Search and Rescue

     I am on a mission.  I am always on a mission of one sort or another.  This time the mission is guided by the "waste not want not" theology with which I was raised.  As I began unpacking new fabric yesterday, I reached for pins to hold the fold on the bolt...and the pin cushion was empty.  In the process of looking for pins, I got side tracked and never went back to the task.  So this morning, when I came into the shop...there were the new bolts of fabric, waiting for me and still no pins.

     Yes there is a peg board filled with notions, and yes, there are boxes of my favorite flower head pins there.  I resist breaking out new pins.  Surely there were some already opened somewhere.  As I sat down at my desk, I happened to notice a pin in the crack of the floor boards.  I found a magnetic Pin Grabber, quite empty and the pin hopped out of the crack on onto the holder.  I didn't stop.  A half an hour later , I had picked up magnetically pulled so many pins from the cracks in the floor board that I had filled the pin grabber.

     We live in such a throw away society, that it is easier to buy new than find what we already have.  Now I know that a little pile of glass headed straight pins really is not big deal.  But it made me feel good, and it made me think about what I waste, and what I  throw out or buy twice as a matter of convenience. 

     I am going through my fabric here at the shop--again !  I am calling it Search and Rescue.  I open a drawer or find a box full of pieces, usually leftovers from three projects....or more.  It is all very good fabric.  I still like it.  I would not think of throwing it away.  Just sitting in the drawer, it becomes a forgotten thing.  So I spend a day, sorting, pressing evaluating and cutting the fabric into usable pieces.  Then I store it so that I can more easily see what I have, and how I might use it.  I already have several scrap projects in mind. 

     I know I am in business to sell fabric and notions.  I also want to sell you on the idea that what you have in hand is a great resource....you just have to know what you have.  I am glad to have you come through the door with a piece of fabric you need help with adding coordinates.  I see my job as helping you with ongoing projects as well as beginning new ones.  Both are important to the success of our business.

      I am also going to help you with your own Search and Rescue.  We will be setting up workshop times here for you to bring in your bundles of scraps and learn how to sort, press, evaluate, cut and store your collections of scraps.  Look for information coming out in our updates, 

      "When life gives you scraps, make a quilt".  That is a sign hanging in my studio at home.  Sometimes I have to sort the scraps in order to have them be something of worth.  This is my year to search and rescue.  What an adventure!!  See you on the journey!!!                         .......Rachel  

"The Season is upon us now, the time for gifts and giving....."

     Those are words from a song John Denver sang during a Muppet Christmas Show,  what seems like a long time ago.
                        "..and as the year draws to a close, I think about my living.."
And I think a lot about how I live, especially in the season of focus on what we want, and what to give that might top last year's gift.

    And yet,  I am hearing some wonderful things this Christmas Season.   Common, ordinary people doing some not so ordinary things.  And I am inspired by people who go a step further than throwing some dollars in the red buckets.  I like the little red buckets.  I save dollars so I have them to put in more than just one as I shop.  I think it is easy to give that way.

       I am inspired by the extra effort people are going to to make the holidays special for those who are less fortunate.  First on my list of inspiration is one of my customers who came into the shop soon after Thanksgiving.  She had the name of an elderly person she got from a Christmas Tree somewhere in her shopping.  The woman wanted place mats and napkins.  My friend had a pattern, and she bought some really wonderful Christmas fabric and all she needed to make 4 beautiful place mats and cloth napkins.  She did not ask for sale fabric.  She did not buy the cheapest thing she could find.  She did not go to a box store and find a ready made set.  She bought the best she knew.  I cut her fabric and rang up her bill.  What a gift she was giving--and she still had to cut and pres and sew, sew, sew!!!   I am deeply touched, and I know the woman who opens that gift will be thrilled.

     Having been a member of more than 6 different congregations in my life, I have often heard people say that if something was to be given to poor people, they will be happy for anything.  Or that it is just for the church, quality doesn't matter. I have been trying to figure out for years why someone would give something they would not give a member of their own family.  I love hand-me-downs and shopping for a bargain at Good Will or Gift and Thrift.  Yet, I am inspired to hear stories of people giving and thinking first about what the recipient would really appreciate. 

     I am also hearing of "Anonymous Santas" paying all but the last penny of toys laid away til almost the minute.  I read of a woman who stood in the layaway area, and when  a person who seemed to have needs beyond their means,  came to make a payment on their lay-away--she stepped up and paid the balance.   Where ever it started, it has inspired others to follow her example. 

      I really love that I am seeing people modeling the idea of giving the best they are able to give, and giving in very unexpected ways.   I just finished a gift for a friend.  It is so awesome, ( even if I say so myself!!!) I would like to keep it for myself.  My friend is not expecting it,  and she would not know the difference if I gave her something else.  But I won't.  I love to give gifts that I would enjoy receiving.

     So this year I am looking for ways to be my best and give my best..... inspired by those who go beyond the expected.   Ordinary people giving in extraordinary ways.

     If I do not have time to write again before Christmas, I wish you all the Peace, Hope and Grace that this season celebrates.  The birth of a Child who grew in stature and in favor with God and those around him. And his radical ideas changed the world.   Merry Christmas to all.   Let Peace begin in with me--how I think and how I treat those around me.      .............Rachel

Remembering Patches

Patches convinced us we needed a shop cat almost 16 years ago.  She was probably 1 or 2 years old when she arrived.  Two weeks ago we had to make the decision that her quality of life was really pretty awful.  As I sat in the veterinarian's treatment room with Patches in my lap, and tears spilling over, I was gently assured that we were making the right decision.

Patches invited herself into our space the fall of the year we opened...1997.  We spent the first month chasing her out, finding her hiding places and putting her gently out for the night.  We finally gave up, bought a litter box, food, had her de-clawed and spayed--the agreement we made with her if she was going to stay.  And she settled in to show us we had made a good decision.  I have often said that she instinctively knew what she had to do and who she had to be in order for her to stay in the shop.

I  think you either love cats, or avoid them.  I also know if you don't like cats, they will follow you, sit near  you and whine at you trying to convince you that you are wrong about them.  The fascinating thing about Patches is that she often was successful.  There were husbands that came under her spell...often declaring that if they could be guaranteed  a  cat like she was, they would have a cat at their house.  You and I know there are no guarantees when it comes to the feline population.  Each one of them has a personality.  We were lucky....and so was Patches.

Patches arrived at our door quite small--and stayed  small all of her life.  No one imagined she was as old as she was.  When she was tearing around the shop in her earlier years it was easy to understand.  In these later years, she seemed even smaller.  She never weighed more than 7 pounds.

She spent many of her early years playing in the rafters, sitting in the warmth of the spotlights, watching the activity below.  Then she would come down to meet and greet customers when she felt like it.  As she aged, she hobbled more---probably from jumping off the rafters one time too many.  She depended more on finding warm places to sleep at table height, or lower.

The Patches era is over.  We will not replace her.  That is not possible.  We will remember her fondly, and live with special memories shared by so many.  The animals in our lives are such great friends.

It is said that a dog has a master.  Cats have a staff.  Which ever you might have...you know what I mean.

I have a cat, Zoey at my house.  She snuggles a little closer, lately.  I miss Patches when I come to the shop, and she does not meet me at the door "complaining" that she has been alone all weekend.  I don't have to check on where she might be hiding.   I don't have to worry when she does not appear until mid afternoon. I know where she is.  I have a vivid memory of a scene from a Disney movie whose main character was  a cat named Thomasina. At the end of all of her lives, as a very old cat  she leaped effortlessly up the stairs to heaven.  And I understand wherever that is, it is a great place for cats.                                                                                 ...Rachel                         

Tour de Quilt, a week later

Recipe for a good time:
1. Grab a good friend, or two or three.
2. Fill the car with gas.
3. Pick up a passport at your favorite quilt shop on the tour.
4. Spend the next three of four days traveling the byways that connect the eight shops.
5. Be sure to stop to eat along the way; take in the beauty of the country side.
6. Shop, chat, tell stories, laugh.

Central Virginia's 12th shop hop is history.  I am happy and tired. I spent  last Tuesday afternoon with the owners of the seven other shops talking about this years tour, and drawing names for the wonderful prizes.  And there were so many of them---really good prizes.  I always enjoy tour weekend.  I see old friends come through our doors, and lots of new travelers as well.  The mix is so much fun, however exhausting it might be at the time. 

This year, the challenge for me was to get the quilt together.  Each shop had the same pattern, and the same fabric.  But we could use our fabric anywhere in the pattern that we wished.  I am used to taking fabric and doing what I want with it.  This year I had to follow the rules, and the pattern.  I still did it my way, but still by the rules.  And I am happy with the result.  Not the quilt I would have designed, but a very beautiful use of pattern and fabric.  The gift for me this year was that by the Monday before the tour began on Thursday, the quilt was finished.  Quilted, bound and ready to hang.  And I was not running around like a mad woman trying to finish my original pattern.  There are some things for which I am grateful. 

At the end of events, I find myself wondering what it would be like to travel this shop hop, be a mouse in someone's pocket, and hear what everyone is saying.  I have been in almost all of the shops, but the excitement and laughter I hear coming through my shop doors makes me think it would be fun to do the tour myself.  

...so here's to another great year of quilting.  I'll look forward to smiling faces coming through our door next October.  But don't forget us the rest of the year.  Refer to the list at the top of the page, and don't wait too long to:
1.  Grab a friend or two or three, fill the car with gas, and head out on a quilting journey.
                                                                                                                     peaceful stitching.....Rachel

They are never too young ....

Yesterday, as I was helping a student make a purse, Emma brought her little pink step stool,  set it as close to my feet as possible, and wiggled her little self under my arm and into the space in front of me so she could "help Nana".  Emma is growing up in the quilt shop, just like earlier generations grew up on the farm, in the workshop, in a family owned grocery or small business.  

My Grandmother Emma Weaver told of taking my mother as an infant to the Central Market in Lancaster, PA.  (circa 1922)  She would tuck the baby in her basket bed under the counter, where the baby would sleep until she needed to be fed.   My Grandmother would wait on customers selling meat and cheese for the family business, the baby sleeping or playing nearby.   When I visit the  farmer's market in downtown Lancaster I cannot imagine taking an infant there for the day while I worked.  But many women did.  Those children learned early how to talk to people, how to behave in crowds, how to help, how to work....and how to handle money and count back change.  That makes me smile because most teens who might read that last sentence would have no idea what "counting back change" is.  I was an early teen when I learned to wait on customers at the meat and cheese stand at market.  I added columns of numbers without a calculator, doubled and divided weights on the meat scale and counted change with ease.  I learned to treat people kindly, with appreciation for their business, no matter how tired I was...no matter what!!

Our customers tell us that a quilt shop is a wonderful place for a child to grow up in.  I am fortunate to have my daughter and granddaughter with me almost daily.  I am aware that most mothers do not take their little ones to work in a gentle business they share with their mother.  I am grateful.  I also am aware that at times, I take our closeness for granted.  Having Emma around as much as I do, I sometimes brush off her interest in what I am doing with the thought that she is too young.   Yesterday she pushed pins into a piece of fabric, one at a time.  I am amazed at her fine motor skills.  For those who might worry, she has never put pins in her mouth. She doesn't put anything in her mouth that isn't food or water, or her fingers when she is cutting teeth.  She holds a pencil like I do--except she is right handed-- and "writes" with me.  When I sit down to sew at the sewing machine, she comes with her stool to stand close to me, watching closely, putting the pins I pull out of the piece I am sewing back into a pin cushion. 

Our children and grandchildren, the neighbor's children or even kids down the street we may not know, watch us and learn from us.  Often what we do is much bigger than what we say.  Having a very young child around me every day has reminded me how much they pick up, just by watching, and listening as well.  What we say has to line up with what we do, who we are, and how we treat each other. 

They are never to young to learn...and as I think about it, we are never too old, either.  But that's for another time, another page.                                                                                               ....Rachel