couple of years old. Even artificial ones start to look bedraggled and need to be replaced. The white lights are already attached, then I added the colored lights. I prefer a tree with multitudes of colors. Which sort of person are you: white lights only, one-color only, multiple-colored lights only, or as one news anchor recently announced: colored lights are for outside and white-only lights are for inside?

The decorations we hang on the tree are the most fun part, because there are so many memories associated with them. Way back when we were first married, we had a potted tree (I can't think of its type). It was tiny and weak so could only hold very light-weight ornaments. Some of those we still use are from that shopping trip where I bought the lightest weight ornaments I could find. A few ornaments are from different trips I took to Indian reservations and once to an Alaskan Federation of Natives conference. So I have some "Eskimo boots made by a Tlingit woman" as they were described to me. Tlingit is the tribe from which my husband is descended. The woman who made these married an Eskimo man, so she is familiar with the boots/moccasins of both traditions. I also have a baby wrapped up in a cradle (bought from a Minnesota Ojibwe woman) that could hang in a tree branch.. again, I can't remember the real name for this thing. I must be getting old.

Some are made in Russia. Some are made in Laos. I have some from Czech Republic, but they aren't on my tree this year. I love having ornaments from around the world. Last March when daughter and I visited the UK, I bought an ornament that says "Mind the Gap" but now I can't find it! Frustrating. But I do have a little plaid reindeer that I bought in Scotland.

I have a few ornaments that are sewing and quilting related - some were gifts from my daughter. One is a knitted hat and mittens that our neighbor from way back (about 35 years ago) made. Daughter and I went to visit, and she let us pick any ornament we wanted off her tree. Wasn't that nice of her? We picked the hat and mittens.

Anyway, the memories are fun, and I'm getting old enough now that I feel nostalgic about these old things. I now have a few decorations that I inherited from my mother, so those have even older memories associated with them. At Christmas time I miss my mom.

I hope, if you celebrate Christmas, you will have fun remembering old times and cherishing the new memories you will make this week.

Little Hummel pieces that I inherited from my mom. These are probably older than I am.

Tripping Down Memory Lane

The college where husband and I met and from which we graduated is celebrating its 50th year of existence. My future father-in-law was its first business manager. Its first class opened in the fall of 1967. My future mother-in-law was a member of that charter class.

Each year they added one more class. I arrived in the fall of 1970, the first year they had four classes of students on campus. And that spring, in 1971, my future mother-in-law graduated with the charter class. I didn't know her or my hubby at the time, but I played in the band at her graduation ceremony.

Hubby and I started dating in the Fall of 1971, graduated in 1974, married in 1975, and now, suddenly, it's a million years later. How did this happen? Time is a funny thing.

We decided to take a road trip down to our old college and see what it looks like these days, and to peek at an art exhibit which has a piece of mine hanging in it. This exhibit is part of the college's 50th anniversary celebration.. they asked for alumni art and then picked the pieces they wanted. The exhibit changes about every six weeks. (Note: there were no classes in session on the Friday that we visited, so campus was very quiet and very few people show up in these pictures.)

I'm in the car on the way there. The college was built on a flat prairie; you can see the flatness out the car window. We were happy to see that the baby trees, planted while we were there, have grown up and are large and good for shade.

First thing we did was drive around town to see what we remembered. A lot has changed! This is the house my hubby and his family lived in since he was about 12 and while I dated him. It has been remodeled and is much bigger now. (My in-laws moved away long ago.)

Here we are!

The first picture is of my missing dorm. During my first three years on campus I lived in a dorm that was on this spot of ground. It has since been torn down.

The fourth picture, the dark and fuzzy one, is of the dorm I lived in during my senior year. The other pictures are general campus pictures; some scenes are things we had never seen before.

The next day we went back in the daylight. These two campus scenes are what we remember. The school was so new, it had only three main buildings. This courtyard was in the middle, and what we see in the picture is what we mostly remember. The campus is now much bigger. It looks great!

This structure was in the new student center which was finished about a year before we graduated. It had a skylight-type of dome over this structure. You can see it depicted in the next picture. Later the dome was removed, and they built more around and on top of this structure.

Here's the art exhibit I was in. Can you see my name on this sign outside the Whipple Gallery? Prof. Whipple was the Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts while we were there.

Some of the other art work.. the one below is a print of 400 sketches of horses, some very rough, some completed. I took a shot to show a detailed look at the small parts. Hubby is examining the big piece.

Bill Holm and Philip Dacey were two of our professors in English and Literature back in our day. The 2nd shot shows some book covers of books written by Bill Holm.

This is the hallway where my now-husband surprised me and asked me out on a date. I wasn't even aware that he knew who I was at the time! I was on my way to history class and then sat starry-eyed in class the whole hour without hearing a word the professor said. The second picture is the spot where he invited me to our 2nd date. After that, I don't remember any particular spots of importance.

I end with two pictures of the New - a view from the new student center, looking out toward the campus that we remember. And a view from the administration building, with a view of the dorm I lived in during my last year there.

What a fun visit! Old memories flooded back, and we enjoyed seeing all the changes on campus. And I got a new sweatshirt.