Two surprises!

Hard to believe in surprises any more. How can something happen that has never happened before? In short, what is new? Nothing. Nothing new under the sun, I told people in my booth as I admired the clever cut of their clothing or some sewing technique I did not know.

Surprises can be sabotaged. They can be short circuited! That latter I perpetrated on myself. You remember my grandmother's vase that has survived since the turn of the century before last? That is, until Kitty lost her grip on something and took down the vase, too.

I was loath to repair it. As neat a seam as I made, it still would be a glue job on a vase I had guarded for so many years. I decided I would be the person who put it in the trash, relieveing my heirs of all future responsibility.

And then the genii who comments suggested kintsugi. 

Genius. I put the money on the next outgoing email and by return:

Following instructions for formulation of glue and gold and assembly, I made a helluva mess. Fortunately, something removes gorilla glue. I think it was WD40. I thought around for steady hands, and came up with my sister at once!  I gave it to her, glued together, and then forgotaboutit. 

Looking back, I see that was more than a month ago. On a phone call recently the vase flashed back and I asked if she was going to be able to get around to the project, or was just going to return it. That happens, too, in our long history, and is perfectly OK. And this time she said she had finished the project and would return it in a couple of days!

Is that not stunning! I see I should get in with a Q-tip and WD40 and clean up the rest of my initial mess up. Some day.

So, back to the day I outed the vase, Jan had called to tell me of an unbelievable occurrence. Some of you have been hanging around with me since the beginning of time. Our mother had left the earth, or joined it, as the case may be, when I started the blog.

Our mother was the first quilter we knew. It was her passion. If the frames weren't up in the living room, its because the next quilt was still in process. Perhaps you remember the little lost quilt adventure, Mom's childhood tulip quilt. As an adult it was a quilt she no longer could account for. It meant so much to her she decided to recreate it, from memory, and nearly nailed it. 

Check it out on the site that Jan still maintains, about quilts. www.Ewetree.com. Look under the tab Mom's quilts and look at her childhood quilt and the recreated quilt. We found that lost quilt when Aunt Flo surrendered a trunk of quilts that were under Grandma Rolf's bed. She also confessed selling one to someone who begged her for it and offered her $250. 'Nuff said.

Jan came home from work one day to a box in the living room. It was from our cousin, Ken, and contained a Cathedral Window quilt. It was the quilt we'd wondered about. Mom had showed us her box of Cathedral Window squares completed. It was a quilt she never expected to complete. Yet when we went through her stuff at the end, we didn't find either the box of squares, or a completed quilt. It remained a mystery until Jan opened that box from Ken.

There was a note from Ken. The quilt had been a wedding gift to Ken and his wife, Jan. But they had no further need for it and were returning it. As strange as that sounds (and how very like Ken and Jan), it's probably not unusual to return such a unique gift to its maker at the end of its current life.

Mom embroidered her name and birthday on the back, Ohio, where the quilt was made, and dates in 1970 and 1987, indicating when she began and when she finished the quilt. I can date some fabrics back to the forties (a pair of my childhood shorts). Some probably are older, from her ongoing scrap bag. So Jan can add it to the collection above. I wonder if there are more missing quilts.