Have you noticed that I haven't been sewing much this week? Me too. It's driving me crazy, but I've been otherwise occupied. A couple of months ago I was asked to help with a Family History Fair at our church. This is a once a year event sponsored by our church for members of the community. I love Family History (genealogy). It's another one of my many hobbies. I've researched my grandfather's line fairly consistently over the past 20 years. That's his photo to the left... handsome chap, wasn't he? His name was Charles, but he was called "Charlie" by his friends and family. He was a Welshman who fought with the Welsh Fusiliers in WWI. Several years later he immigrated to the U.S. where he met and married my grandmother. My mother followed shortly thereafter. When my mother was four years old Charlie died of tuberculosis -- a conditions he contracted during the war. His is a poignant story and one that has always touched my heart. Most people when they research their ancestors take pleasure in finding royalty scattered among their progenitors. Not me. I prefer simple peasants and plain folk lining the branches of my family tree. (I've done enough reading to know what kind of shenanigans those that were royalty dished out.) Fortunately, I've found a lot of common folk amongst my kindred.I digress... Anyway, I was asked to help with our Family History Fair. This year they are having several classes, but the main portion of the fair will be simple display tables and demonstrations featuring different aspects of Family History. This is the part that I was asked to head up, so I've been doing a lot of planning and organizing of late. This week I've been making the centerpieces that will adorn each display or demonstration table. Along with visually tying the displays
together, these centerpieces will give the theme of each display. This shouldn't be a big deal, right? Hmmm. You'd have to know me to realize nothing is ever a "little" deal with me. You'd be proud to know that I did pare down my first idea for these centerpieces. I had the theme of "Family Trees" floating around my pea-brain, so I thought I'd make 12 paper mache' tree stumps that would come out of the center of each round display table with a sign stuck in the stump stating the name of the display. That would have been awesome, but thank heavens reason prevailed. Instead I decided to simplify and make a two-sided "tree" that would be planted in the center of the table and have the name of the display written amongst its leaves. I thought that sounded like a reasonable project, especially since I had to duplicate the centerpiece 12 times... The first one took 5 hours to make. So much for "simplicity." You'd think 5 hours would warrant me a fantastical centerpiece, wouldn't you? Mmmm, not so much. I'm just not terribly creative in this kind of artistic endeavor so it takes me hours to do something that most can whip out in a matter of minutes.
Anyway, the event is in a week, so hopefully I'll be able to get back to a little sewing soon. Hearing the hum of my little machine really does keep me sane these days. That statement gives a lot of credit to my sewing machine, but it's important to give credit where credit is due.
