Tag: rag quilting

Whenever a new grandchild is born, I dust off their great grandmother’s Bernina sewing machine and start cutting rag quilt squares to welcome the baby in style. My mother left me her treasured Swiss machine from the company named for the Piz Bernina peak in the Alps. It’s the same one she taught me to sew on, and while I’m not the excellent seamstress that she was (nor will I ever be), I feel a deep inner joy knowing that the same machine she used to make our clothes for decades is still being used to make quilts for her great grandchildren. I hope she’s smiling with pride as she gazes down from Heaven!

A lot of times, it’s hard deciding on a rag quilt theme and colors, but this idea came easily. Since Oakley Finn and I share a birthday (July 8), I chose stars and stripes for America’s 250th. There are also narwhals on one of the square designs, and one with waves too, because these grandchildren live in coastal South Carolina and love ocean and sea creatures. Even though there are not any narwhals making the trip from arctic waters down to the Lowcountry waters, I think they fit into the scheme of things just fine.

Retirement time allows for visiting family and sewing rag quilts, and I’m loving every minute of being able to do the things I truly enjoy! I feel blessed!

Rag Quilting

Today is the first day back for students in our school system in Georgia. When I started feeling the tug to retire throughout last school year, I said to a few friends, “If the stars align, I’m thinking about retiring.” Isn’t it ironic that on this first day for students, my sister-in-law Bethany sent me a reminder that this very morning there will be a planetary parade of lined-up planets! It’s as if we have moved out of the realm of the stars and into the planetary universe with someone upstairs nodding a big YES on this first day that I will not be in all the school traffic trying to get to work. I’m home – – living a more relaxed pace and loving it.