Our December weavers gathering at friend Sonya and Cecil’s was a riotous, joyful, pre holiday laughter filled delight.  While we always find inspiration in the sharing of our fiber creations, this meeting was especially meaningful in that Sonya had requested  that we bring something that our mothers had created.  Of course I  totally spaced it out and realized after the fact what I should have brought.  I don’t remember my mother as a creative person and we never heard much about her real mother who had to give up her 3 children when my mother was 5 years old. The start of a difficult and tumultuous life for her.  Too many things left unsaid.  The one thing that I do know about my mother is that she loved her  kids with a fierce pride.

I left this meeting in awe of the many connections that my friends have with the women in their past; in the photos that were shared and the fiber creations that the women generations past, and a couple of fathers, had  created. What a great tangible string bridging the lives and work of the women we came from.

It was amazing to me how many generations  Barb B. and Olga could go back and the incredible personal history that they have knowledge of. I love that Susan taught her mother to weave but that the political and feminist activist that she is, is something she shares with her mother.  Elin and Anne Marie’s  heritage is from Denmark and the fiber arts were something that they both grew up with. A couple of my favorite treasures that were shared was the incredibly finely stitched doll passed down through generations in Carole’s family and the bright purple teddy bear that Michelle’s mom had made out of a prom dress of Michelle’s.  I am still trying to wrap my head around Michelle in a purple satin prom dress.

For better or worse our relationships with our mothers can be complicated; they brought us life, they are our connection to generations past and are part of  the future in the women we have become and influence how we raise our own children.  This was the first time I have ever said the words out loud:  I am Angela, daughter of Ruth.

Santa Lucia sung by all. But Sonya was the only one wearing a flaming wreath!

Incredibly finely crafted doll and lace handed down in Carole’s family

Quilt by Nan’s aunt/Anne Marie’s advent calendar stitched by her mom/mittens drying by the sink/ Danish book that Anne Marie’s knitted underwear patterns are in( we are in awe)/ fine embroidery from a garment of Olga’s mother/ purse made by Judith’s father

 

Crackle weave just off Judith’s loom/ Bamboo scarf by Barb B./my mittens and deflected doubleweave scarf

ready to share

great food and Cecil’s maple syrup

Jan’s mom who made many of the clothes she and her siblings wore

Elin sharing her mothers history/ Barb with vest made by her mom/ Sonya’s treasure of handknits by her mom/ intricate stitching from a garment of Olga’s mom

Elin with the first quilt her mother made/ a tablecloth intricately stitched by Kathy’s mother/ Jean with an afghan made by her mother and Kathy with a hooked rug by her father

A kitchen towel I had printed at Spoonflower using pictures of some of my mom’s recipe cards in her handwriting/ a pic of me on the left, my sister, mom, Aunt Lillian in the wheelchair and my grandmother Mae/ a 1940 census report for my grandparents Henry and Mary(Mae) Miller showing my mother (Ruth) at 5 years old and her oldest brother Bob, no longer part of the household.  My knowledge is that  grandma Mae was sent to a TB sanitarium and her sister ( grandma Jenny) raised my  mom and the 2 brothers went to an orphanage.