Tangled Branches: Cultivated

happenings in and around my zone 6b gardens in northern Virginia and in central Virginia

Friday, February 29, 2008

Grandma's UFOs (Wildflowers in Winter 5-6-7)

I'm way late for week 5 of Wildflowers in Winter, but I didn't want to let February slip away without mentioning Grandma Gordon's UFOs. UnFinished Objects. If you are involved in any kind of creative endeavor, I'll bet you have some. My great-grandmother apparently intended to make a friendship quilt and asked her relatives and friends to each stitch a block for it, but then she never quite got around to putting it together. Most of the blocks are a crazy-quilt style, but at least one is appliquéed. I picked out all the ones with any kind of floral design for this photo.

From my family history studies, I recognize some of the names as relatives but others I don't know at all. The Barfuss family is one of those I'm not familiar with, but they had at least one talented embroiderer.

For week 6 of Wildflowers in Winter, I defer to my cousin - a genuine artist. The flowers in his paintings are generally not the main subjects, but they're often present. Celestial Seasonings recently abandoned their long-established look in packaging, but you can see an illustration he did for one of their boxes here. Those daisies look like wildflowers to me.

Week 7. Childrens' art? A tough one. I may possibly have some of my niece and nephew's childhood artworks around here (put away someplace safe for posterity), but then again maybe not. I'm going to take a pass on Week 7.

Head over to Wildflower Morning and see the flowery artworks others have found.

Labels: off-topic, wildflowers

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Off-Topic: I'm from DeKalb

When I first started this blog almost 5 years ago, it was strictly a friends and family thing. If it was still a friends and family thing I wouldn't be writing this, because everybody reading it would already know everything I'm about to say. But now I've made the virtual acquaintance of people around the world and most of you know that I live in Virginia. I'm a transplant here though. I grew up in a small town about 10 miles from DeKalb, the scene of today's horrible shootings. I lived in Sycamore and DeKalb in the early 80s.

I'm just stunned by the killings at NIU. Last spring at Blacksburg, many of the students who died were from northern Virginia where I live now. Some of our friends' and neighbors' kids went to school there. When I first heard about that event, I was distressed and saddened, but not totally surprised. Living in the DC suburbs has somewhat numbed me to violence, although not on that scale. I considered writing something here at the time of that tragedy and decided against it.

But DeKalb, that's different. My family lives there. We know people who work at the university - everybody knows somebody who works there or attends school there. We know people who work at the hospital. We know people in law enforcement. We know paramedics. I hope we don't know any of the victims.

I felt relieved when I didn't know any of the victims at Blacksburg and that's the wrong sentiment, of course. It's always a loss to somebody whenever anybody dies, and I'm mindful of this passage now as I was then:

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee.

John Donne, Meditation 17

Labels: off-topic

Saturday, February 09, 2008

Dish Flowers

Wildflowers in Winter's week 4 theme (dishes or other decorations made by you or someone else that you have in your home) left me wondering what I could show. I have lots of floral dishes, but not specifically wildflowers. So I was wondering...until I read Jodi's entry. Her teapot led me to my spring tea mug. Not wildflowers, but wild flowers.

This mug looks so springy to me that I rarely use it except in spring. Do you change the decorations in your house according to season? My great-grandmother had a large collection of pretty dishes and glassware, too many to display all at once, so she rotated them. The cup and saucer below belonged to her, and actually does have a wildflower decoration - violets. (Note to photographer: you should have focused on the back of the cup so people could see the violets.)

I have a collection of sorts, too. Early-mid 20th century Japanese lustreware. These are 2 of the wilder pieces.

My first real set of dishes also has a flower theme. They could be wildflowers, I suppose. And bringing us back to tea, on a plate from that set I've placed 2 of my favorite flower-scented teas - Jasmine Pearls and an Osmanthus-scented Oolong.

Now I'm headed off to visit Elizabeth Joy and see the flowers other Wildflowers in Winter participants have in their houses.