Peace and Gardening

I have managed to squeeze in a bit of sewing recently, including my "To Boston With Love" prayer flag, above.  It spells out "Peace" in Morse Code.  It, along with hundreds of others, from around the world will be a public display of art in Boston to show support. I made an extra block for me, as I loved the colors guide that they picked for these flags, and because it reminds me of my dad.  He was a Ham Radio operator, and knew Morse Code.  He'd occasionally interject dah's and dit's into daily family conversation.  He also signed all of his correspondences with "Peace".  The 5 year mark of his passing is coming up in a matter of days, and I've found myself reflecting a lot about all sorts of things recently.

Luckily, the garden always needs to be planted this time of year.  It's a nice way to distract myself with happy things like baby plants and seeds, and the promise of fresh vegetables to share with my own family. 

I don't care how difficult people say teenagers are, I love having mine and they have been incredibly helpful this year weeding, mowing, tilling and planting.  My boys were an incredible handful when they were young, so maybe this is my karma for that.  Who knows, but for the most part, this is my very favorite part of parenting so far.  I love seeing them excel and succeed, and develop into the adults that they will soon be.  It's like seeing all of my hard work pay off.  I feel so incredibly lucky to have the time that I do to spend with them.  I know from my dad's sudden passing 5 years ago that I can't take this for granted.

Finally, believe it or not, I've only made a few queen sized quilts, and only have 2 in our house, both in use.  The one on our bed is a flannel "Turning 20" quilt that is at least 7 years old.  Even though I'm trying hard to finish up all of my unfinished quilts, I decided to make a new queen sized quilt for our bed and used the "Square Foot Gardening" book / method for my inspiration.  Each block is a square foot, with the "plants" spaced out accordingly.  Better yet, I haven't bought any fabric for it yet, using all scraps and stash fabric... I didn't realize until after I started making it that 2 of the green fabrics are from yardages that 2 of my sister-in-laws gave me, so it's a nice reminder of family as well.  I hope to have more progress to share in the days to come...