Image: sxc.hu

Along with writing them down you can:

• Make quilts and wall hangings with photos, related scenes and activities, or fabrics from family clothing.
• Develop scrapbooks about family events.
• Preserve documents along with photos in collages, books, and on fabric.
• Write books that relate family stories and add illustrations.  I’m working on a picture book about my Uncle William “Buffalo Bill” Mathewson.
• Develop fiction stories inspired by those of your family.  The life of  Great Great Grandmother Cynthia, who lived during the Civil War era, would make an exciting novel.
• Create a shadow box with mementos such as buttons, beads, jewelry, and awards.  For instance, I’m putting together a collage of my uncle’s military metals and memorabilia.

Do you have any techniques you’re using to preserve your family heritage?

Post from: Blisstree

Crafting Your Family Heritage

I read an article in a parenting magazine saying parents should allow their boys to keep their lovie’s or bankies even up until 8 or 9. I’m going to send his article to my younger brother who’s in his 30s and his 3-year-old daughter is teasing him about his still-present attachment to his blankie.

He is in good company. Every one of my grandmother’s 42 grandchildren and 40-somthing great-grandchildren possess one of these almost-holy fabric hugs. Some, like my brother, wore them out with love and my Grandmother stitched them replacements.

A feminine skill passed from one generation to the next from my great-great ancestors, the women in my family have used quilting as both their artistic expression and a physical manifestation of a love.

I have a crazy patch quilt from my great-grandmother, passed through my grandmother. When my husband uses it to move furniture or dry muddy kids off I feel like my head might explode.

I realize it’s not as common for a woman of my generation to have sat in quilting circles – but I have – and I know the amount of physical labor and time that went into making that patch quilt.

To use that ancient artifact of my feminine birthright for such everyday tasks is an offense.

My son, Zack, has developed a possessive love for his own Choo Choo Bankie hand-quilted by my grandmother. When he drags it around, he reminds me both of the fictional Linus from Charlie Brown specials and my own little brothers when they were small.

His is baby blue satin on one side and I can tell he’s addicted to the soft smooth texture and the coolness of a fresh touch. He’s a baby and he understands his bankie is like a grandmotherly snuggle passed down from his maternal lineage. It makes him feel safe, secure and loved. He’s two, so maybe he only intuitively knows this – but I surely know this.

I’m convinced the tactile recipe for the kind of undying love my brother has to his blankie is satin. My creative contribution to our quilting tradition is to add faux fur (washable, of course). I made several for nieces’ births, as an excuse for my grandmother to teach me all her quilting secrets, with pink satin on one side and animal print faux fur on the other.

I made one for my son’s birth, but my daughter won’t surrender it. The faux fur is a deep chocolate crushed velvet and the satin is black. The tactile experience is divine.

Post from: Blisstree

Blankie = Matriarchal Hug