ada's quilt

her aged brown eyes stung with wisdom and experience filled her dainty hands.  she was a farmer's wife in the country of minnesota and a stay at home mother long before it was pretty.  dishes were washed without machines, laundry done in wash basins outside, line dried, food was grown and made from scratch, all while raising five children.  and i get stressed over the clothes i have to laboriously throw into a machine.  not to mention all those dishes with which to fill my dishwasher... although motherhood is always hard work, we have to agree that the art of homemaking is a lot easier now than it was then.  oh, and she sewed.  by hand.  no machines for that either.

that's ada, my great-grandmother on my mother's side.  i'm said to have her brown eyes and i really hope it's true.  what i wouldn't give to speak with her now - learn about her ways and what she learned on her life's journey.  my eye's lit up this week like i had dug up a buried treasure, only i didn't know i was searching for it, when my hands touched this quilt; ada pieced it together by hand, close to fifty years ago.  it was my mom's, then it was passed to me and then my sister.  and now it's mine again.  because the firstborn get's certain privileges and dibs like that.  

it promptly took me back to the simple, doll playing days of my childhood, when it seemed as if i was sheltered from all the pains and disappointments of this world and deaf to the thunderous bolts the future would bring.  life was as it should be.  my mom stayed home with me, i played with baby dolls like little girls should, my dad went to work and then came home.  we were a real family.  it was sweet.  

i want to capture that everything as it should be and hang it up in my little girl's room.  the quilt's stains only make it better, showing the age and loved on-ness of the gorgeous hodge podgey pieced together fabric.  discovering heirlooms are one of life's little highlights.

-carissa

linking up with rach today.  

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