…did not fall far from my family tree.  My Mother loved to create whether it was on a piece of metal, in a flower bed, or with her sewing machine and some fabric.  There was not a thing she was not able to do. 

She spent the winters quilting and pouring over her gardening catalogs planning for the spring planting.  Plants arrived little by little and she would star them in the house.  There was not a window ledge that didn’t have little sprouts under their plastic cover awaiting the thaw to be planted in the ground. 

When the last frost was finished she moved to her outside pursuits.  Planting in her flower beds, her vegetable garden and watching the animals give birth.  Her flower beds were extraordinary.  The poppies were glorious, the day lilies like a large hedge of blooms, the strawberries straining under the weight of the berries, the rock garden awash with color.  It was all so lovely. 

She also loved to tole paint.  She took a class through the local extension service and got hooked.  She practiced the pictures on her paper in her pad and then moved on to the bits and pieces she would find at antique shops.  The top picture is a teapot she painted an apple green and then painted with strawberries, the picture in the middle is a Hollie Hobbie she painted for me for a birthday and the one at the bottom is a match holder she painted black and adorned with mushrooms. 

She could see beauty in almost anything.  Often we went to an auction and there would be a box of wooden pieces and parts.  I saw kindling, but Mom saw a chair.  She would buy it, loving refinish the parts, reassemble it and then had a gentleman that would make the missing parts.  She would reupholster it if the fabric was shot, cane the chair if the caning was broken, or give it a coat of paint if that was the only way to make it livable again. 

Maybe that is what made her such a great Mom that she was able to see past the warts and to gem that was inside her children.  Don’t get me wrong it wasn’t all love and sunshine.  At times she whooped us, she swore at us, and she could make you cry with a look at times.  Then again she was incredibly perceptive of people.  She would warn us to steer clear of someone and she was always right.  She was our fiercest defender and our worst critic at times.  Yet, she always was there to pick up the pieces when the world came crashing down.  I would not trade having her for my Mom for anything. 

We often didn’t have a lot, but she made sure there was always enough.  There was enough love, enough food, enough money, enough of whatever we needed.  I loved her for that. 

I was reading about the poverty level and realized by today’s standards we were poor, but back then we were proudly middle class.  Mom made us feel that we were kings, that the world was ours and that we could be whatever or whomever we wanted to be. 

The yard was lovely, but the house was a mess!  My Mom was a packrat.  I am a packrat.  I am trying to get better, but it is a hard fight when you were born with that gene!  Maybe that is the gene that all craftspeople possess?  What do you think?

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