Quilting and Tornadoes

I just completed this table runner. Get a closer look by clicking on the snaps. The main thing I wanted to do was learn to stipple quilt. This is done by the use of a special foot and lowering the feed dogs of the sewing machine. I did a good deal of "ripping" as it took a lot of trial and error in order to get the hang of moving the fabric without the use of the feed dogs. After all was said and done, I finally got it finished and perseverance won in the end. (It did, however, try my patience.)

Now..the serious business of weather. I wonder how many of our ancestors took a quilting project to the "cellar" to keep a young girl occupied during the threat of a tornado?


With the destruction of property and the interruption of life as we come to take for granted, Mother nature humbles us continually. For as long as I can remember, tornadoes have always been a part of spring weather, especially in Weld county where my family lived. As a child, when the air got so very still that you could here the wings of a butterfly flutterby (well almost) in the spring, Mom would begin to pace. She had grown up in a part of the country where tornadoes were very common and very violent. I remember Dad making fun of her as she would usher us to the cellar on the rare occasions that she actually spotted one of the funnel clouds. He had grown up in that very same area and only once in all of his many years, had he heard tales of tornado damage there. As school was about to be over for the summer to begin, we would quite frequently see those small funnels on the horizon, but being mostly rural and dry land, damage was rarely reported and they hardly ever touched down. In Weld county the destruction of property and injury, including one death yesterday was horrific! The swath of damage even extended into parts of Wyoming here in Laramie and Cheyenne. As we embark upon this Memorial Day weekend, let us not forget those who have given their lives for our country during war-time causes past and current, and those who have given their lives as Mother nature continues to take at her discretion.

In my kitchen hangs a tattered piece of quilt passed to me from Dad. It once graced our bed at home I am certain. This quote frames the quilt: "Quilts like families tattered and torn, are held together with stitches of love." As with the old quilts, those families affected yesterday by the destruction will struggle to get their lives together with stitches of love..