Confessions of a recreational quilter

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Sunday March 10, 2013 · 3:00 PM PDT

2013/03/10 · 15:00

When I impulsively volunteered to write a diary for the DK Quilter's Guild I must have been feeling brave because since then I have been alternating between sheer panic and deep uneasiness. But for better of worse, here it goes.

I have been lurking in these diaries now for over a year and have learned a lot from you ladies about all the things I could and should do in order to become a real quilter. Be better prepared, think out what I want to do and then plan in advance for it. Sadly that just never seems to work out for me. I am an impulsive person and tend to act on whims.

My first tied quilt is a result of one of those whims. I saw a picture of a beautiful tied quilt in one of the diaries last year in which the maker said that she had used scraps and a favorite old blanket as batting. I was very impressed and since I had plenty of scraps and a very old fuzzy blanket I no longer used I decided right there on the spot to make one for myself. (pictured above) I know this sounds like I am patting myself on the back, OK, I am patting myself on the back, but I am quite pleased with the way it turned out. Read More

GFHC - Emmigrants Who Returned Home Or Making It Up As You Go Along

jeanette0605 for Genealogy and Family History Community

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Sunday October 28, 2012 · 2:57 PM PDT

2012/10/28 · 14:57

When I first decided to begin researching my family tree I spent most of the first year not just learning about all the resources that were available to me at the time but also unlearning heaps of assumptions I had about emigration.

One of the first things I learned that there was a difference between immigration and emigration; immigration being the act of going to a country whereas emigration refers to exiting a country.

One of my next big surprises was when I read an article that said that one-third of immigrants to America eventually returned to their native countries. Up to then I had vaguely assumed that all immigrants had arrived via Ellis Island and promply kissed the ground of the promised land and in spite of early hardships eventually found their feet and they all lived happily ever after. How green can one be?

jeanette0605 for Readers and Book Lovers

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Thursday September 20, 2012 · 8:00 PM PDT

2012/09/20 · 20:00

I listen to a lot of audio books. My eyesight has deteriorated in the last several years and they have become my primary source of "reading." It's been an adjustment for me because I have had to change reading habits that have developed during the previous 60+ years and replace them with new ones.

This has not always been a bad thing. At first I had to get a firm grip on my wandering attention span and teach it to focus. Becoming adjusted to having a book read to me instead of allowing my eyes to skip merrily along bouncing from one sentence or paragraph to the next was at first the hardest thing for me to do. Listening I discovered was entirely different from reading. I was being forced to go at the reader's pace, hearing every detail and often, if the reader was good enough, absorbing every nuance. Things that I had skimmed over in my headlong race to the finish.

And because I have a very inquiring mind I began to wonder who these readers were? It seems to me that audio books are becoming more and more popular. There certainly are more of them available than there used to be. I can even download them electronically from my library! How cool is that?

jeanette0605 for Genealogy and Family History Community

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Friday August 31, 2012 · 9:05 AM PDT

2012/08/31 · 09:05

My maternal Grandfather died in 1963. My aunt decided to honor his memory by writing a biography of him and his side of our family. She self published and gifted each one of her siblings and nieces and nephews with a copy of it.

My Grandfather was a kind and generous man whom we all loved very much. However, at the time I received my copy of the book I wasn’t particularly interested in the family history part other than the part that dealt specifically with my Grandfather. Later on when I became interested in Genealogy it was a virtual treasure trove of information. I was very fortunate to be able to begin my own research with all the right names back to my Great, Great Grandfather who was the original emigrant to come from Ravensburg, near Baden-Wurtemburg, Germany in 1854.

At the time my aunt wrote this little book the internet did not exist, or if it did actually exist it certainly didn’t for folks like us. So my aunt had to gather her information in the only way she knew how to do it. She asked every relative she could find about what they knew about the family. Since my Grandfather came from a large German/American Catholic family she found plenty of relatives to interview. Along the way she picked up many family legends, some of them in multiple versions.

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Confessions of a recreational quilter

GFHC - Emmigrants Who Returned Home Or Making It Up As You Go Along

Audiobooks Club: Readers, How much do they matter?

GFHC - Family Legends, Fact or Fiction