Tuesday, December 16, 2008

December Dreams


When I was growing up we each were required to do about an hour (or maybe it was only a half hour) of work around the house each day. Anyhow it seemed like much longer than that when you are a preteen and teenager. Since there were 5 of us, it only took 2 to do dishes - one to wash and one to dry so my Mom found other chores for us to try to get out of!
I learned to sew and was often able to fulfill my chore requirement by sewing something for someone else in the family.
For Christmas the year I was about 15 I made red and white striped flannel nighties and PJ's for the whole family, including my little sister and brother's dolls. They even had those gripper snaps which I still don't like to put on anything.
I fulfilled my work requirement for several months to come making these.
My parents then had a photographer take family photos and used them for their Christmas Card that year. It's too bad we didn't have colored photos "in the olden days". We all wore these until they were totally worn out.
Can you find me in the photo?
Now to make this quilt related, I saved the scraps from all the things I made for the rest of the family and myself out of cotton (not the flannel) and they appear in 3 scrap quilts I made years and years ago.

Tonight's puzzle is another version of the family in their Christmas sleepwear.
Click to Mix and Solve

6 comments:

Vicki W said...

I am not stalking you! Your timing is just perfect. I had just sit down to have some chocolate cake and work a puzzle and there was your latest post! The black and white stripes were hard to do! The PJs were an awesome project. Did you get sick of red and white stripes?

Leslie said...

How priceless. My daughter has been wearing the same flannel nightie on Christmas for over 10 years, I totally get it. Thank you for sharing this with us.

Karen - Quilts...etc. said...

That picture is just so cool Kay, reminds me of photo's of my family, we had some striped p.j's too. We had you beat though, I come from a family of 12 kids - rare now days but in the 50's to the 60's that was still common in places in Wisconsin where I grew up.
Karen
http://karensquilting.com/blog/

Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson said...

I think you must be the oldest sister, or at least the tallest. I had to put those gripper snaps on all of the western shirts I made for my dad, the decorative snaps. Then I used the utility type on all of the little overalls for my kids. I still have some but don't feel any guilt for not using them.

Judi said...

Love the pictures. The puzzle was another fun one. What a wonderful idea to make everyone the same thing. I hear of others now making pj bottoms for others.

Barbara Strobel Lardon said...

That is just so funny! We have one of our family all in our new bathrobes my mother gave us for Christmas. I have 8 brothers and sisters (4each). :)