Harry & Gladys: Needle and Thread

Meet Harry & Gladys
Silver Dollar

Needle & Thread

Gladys always seemed to be keep her hands busy.  I loved watching her work and was especially fasinated with her hands.  The skin on the back of her hands looked almost translucent and were silky soft to the touch.  

She made all sorts of things but my memories are of baby doll quilts and doll clothes.  I still have my doll quilt that is pictured above.  My daughter used it with her baby dolls and maybe one day her daughters will also.

My sister Julie and cousin Dana share this week: 

Julie's Memories 

"Grandma Mitchell taught me the basics of sewing when I was nine years old. We gathered in her warm kitchen to construct a winter woolen cape with bright red braided trim. We recycled a worn out wool coat of Grandpas and fashioned it into a smaller outer garment for me. I watched mesmerized as she powered her treadle Singer and seams magically appeared. She patiently answered all my curious questions. 

Over the years, she gently instructed me in sewing on buttons, hand piecing scraps of fabrics, and the lost art of tatting with fine thread and shuttle. She also taught me hand embroidery and fundamentals of crochet. I never saw her without a project in her hands.

She generously let me filter through her needles and hooks, threads, fabric and a fascinating button collection. She passed on both the love of sewing and the habit of always keeping my hands busy. Her patience fueled in me a passion for sewing and needlecraft. Little did I know at 9 years old she was giving me a gift that would span a lifetime."

Dana's Memories

"Grandma was fun to snuggle up with on her couch. She attempted to teach me how to embroider when I was older (it didn't take) and allowed me to play with the wrinkles on her hands when I was small-I loved to pinch her skin gently and was fascinated when it stayed that way."

Thank you for reading this week!

Harry & Gladys: Silver Dollar

Meet Harry and Gladys

Harry & Gladys: Silver Dollar

Can a silver dollar really buy you happiness?  I remember the days when it did.  Harry always seemed to have plenty of silver dollars jingling about in his pockets and he was always willing to hand them out to what ever grandchild might be visiting that day.

It was a great day when Grandpa would give us each a silver dollar and send us on our way to Smitty's to buy candy.  Smitty's was a little family owned grocery in Montrose.  They had an amazing assortment of "penny" candy.  I remember we would place our silver dollars on the counter with the cashier and then we would carefully select our candy piece by piece. The candy would then be placed in little brown paper bags and then we would be off and on our way.

The walk back to Grandma and Grandpa's always took a bit longer since we would have to stop several times to stuff candy in our mouths.  Once we arrived back at the house Grandpa would be at the picnic table waiting to see our sweet selections.  I think he really just enjoyed seeing our excited and extremely "sticky" faces.

Thanks for reading!

Fun Fact : Gladys had one of the prettiest and most fragrant yards in the neighborhood.  She had a long row of pink and white peony bushes that lined one side of her yard.  You can see them in the background of the "Silver Dollar" illustration.

Meet Harry and Gladys

Harry & Gladys Scrapbook Page

 

My grandparents, Harry and Gladys Mitchell,  lived in the small sleepy town of Montrose, Iowa just a few miles away from my Powdertown home.  For the first twelve years of my life, I don't think a single week ever passed with out seeing them.  In the pecking order, I am number thirteen of nineteen grandchildren.  Harry and Gladys were taken away from us the year I turned twelve.  Even though they have both been gone from my life for thirty-seven years, I have never stopped loving or thinking about them.


I will be telling their story, not just for me, but for all of us who loved them and called them Grandma and Grandpa.  I hope you will stick with me for the next several weeks as I tell the sweet "love story"
of grandparent and grandchild.
 

Thanks for reading!

Powdertown: The Road Home

Powdertown: The Road Home

The end of this road leads to home, just as this illustration leads to the completetion of this series on Powdertown.  It sounds so poetic and orchestrated.  I wish I could say I planned it, but it is kind of cool how it worked out just the same.

There was one road that went straight through the settlement. It was lined with houses and ended with beautiful Chatfield Park.  There was no "through way" traffic so the road was perfectly quiet except for the hum of the everyday comings and goings of the neighborhood. Here we are heading home from the direction of the lake, passing by the apple tree and garden on the left with our house just beyond it.

My favorite part of this painting would have to be our cute little yellow tabby cat named "Mr. Chips." Mr. Chips was given to us as a little kitten and I'm not sure who came up with the name, put I am sure we all agreed to it.  I think it came from us all owning a "chip" of him, meaning he belonged to all of us equally.  That being said I think someone in our family took to him a bit more and treated him like her own special "furry" baby.  I don't think he minded being carried around as much as he minded being dressed in doll clothes!

Thanks so much for visiting.  See you back here in a couple weeks for my new series titled "Harry & Gladys."

Powdertown: Our Garden

Powdertown: Our Garden

The only thing that was longer than our extensive clothes line was our huge vegetable garden.  The garden stretched out almost the length of our back lot and was located behind Dad's workshop and adjacent to the apple tree.  The garden was massive and full of a variety of vegetables including: corn on the cob, green beans, potatoes, peppers, cucumbers, lettuce, carrots, but best of all red, ripe, beautiful tomatoes!  One of my favorite things to do was to pick the tomato off the vine and eat it like one would eat an apple.  It was such a treat and so readily available.

Here we are with my little blue wagon, the real "work horse" of my childhood.  The wagon was not only good for playing and for walks to the lake, but also for helping out with chores.  "Little Blue" was small enough to fit between the garden rows and large enough to carry the daily yield of veggies.  Once the harvesting of vegetables was done, my Mom would start the laborious task of "canning."

Dad worked that garden after working long hot days in a factory and Mom would stand over a steaming pot for days "canning" veggies in a non air-conditioned small house. They didn't have to do this, they just did it!  I feel immensely blessed to have grown up in my family.  My parents always provided for us, taught us about hard work, and most importantly,  how to enjoy the simple things in life.

Thanks for stopping by this week!

Powdertown: Wash Day

Powdertown:
Wash Day

Just like any growing family there were always heaps of laundry to be done, so really just about every day was considered "wash day."  Upon the early years in Powdertown, Dad made us a long clothesline that stretched the length of our side yard.  If the sun was out then so was our laundry! Part of our chores growing up was to hang out, take down, fold, and put away the laundry. That clothesline became the backdrop of my childhood! 

This was an ordinary, uneventful, routine part of our everyday,  so why even write about it?  Because there is something very special and precious about the ordinary routine of everyday life.  It is comforting to a child and reassures them that everything is right in their world, ask any parent.   I can remember it like it was yesterday..... a bright sunny afternoon, the cat is napping on the warm sidewalk,  kids are playing throughout the settlement, and I can hear the sheets on the clothesline flapping in the gentle breeze.  Yes, everything is as it should be!  Who knew you could pin fresh laundry and "contentedness" on your clothesline?

I think my Mom liked hanging out laundry because it is what her Mom did as well as many generations before. I'm sad to say that with my generation, the convenience of the dryer has made this tradition fade away.  I did have my Dad build me a clothes line when I moved into my own house,  but unfortunately it doesn't get used very often.   Sometimes when it is a sunny summer day and the mood strikes me,  I like to hang out a load of laundry and when I breathe in the fresh linen scent,  I can't help but think of Powdertown.

Would you like to read about more of my Powdertown memories?

• Feeding the Ducks (Chatfield Park)
• Fowler's Apple Tree
• Our Brown Chair

Powdertown: Brown Chair

Well this week marks the third week of my Powdertown Series and that means we are half way through the series.  Hopefully you have been following along and didn't miss out on Chatfield Park or Fowler's Apple Tree.  If you did go ahead and take the time and get caught up.

There is nothing that feels quite like home so much as a comfortable arm chair.  It welcomes you with soft silent strength and then quietly whispers, "home, home at last!"  Like any other home, we would have chairs "wear out",  and then they would be replaced. In my life there has been a parade of chairs,  and for what ever reason this "brown chair" has parked itself in my memory banks.

Powdertown Series:
Brown Chair

I remember every thing about it.  It's wide flat side arms that could serve as extra seating, the raised diamond textured pattern, the soft extra wide cushion that could fit two or three of us kids.  I remember curling up on it with pillow and blanket for afternoon naps while Mom would watch her "stories."  But perhaps my favorite would be throwing a quilt over the top and creating a tent which would mean hours upon hours of fun!  Tell me why everything became more fun under that tent.

During this series I have really only talked about imagery, and have not said much about my process, so let's talk "color schemes".   I wanted these six illustrations to have some unifying elements that would help say, "hey, we belong together" and I felt the best way to create that is through a color scheme. So before I started to paint, I went shopping for a color scheme.  Now I had to take a few things into consideration such as what colors needed to be represented,  I needed to include a coral for the drapery, brown for the arm chair,  a teal blue (you will see why in a few weeks), and a nice green for all of the outdoor scenes.  

Now you can shop for color schemes in many places,  a favorite painting, a photograph, or fabric.  My favorite place would have to be Adobe Kuler.  Kuler is an awesome site where you can can find thousands of color palettes or just simply create your own to use in your next design project.  Best part is that you can upload any color palette into your Adobe Creative Software and it will become part of your color swatch library...how cool is that I ask?  However, since my illustrations were not done digitally, I simply took a screen shot of my color palette and printed it off.  I kept it at my art table as a reference while mixing my pools of paint.  The color palette I chose is called "Everyday Veggies", look it up if you like.

Thanks so much for taking time out of your busy schedule.....I really do appreciate it. Take care until next week.