Lavender Dreams

I believe, if the stages of our lives were fanned before us as paint strips found at the hardware store, we would recognize immediately the colors that belonged to us and those we love. Bold colors for a father's remembered tie, riotous colors for a mother always in motion, lavender for a young girl's dreams.

My mother so carefully and lovingly decorated my childhood bedroom for the young lady she expected me to be. Gradient ruffles of lavender spilling over the edges of my bed to pool on a floor of soft blue. Furniture in white trimmed in gold, crossed gossamer hung from windows with casements in white to let in the breeze.

  
A bed always made and clothes neatly hung, it was as though the room itself expected me to act in a certain way.  When I left it's confines in the morning for school, it's quiet dignity seemed to cling to me as though it expected others to recognize immediately from where I came.

Homework hours and spend the nights, joyful days and heartsick worries, lavender dreams before I closed my eyes. Would True Love ever find me. My mother said it would.

When I think back now to the Courtship Days of my life, I think of the room my mother decorated especially for me. Vases of flowers and paper declarations of love, gentle manners matching my own. Someone who was looking for the occupant of a room just like mine.

Special Delivery characters made to recall the sweetest days of my life.

Hat band will be half width of one in pattern. Please do not Pin pattern on Pinterest

Percy Faith

The compass of a young man's life is often found in the silent gestures given by a father. The lifting of the chin, crinkles at the corner of the mouth, a hand placed firmly upon the shoulder letting the young man know his course in life is true. To loose a father at this critical moment is to be cast adrift in conversations never had. This was my brother upon loosing his father at the age of 15.

My mother, awash in endings that would never happen, went about her days without awareness.  She didn't notice her son struggling to find his way. She barely paid attention when John asked her to drop him off at the airport. "Stay with your school group, and send me a postcard." John was on his way to Europe.

Asked by the French couple sitting next to him on the plane was he was traveling alone, my brother revealed he had lied to his mother about spending the summer in London with his school's choir group. He just needed distance from her grief to sort through his own thoughts. The couple offered a suggestion.
 

John spent the first month of the summer aboard the couple's boat sailing the turquoise waters off the coast of southern France. Brown as a butternut, John was deposited at the end of the month in Nice. With only a change of clothes in his backpack and money nearly gone, John looked for a way to earn fare home. The sound of music offered him a way.

John followed his opportunity into an establishment he was too young to enter and waited for the band playing to take a break. "Can I sit in on one song, I play the piano?" John let his fingers express all that he had wanted to say to his Dad. He didn't want to follow his father's path into the military, he wanted to pursue music. John's playing was such a success with the patrons of the bar, the band agreed to hire him for a season's work.

My brother knows our father would have greatly disapproved of his decision to pursue music as a career and yet it was the path chosen the summer spent abroad. It was the summer of every young man who recognizes the strength of character given to them by a father is meant to help them stand on their own, trusting in the faith of a father's love to know their course is true.

This little bird is Percy Faith, the choir director of Creative Breathing.

Newlyweds and Mothers

My sweet Twirly Swirl Girl and Joe have now celebrated their six month anniversary.  That they have barely known each other a year makes this milestone one measured carefully by mothers wanting the best for their own offspring.

You can tell by our postures when we are together that each of us is ready to defend the twenty something years our children have lived on this earth that we have been responsible for. We each know that we have been good mothers.

We have now hosted each others families in our home, a measuring by our own standards spoken of to our husbands on the long drive that separates our homes.

Our differences in beliefs will always keep us at arms length, but on one very important detail it seems we will be a united front. Both of our children have stepped out of the light of the tenants of religion. Both do not share the beliefs of their parents. Both mothers are waiting for them to hear the call of God.

We both agree that it can not have been by accident that our two children should have found each other. Each mother hoping for someone who would draw their own child back towards God. Each with children convinced of their own convictions.

With two mothers sending the same prayers to Heaven before they close their eyes, there can only be a happy ending for newlyweds, Joe and Kellye.

Brothers and Sisters

I imagine many brothers and sisters are very similar to each other, and this is what binds them together. My brother and I couldn't be more unalike than if our our parents went about choosing our characters from a list provided by God. "Outgoing and Boisterous" for him, "Serious and Quiet" for her. Noticing both children would be so unalike from each other, they looked at each other and said, "Well brothers and sisters love each other because they just do."

I spent most of my early youth trying to avoid my cute little brown eyed brother. It was just so much easier than trying to fathom why on earth my parents ever brought him into our house. He could always be counted on to do the unexpected such as trapping his head between stair railings, getting his mouth stuck around door knobs, and having to be rescued from the neighbors roof on a weekly basis because he overheard the father say he wished he had a rooster instead of an alarm clock to wake him in the morning. My brother was the rooster, and he was only two!

I pleaded with my mother to punish this naughty little brother of mine to no avail. "He can't be punished!" she would say, "He's much too clever." Sent to his room he would climb out the window and "play" on the roof. He would rearrange his bedroom furniture into make believe worlds. I think it was just easier on my mother's back to kiss him on his cheek and tell him to behave.

And then came came the darkest days of my sisterhood. The arrival of "the best friend". A perfect Partner in Crime. All admonitions to not go into the woods alone, or cross the street alone, or paddle across the Potomac River alone, could be ignored because there were now two.

Closed bedroom door tears falling on deaf ears, how would I ever survive these naughty, messy, smelly boys? How to even begin answering the mother question I knew would come, "Where are the boys?"

Overheard telephone commiserating between sips of coffee, waiting for my mother to realize a bus ticket to military school was our only salvation. "Yes, we now have a hole in the backyard the size of a swimming pool." ..... "Well,  I said he could dig to China."

Outgoing and Boisterous, Serious and Quiet. As different as can be. I would worry myself to sleep at night in prayer to God that I be allowed in Heaven even if I didn't love my brother.

And then we became adults, and the very characteristics chosen on God's list so long ago now fill every corner of our heart with images of our youth and love for our parents. And we love each other the way brothers and sisters always do.

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Pom Pom and Pattern Making Tutorial

I am so light of heart today. The sky is as blue as can be from my craft room window, and the grass is .... well the grass is green! Not a smidget of snow to be seen anywhere. The perfect day to respond to a readers request for a pom pom tutorial and a pattern how to.

I learned to make pom poms in Mr. Gardner's sixth grade class from popular girls sitting close by and make them in the same way to this day. Whatever will I do if they stop making cereal boxes? Two circles cut per pom, one slightly smaller for head pom.

My Halfway Woods best friend and I would make them by the dozens on Spend the Night days. Two yards yarn length repeated until amount equals six strands. Wrap around cardboard keeping six strands separated from each other and flat against cardboard. Another length of six strands will be needed.

Our mother's hairdresser Miss Bernice sold our pom pom creations in her shop. This afforded us money to purchase more yarn to make more pom poms. A crochet hook makes pulling yarn through center easier as opening becomes smaller. When you can no longer pull yarn through, pom is ready to for next step.

Our pom making days would come to an end by the last day of the school year. Sherry would move to Washington state with her family. Heart broken letters to each other would be signed Hannibal Hays and Kid Curry for the remaining years of our childhood. Large scissors are used to cut through layers of yarn.

Sherry and I have now written each other for forty years. A length of yarn is inserted between cardboard rounds and tied snugly against yarn, repeat several times.

Sherry and I both were young women wanting to keep our world small. We would both meet the loves of our lives at about the same time. Sherry would meet Tom who happens to be a paraplegic, and I would meet Pat. Cardboard is removed. Trim pom to shape. Make second pom for head using same steps.

Sherry would be inspired to attend nursing school from her years of assisting Tom. It seems our lives have been lived in parallels. We both are employed in fields helping individuals with challenging disabilities. Poms are tied together with one strand of yarn from each. Repeat with second strand.

Do you think it is by chance we should each live at opposite sides of the Halfway Woods? A final trimming, and this little pom is ready for his uniform.

WARNING: Individuals who have received one of my pom pom characters in the mail always remark how surprised they are by their very large size. The lower body pom alone is larger than this medium sized pom character.

At this point the little bird can be done and be what I call a Snowbird. His feet, of course, are hidden in the snow!

Legs are created by twisting two pipe cleaner stems together for sturdiness. Half inch width of felt is wrapped around stem and held in place by twining floss around length and anchored at feet with several knots. Correct foot size is again determined by using jacket front piece.  Edges are blanket stitched together. Foot slipped in before last stitches are taken.

Oh my pom pom birds hate this step! A "U" shape is created with legs and hot glued between separated yarn. A thing stream of hot glue is applied on exposed  "U", yarn pressed together to hide unmentionables.

Handsome!

Totally handsome! It seems the preparation for another holiday celebration is underway in my craft room. A very busy place to be!

Special Delivery!

Do you know there is always a holiday party being planned in my craft room? The characters I create just can't seem to pass by any opportunity to celebrate the day that is special to them. A Valentine pom pom cute as can be delivers an invitation especially for you!

I know I love to create with felt because it is held in the hand and only floss is all you truly need to turn it into such cute things.

My oldest and dearest friend and I from the Halfway Woods made dozens and dozens of pom poms in grade school with little floral stamen antenna, googly eyes, and cardboard feet that looked like the logos on our brother's Hang Ten shirts.

My earliest memories of felt include making clothes for my troll dolls so they wouldn't always have to be naked. Bean shaped, two holes for the arms, a first pattern created. I have "prepared" all of my felt pieces for my pom pom. A little more attention to the hat is optional:

I have glued an inside hatband and slightly smaller circle to give the hat a crisper appearance. Tacky glue is used to adhere bill and hat trim.

Two pipe cleaners are twisted together(color does not matter)and bent at the ankles. Length of felt is distance between bends in pipe stems.

Three strands of floss, a few tacking stitches at the ankle, fold over felt and wrap with thread as you go down length of pipe stem. Secure with several more tacking stitches.

A "U" shape is created for the pom pom to rest.

A separation is made in the yarn for the bird to "sit" on legs. (I have the funniest story to share about my brother and his "sitting" area) Carefully apply a bead of hot glue in the center of yarn separation, set legs.

My mother's friend Miss Bernice who owned her own Beauty Salon was so charmed by our pom pom Martians she sold them in her shop to her patrons for a dime apiece. Our mother's couldn't buy enough yarn to keep up with our production.

I usually hand stitch my pom pom birds from start to finish, but hot glue is a fast alternative. Arms are ready to be glued in place.

Miss Bernice's was not unlike the beauty shop in Steel Magnolias. Lovelorn advice, beauty remedies, and to-die-for dessert recipes lovingly shared among women who became life long friends.

Oh My Gosh! Did you ever see such a cute mailman?

The snow is falling, falling outside my craft room window. A Special Delivery day, a smile in the heart.

Pattern same for Special Delivery Stork
Please do not Pin pattern to Pinterest