Tied with Prayer

Daughter Dear and I can't always agree on what we like to do together, so we are still trying things on for size.  Last night we joined our church's Prayer Quilt Ministry, which is in its infancy.

The back.  Each quilt will have a cross in its pattern.

The front.  We opted for our 6" squares to be placed on the diagonal.

After we saw the cat design, we knew we had to have that as our focus.

Miss K squaring up the pre-cut squares.

Note her general excitement at being at the machine.

In all fairness, Miss K has never liked to sew.  We've tried hand sewing, giving her her own machine (which was a cheapy and was hard to figure out), letting her sew on my nice machine making an apron, etc.  She'll have none of it.  She likes to rummage through the scrap fabric and cut it up (sometimes even in the middle making it unusable for big projects) and form it with tape and staples around her Webkinz.  I heavily suggested she come along with me to the quilting night. Not her first choice of fun things to do, but she came without grumbling, so that is a step in the right direction.

It was amazing to hear the number of women talking about how the sewing gene skipped their generation.  Their mothers sewed their clothes and made many beautiful and useful items over the course of their childhood, but they themselves never learned the craft.  I too grew up with a mother who sewed some of our clothes.  I remember many semi-matching pajamas and dresses Mom made for my sister and I.  They were generally of the same fabric, but different design.  I wanted to sew.  Mom started me out on the machine by having me follow the lines on notebook paper.  I don't remember her letting me sew anything with just the two of us, but I did have to take Home Ec. in Jr. High which included 6 weeks of sewing for girls (boys got to make dust pans in Metal Shop).  She helped me read patterns, pick material, rip seams (that is what I excel at since I spend more time doing that than sewing).

I want my daughter to share some of the same things I did with my mother.  I do not want these crafts to skip her generation.  Another woman last night asked K what she did for fun and she shrugged her shoulders.  She doesn't really have a hobby, but she does have things she likes to do--play games, especially games of logic (chess, Scrabble, etc.), read books (several hundred pages weekly--the librarian has all but accused me of lying about K's progress during the summer reading programs), and she loves to be with people.  Somehow, even if K doesn't pick up knitting, quilting, crocheting, gardening, cooking, or anything domestic, I want her to have an appreciation for it and perhaps some fond memories of the time we spent together trying them.  Perhaps I'll throw in some selfish prayers in this direction while tying our quilting knots.