Sunnyside Up

By Nicole Rogers

For as long as I can remember, I have loved to create things, keep my hands busy, and thus keep my mind busy. I can recall digging up clay from the newly unearthed roadway near my home on North Paul Ave. in Owen and creating pots, cups and other such items. I guess I should dig in a bit deeper here…I grew up in the house that my parents still live in and built in 1964 on the north side of Owen. When I was a child, if I remember correctly, the development right next door to us was new and still had gravel roads. To this day, I can picture the heaps of dirt on each side of the road created as the city prepared to lay down pavement. This is where the neighbor kids, my sister and I dug for clay. I guess we were tired of making mud pies and needed something more substantial with which to create our works of art. I still love to dig in the dirt, however, these days my nails get dirty from planting and weeding in my garden and flower beds.

Happy Anniversary to my mom and dad!

I find other ways to keep my hands busy, one of course is by type, type, typing away each week for the newspaper. I do some crocheting and crafting with my grandchildren as well. A new way to keep the fingers nimble has been to do a little sewing and quilting. After attending this weekend’s Curtiss Corner’s Quilt Club show, my fingers have been itching to get back at creating something quilted or stitched. I have dropped a few stitches so to speak in this area and would like to find time to learn and grow in this creative media.

I am always in awe and amazement of all the careful work that goes into creating these ornate quilts. It was so relaxing yet inspiring to listen to the demonstrations given at the quilt show. I tried to soak in all the knowledge I could so that hopefully I can use it later, that’s heavy on the “hopefully.” My memory is not so great these days, thankfully I can google anything that didn’t fully soak in to my brain. The demonstration or really discussion on slow stitching was one that did not require a lot of technical steps and I was able to go home and began stitching away, right away. I liken slow stitching with the idea of intuitive painting. In this type of painting a person just lets the paint and the brush move freely, in the moment with no goal in mind. In slow stitching, you also have no definite plan or pattern to follow. Those who attended the demonstration were given a small Ziploc bag filled with bits of fabric, thread, a needle, perhaps some lace or rickrack, some ribbon…just sort of random items. We were encouraged to just use our imaginations to create a piece of sewn art, pick up the fabric, notice how it feels to puncture it with a needle and let the thread glide through it. Well, I was all about the freedom of this sewing and that night I sat down and began to just sew for the fun of it. There was no pressure to complete a big, complicated project. I just sat and snipped, sewed and relaxed. When I began the slow stitching, I had no idea what I was going to make but as I looked through the materials, a plan evolved. It was my parents’ 70th anniversary party the next day so I cut a two letter “A”s out of maroon fabric for Allen and Anne and the rest just came together. As I slowly stitched a handmade anniversary card for my folks, I thought about my parents and what great models of married life they have been to our family. For me, keeping my hands busy while using my imagination keeps on the sunny side of life. I hope everyone can find a way to keep on the sunny side as well.