Tag: Linda McKinney

Turkey Tracks: It’s Arrived!

Turkey Tracks:  January 27, 2015

It’s Arrived!

Some years back, I gave my Mike/Tami grands an amaryllis.

Talula was entranced with it–watching each day as it grew and the flower bud developed.

On the morning it bloomed, she woke everyone up with the announcement that “it’s arrived.”

* * *

So, this past Christmas season, I gave some amaryllis to several people I know who I thought would get a kick out of them.

A reminder:  I don’t “do” Christmas gifts, but try to connect with all the people in my life in some meaningful way over this season of dark delight.

One amaryllis went to Linda McKinney’s granddaughters, Addy and Willow.

Well, this week, “it arrived,” and Addy, who had been following it with much interest, was delighted.

Here’s the picture Linda sent to me this week.  She’s been telling me for some weeks not how interested Addie has been in this flower process.

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I am so happy that I have, again, participated/facilitated in drawing a child into the magic and power of the plant world.

Margaret Rauenhorst and Ronald VanHeeswjik host a magical solstice night with a HUGE bonfire and special drinks every December.  So I tucked an amaryllis into a sack for them and left it on their kitchen table.

Here’s the pic Margaret sent me today:

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What a cheerful, cheerful, lucious reminder that though a blizzard is coming, that spring will, once again, also come!

I like to give timely experiences…

 

Turkey Tracks: Warm and Wonderful

Turkey Tracks:  March 13, 2011

Warm and Wonderful

Here’s another scrappy quilt made wholly from my stash.  This one uses the 4-inch blocks, and can I tell you, I have at least enough bright ones left to make a whole other quilt! 

What I had fun with here is the placement of the paper doll blocks.  The first one was an accident; I was just using warm colored 4-inch squares roughly alternated with neutrals.  Linda McKinney passed through the quilt room one day and expressed delight with the faces and feet now scattered about the quilt.   So, I deliberately did more and placed them advantageously. 

 

Here’s a close-up, so you can see some of the quilting.  I’ve learned to use stencils and pounce powder (or erasable chalk pencils) to trace in stencil lines and then to quilt them.  You can see a bird and a dragonfly, at least, in this picture.  And, I densely quilted.  This quilt is a lap size, about 56 x 72, and it took FOUR industrial-sized bobbins.  I used a commercial big-cone thread and had no problems with thread breakage.  Indeed, this is the first quilt I’ve done on Lucy with which I felt really at-ease.  

The backing is a warm beige that, it turned out, I had enough of to make the batting.   

 

Warm and Wonderful was made especially for someone special.