"And Ruth the Moabitess said unto Naomi,
Let me now go to the field,
and glean ears of corn after him
In whose sight I shall find grace.
And she said unto her, Go, my daughter."
Ruth 2:2 KJV
‘G’
is for Giving . . .
What we give and how we give it takes on many different forms –
when thinking in terms of giving to
the Meeting or Church Friends and non-Friends first thoughts would probably be
the giving of their tithes &
offerings BUT . . . it’s not just about giving
our money, we also need to remember to give
of ourselves. As a whole, Friends are good at doing both – some are better with
their tithing, others giving of
themselves and still others do both equally well.
‘G’
is for Grandma’s Flower Garden
– quilts made from hexagons, also known as Flower
Garden, French Bouquet or French Rose Garden quilts, a popular
quilt pattern since the mid-1920. Early quilts made with hexagons were commonly
made using the English Paper piecing method which is different from current
paper piecing and is done by hand and not machine. English quilters call all
designs made from hexagons honeycomb
quilts and the hexagons are referred to as sixes.
Grandma’s
Flower Garden
quilts are made by adding rows of hexagons around a central hexagon – the ones
that I’ve seen have been from one row to three rows around the central hexagon.
A quilter will make all of her ‘flowers’
before she begins connect them into the finished quilt top. These ‘flowers’ are then connected with a row
of white or green which create a path between the ‘flowers.’ The path can be a single row of hexagons to connect the ‘flowers’ or more – giving a different
look to the finished quilt. The size of the hexagons used has varied over the
years from an inch or less across to several inches.
Giving
of our tithes & offerings . . .
financially supporting the Meeting/Church and its ministries. The Bible mentions
tithing – giving one-tenth of what one
has to the Church, in the form of money or crops. The a lesson I heard more
than once in Sunday School and Church when I was a child - that tithing is an
obligation/responsibility of being a member of the Church.
Whether your Meeting/Church collects
tithes by passing an offering plate or basket during worship, you drop it in a
locked box or mail it in – your tithes are important to your Meeting/Church. Throughout
the year there are various special offerings – in my Meeting we take up special
offerings for retired ministers, Gideon’s, Churches in Mission (food pantry)
and for the various mission projects supported by the Meeting/Church.
Giving
of ourselves . . . we’re
also asked to give our time, talents
and gifts. Giving and doing for our local
& yearly Meetings, our communities and for various missions around the
world. While this doesn’t take the place of giving
our tithes it’s still important that we share our gifts and talents with others.
Giving
our time, gifts & talents
– through serving on committee and boards, helping out with special projects
and events, teaching Sunday School/First Day classes, helping during Meeting
for Worship, serving as CIT’s (Counselor-In-Training) and Counselors at camp,
helping with VBS (Vacation Bible School), youth ministry, helping make applebutter,
crafts & working at annual bazaars/craft sales, mission trips & service
and the list goes on.
Giving what you can where you are,
that’s what God asks us to do. Knowing or finding out what your gifts &
talents are and using those to benefit the Meeting/Church and your community -
helping to grow God’s kingdom. The other side of giving is receiving – it’s been said that “it’s better to give than to receive.”
As I was working on this post I ran across
a piece I wrote in the Fall of 2013 just a few months after I returned from a
Pilgrimage to Ireland/Northern Ireland. That piece talked about giving – how and what I was able give to my Irish Friends. It was about
how that giving made me feel, how I
was blessed in the giving and sharing
during that journey. This was a huge part of my Pilgrimage experience.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
‘G’
is for Grandma’s Flower Garden
– quilts made from hexagons, also known as Flower
Garden, French Bouquet or French Rose Garden quilts, a popular
quilt pattern since the mid-1920. Early quilts made with hexagons were commonly
made using the English Paper piecing method which is different from current
paper piecing and is done by hand and not machine. English quilters call all
designs made from hexagons honeycomb
quilts and the hexagons are referred to as sixes.
Today some quilters still use
English Paper Piecing and many quilt shops here in the U.S. teach this method,
while other quilters trace around a hexagon shaped template. A ‘solid’ template (tracing around the
outside of the template and using that as her cutting line) is used if the
quilter will be piecing her piece on a machine and a ‘window’ template (where the middle of the template is cut away and
the quilter traces around both the inside & outside of the template – using
the inside line as her stitching line and the outside line as her cutting line)
if she plans to piece by hand.
Grandma’s
Flower Garden
quilts are made by adding rows of hexagons around a central hexagon – the ones
that I’ve seen have been from one row to three rows around the central hexagon.
A quilter will make all of her ‘flowers’
before she begins connect them into the finished quilt top. These ‘flowers’ are then connected with a row
of white or green which create a path between the ‘flowers.’ The path can be a single row of hexagons to connect the ‘flowers’ or more – giving a different
look to the finished quilt. The size of the hexagons used has varied over the
years from an inch or less across to several inches.
 |
| Pastel "Grandma's Flower Garden" mini-quilt |
The pastel and white Grandma’s Flower Garden quilt pictured here was made from 2 1/2-inch
hexagons, using a ‘window’ template.
I was only going to make one or two ‘flowers,’
but as you can see I made a few more than that. When I started connecting the ‘flowers’ I decided I didn’t like so
many white hexagons in-between so I auditioned (tried) several different colors
and liked the peach color the best so I traced and cut out peach hexagons –
this created white ‘flowers’ among
the pastel ‘flowers.’ There are a
total of 215 hexagons in this piece.
Traditionally these quilts are
either quilted in-the-ditch or by
stitching a quarter-inch inside each hexagon – I chose to quilt mine using the in-the-ditch method by hand. The lime
green binding seemed to really finish this mini-quilt. Start to finish, I spent
15 days tracing the hexagons, cutting them out, piecing them together, quilting
it and adding the binding. Finished size is 14.5X35-inches.
 |
| Purple "Grandma's Flower Garden" mini-quilt |
I had originally cut out hexagons
from a small purple print but put those aside after seeing the etched butterfly
prints that I had. After finishing the pastel etched butterfly quilt I was
sitting around one night and picked up the purple print hexagons that I had cut
and stitched that block together . . . which lead me to cut out more hexagons
and make this second mini Grandma’s
Flower Garden quilt.
This time off-setting the 'flowers' and
used a shade of green for the path. I also added a border before adding the
binding. Again I hand quilted this one 'in-the-ditch.' This piece was made with - 2 ½-inch hexagons and measures 17.25X21-inches. There are a total of 95 hexagons in this piece.
I
remember my mother hand-piecing a Grandmother’s
Flower Garden for me using leftover scraps of fabric from clothes she had
made for me. She worked on this while my brothers and I took our swimming
lessons at the YMCA in Mishawaka, Indiana. She sat in the bleachers sewing the
pieces together by hand. I know she had quite a stack of ‘flowers’ pieced but she never got it put together. I have no idea
what happened to all those ‘flowers’ after
my mom died in 1994 – expect that my step-father threw them in the trash . . .
not knowing what they were.
As
I sat at McDonald’s quilting the pastel etched butterfly mini quilt, I had two
customers come up and ask me if it was for sale, they wanted to buy it! Well,
no it’s not for sale. I was able to make this totally from fabrics in my stash
so it really didn’t cost me anything but my time . . . and I don’t think
there’s anyone out there that would be willing to pay me for all the time I put
into making this.
