you see, i've never been one to keep knowledge to myself.
by sharing your knowledge - whether it is a recipe, a technique, a view of human nature & the world - you enrich anothers life, let them learn without having to make the mistakes you did.....
and in a small way you become immortal
it started out with our girl wanting to know how to make busketti & clams (aka white busketti)
(this is NOT my picture. i was a dummy & forgot to take pics)
and as we went along i told her that our recipe came from my Gramma (my dad's mom) who taught it to my mom because it was one of dad's favourite meals (& mom couldn't boil water when she got married)
she taught it to me.
& now i've passed it on....
for my birthday supper our girl made red busketti
& it was fabulous!
(sorry no pics)
this is my own recipe that only varies in the extra veggies added in (or not)
i've passed it on....
my Gramma (dad's mom) became a seamstress after Grampa died to earn a living. she made wedding dresses & quinceañero dresses.
my mom also sewed. she made all our drapes & curtains, bedspreads & the majority of my clothes until i was about 13 & wanted to wear jeans & t-shirts. she taught me to sew when i could reach the floor & sit in a chair at the same time. i was about 6 or 7 i think.
i taught our girl to sew. i think she was a teenager. i bought her a sewing machine when she left home.
one thing i'd not shown her is quilting....
during the week we made two quilts for the princess.
each quilt is made from 108 4" X 4" squares of cotton fabric, each one is a different pattern- no duplicates.
the first one she had already pieced the top for.
i showed her how to do the back & edges
(as it turns out i just found out i've been doing the edges wrong all my life. i always thought of the edges as a frame to the "picture" of the quilt. i never had anyone to show me quilting, just made it up as i went along. oh well!)
this is the summer quilt. just a top & bottom- no batting.
it is a fairly random patchwork, the only "pattern" being an equal number of batik & regular patterned squares were used in a checkerboard.
FRONT
BACK
CLOSE-UP
this is the winter quilt.
our girl had half the squares sewn into strips when she got here.
it has two patterns.
first- half the squares have dragonflies on them & the other half are patterned colours (no solid colour fabric) these are laid in a checkerboard pattern.
second- the coloured squares are arranged to make diagonal stripes.
FRONT
BACK
BACK CLOSE-UP
FRONT CLOSE-UP
(& you can see how they are tied with silk threads)
and through it all we talked....
telling of my childhood & the stories of my family that i remember.
passing on memories so that one day she can tell the princess as they make a quilt for the next generation.
passing it on. |
