A Blast From the Past

I went to the Austin Quilt Guild meeting this morning with my friend Anita.  Bonnie Hunter was the guest speaker and she showed oodles of scrap quilts she made.  She discussed how she organizes her scraps for easy access.  An interesting speaker even if you're not interested in making a scrap quilt.  Check out her website and blog, if you're a quilter.  Her website:  http://www.quiltville.com/  and her blog: http://quiltville.blogspot.com/ .

After the meeting we went to the Parsons House, which is an assisted living facility here in Austin, TX.  Anita Mester and Pam Farley of the Austin Fiber Art's group set up a 'touching display' of all old crafts.  It was very interesting and the residents seem to love it.  It encourages lots of conversation since lots of the ladies have done these type crafts in the past and love to talk about them.  We talked to one of the residents, Martha, and she told us all about her 6 children, and 5 grandchildren, one of which is studying in Russia at the present time.  These ladies and gentlemen have lots of interesting stories to tell.  Here are some of the pictures from the Parsons House.

Martha is the lady with the red walker.  The large glass case is a miniature aviary with beautiful live birds.

A clothes line of aprons from the past.  Some look like they are made from old tablecloths. 

Old doilies, doll clothes, quilt block, etc.

Quilt blocks made from feed sacks

I'm told that this was used as a covering for a soap bottle to catch the drippings. The soap bottle had its own little apron.

It was a very enjoyable day and when I came home, there was a very big surprise in my mailbox that I'll tell you about in a few days.  I still can't get over it and want to share it with my friends before posting about it.