Tag Archives: #FamilyHeirlooms

Arts and Crafts, Creative Pursuits, family, Grandparenting, Gratitude, Lifestyle, Love, marriage

For the Love of Quilt

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Over the course of my life, I have been fortunate to be the recipient of several quilts and afghans.

My mom, Bonnie, was so creative. I am a creative spirit as well, but the execution of my creative ideas is historically pretty spotty. One of Bonnie’s creative pursuits was sewing quilts and making afghans. They are some of my most prized possessions.

I am in awe of those who can create in this way. I never had the manual dexterity nor the type of brain required to create works of art such as these. In fact, I vividly recall back in about 8th grade being unable to finish the sundress I was supposed to make in Home-Ec class. My BFF, who had decided to sew herself a sundress alongside me in this class, also had a mother who was a talented seamstress, I wound up relying on her to finish my pitiful project. God bless that woman. Don’t ask me why I didn’t ask Bonnie for help, because I don’t recall. I imagine shame was involved.

This is all to say that I cherish the quilts and afghans that have been bequethed to me over the years because of the love, artistry, and tedious work that was put into them.

If you’ve been reading this little blog of mine for a bit, you may recall that Mr. NOA and I recently celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary. There was one very special gift we were given as a wedding present.

It was this quilt.

It was made by Paula, the wife of Mr. NOA’s boss at the time, a man named Ken. Mr. NOA, who is a bit more than 3 years younger than me, was in his last year of college when he was hired by Ken, who ran a small vending machine business that stocked vending machines on our college campus and the larger community. Ken was blind and needed someone to not only help him with the manual labor of stocking the vending machines but he also needed a driver.

The fact that Paula, whom I believe I only met once or twice, sewed this quilt for us to commemorate our new marriage, really touched our hearts.

This quilt has been laid on by drooling babies (our daughter being the first). It has kept us warm while we laid under it on our tent-camping trips. It has served as protection for us as a family from the rugged ground it covered as we watched the fireworks on the 4th of July or enjoyed live music outdoors.

For the last three years, however, this quilt has been quietly taking up space in the trunk at the foot of our bed.

As I got a wild hair the other night and decided to pull this beauty out of its hiding spot, Mr. NOA and I talked about its future.

I think one of two things ought to happen: I find a local seamstress who can restore it to it’s former glory (if you zoom in, you can see the rips and tears here and there), OR I find another creative who can repurpose it. I’m thinking they would carefully cut it up and place it in a shadowbox frame. Maybe a couple of them, so baby Levi (who’s coming soon!) can have one hanging in his room too.

Mr. NOA, on the other hand, said he thinks we should just…let it be. Keep it in it’s current form and use it as we always have. Maybe we could lay it out in our yard late at night and gaze at the stars with it underneath our outstretched bodies. Maybe it could be cover for our 11 year-old grandson when he’s sleeping overnight with us in our camper. Maybe we pull it out for Levi to rest on when he’s at our house and it’s “tummy time”.

Knowing myself as I think I do, I feel a sense of urgency to decide this beloved heirloom’s fate; otherwise there’s a damn good chance it’s going back in the trunk and forgotten about while my brain comes up with yet another creative repurposing idea that may never come to fruition.

~As always, I have a song to share that fits the vibe I’m in while writing this piece today~

Fathers, Happiness, Inspire, Positivity

The story of the traveling hutch

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I love this hutch. Isn’t it gorgeous? It’s sort of a family heirloom. Let me tell you the story.

This hutch was housed in the one bedroom “shotgun” cabin my parents purchased on a lake 20 minutes from their house about 25 years ago. The seller of the cabin had no use for this hutch, as he was an elderly gentleman with no family around. He simply left it there, where it sat in a corner in the kitchen/dining space.

My mom has never been a fan of antiques. She much preferred to decorate her home and that little cabin in a more modern fashion, which at the time was a lot of country blues and pink hues on the furniture as well as the walls. She has always been stellar at organizing small spaces (the home 5 of us and a dog lived in for eons was 3 small bedrooms and one bathroom with no shower, just a tub. Yes, I didn’t get regular showers until I moved into my dorm in college). So this hutch served a purpose for her as it was a place to store dishes. She and I, along with all other female family members, also relied on this hutch when visiting the cabin, as a make up and hair styling station. There was an outhouse in the back.

My dad and I, however, had an appreciation for this old hutch. We saw it as a pretty well preserved piece of history, and a beautiful one at that. I remember telling my parents as a young mom and wife that this was likely the only piece of furniture that I would like to be bequeathed to me someday.

Someday happened about 15 years later. My dad, then about 76, asked me during a phone call (back when he could still hear well enough to have at least a short conversation on the phone), if I’d still like to have the hutch. I told him emphatically yes and he said he’d like to deliver it to me the next time they came to Wisconsin for a visit.

So my dear old dad drove himself and my mom over 5 hours one way and delivered the hutch. Hubs and I picked out just the right spot for it between our dining and living area. Hubs served as Dad’s apprentice to move the hutch from the back of dad’s pickup truck, and together they carefully lugged it up the stairs to put it in its’ designated spot. I was in awe that my dad was still the strong man he always was at 76 and appreciated the teamwork it took he and Hubs to get it into the house.

Miraculously, the hutch survived two more moves, one from our family’s home in a more rural area, to our new “empty nester” home in the city of La Crosse, Wisconsin, and the other from La Crosse all the way here to Colorado. I fully expected that the hutch would suffer some type of damage during both of these moves. Perhaps the mirror would crack, or the old glass pane would shatter into a million pieces. But alas, it survived.  I like to think it survived because of the appreciation we had for it. More than likely though it was just dumb luck.

I’m really pleased with where we chose to place it in our townhome. Especially because it was pure happenstance that when you walk towards it, in the mirror you can see the peace sign that we hung on the opposite wall next to our front door. What sweet serendipity.

There are few tangible “things” I treasure in this life. And this old hutch, with the memories that go along with it, is right at the very top of the list.