When I was nine years old my sister and I went to stay a week with my grandparents in rural Oklahoma.....RURAL Oklahama. It was the summer of 1953, hot, no indoor plumbing, single source of water was a hand pump in the kitchen. Hanging beside the pump was a dipper that everyone used to get a drink of water. Yes, we went to an outhouse to use the restroom...except at night and there was a pot under the bed. The first thing we did in the morning was take the pot to the outhouse. We were from Sherman, Texas, and lived in a nice airconditioned house with all the conveniences. Well, the conveniences of 1953. But needless to say we were city girls. However, at that age you adapt quickly. My grandmother did not have a phone but she had a radio that she listened to her soap operas. This is where I got hooked on As the World Turns. They had a large garden where I learned to dig potatoes. I thought that was better than looking for Easter eggs. My grandfather grew cotton and had a watermelon patch.
Early in the morning we would pick out a watermelon and put it in the cool creek. It would be ready by the afternoon. They had a jersey cow they milked everyday and we made our own butter. But my very favorite thing was gattering the eggs. I was never bored.
My older sister is another story... I think she was a little more citified. One day while she was painting her nails and reading Photoplay and Silver Screen, I discovered my grandmother's scrap drawer. It was the bottom drawer of the chest of drawers in the kitchen. I had to do something with the scraps. After a little begging, she agreed to teach me to piece. She had a diamond shaped cardboard and a pencil. I traced the shapes on some of the scraps and cut them out. I was ready to piece. While my sister was putting on her second coat of nail polish, I sewed the diamonds together. I was so proud of my stars and could not stop looking at them.
When it was time to go home, I took them with me. I kept them in my room and looked at them on occasion. But like many childhood possesions, they dissappeared. Or so I thought.
I graduated from college, got married, had a baby girl, and was still thinking about making a quilt. I was 39 and pregnant with my son. My daughter was nine and we went to Sherman to see my parents. Mother had been "cleaning out". She had found some quilt blocks and wanted to know if I knew anything about them. They were my star blocks. I couldn't belive it. Within weeks I was making a quilt top.....but oh that is another story.
This is my first quilt. Soon after receiving my stars from my mother we found a quilt shop in Richardson called The Texas Quilt Co. (I think). There was a lady cutting fabric with a pizza cutter on a green mat of some sort. She was using clear plastic rulers with no markings to measure the strips. She had several rulers of different widths. I was fascinated. Now I could make a quilt with the pieces all the same size. Fabric is wiggly. When we left the store I had everthing I would need. You can laugh here. Did any of us know in the beginning we would be buying 'toys' for the rest of our lives.
