Janie is on my mind, this is her birthday month. She was my first sewing "sister". Over twenty years ago, her husband frequented the bookstore I worked at. I would hold their baby while he shopped, eventually he introduced us. She offered me a job at the school where she worked. We became co-teachers, friends, sisters. We gardened (well, she gardened, I watched), shared books, canned, and walked together. We shared Solstice, Christmas, New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Day dinners (she was a wonderful cook). We would drink too much, laugh too loud and shout stories that made our husbands' eyes roll. She taught me to love orange, was working on yellow, and she brought me back to the joy of stitching by hand.
We stitched Harriet Tubman, garden, baby, autumn leaf and pumpkin quilts, and many more, including the "Tree Spirits" quilt that she made for K and I. In the middle of making it, K and I were having problems, so she began to fashion an axe to place into his tree, fortunately, for us and the tree, we worked things out.
She hated most machines- answering, bank, and sewing machines (though she was glad I owned one now and then), stitched everything by hand, including clothes. She bought a pair of rose colored glasses, to try and make the world how she wanted it to be. She was passionate, a great storyteller, and one of the most creative people I'll ever know. It's been almost thirteen years since she died, she was 42. She would have loved this community (although she would have had to learn to use a computer "machine").
Above are a few things I have of hers- a pincushion, thimble, and her sewing table. The dents and pricks on the edge of the table are where she would stick all of her needles, threaded with the colors in her imaginings, readying themselves for her cloths.
A part of her "Tree Spirits" quilt, 1995. If you enlarge the photo you might be able to see tiny faces on some of the dancing leaves.
