" Big Ella" meets Miss Ella

"Big Ella" (Great-Grandmother) meets Miss Ella

Saturday night Miss Ella met the very special woman for whom she had named "Ella". It was a "happy tear" moment when my 84 year old mother held her 12 week old great-granddaughter for the first time. This is my parents first great-grandchild. They had traveled from WV to Oklahoma that day to meet Miss Ella.
"Big Ella" is quite a remarkable woman. She grew up during the depression learning all the skills she could to support herself.   She was the first ecologist I ever knew back in the sixties. Sometime I will tell you the story of her "cemetery dump" days. She has composted for 50 years.... way back before it was popular. My parents to this day garden and can over 50 quarts of green beans.....mostly for their children.  Half Runner Beans are a family favorite, She still sews, quilts, and hand braids rugs. The rugs are one art I could never do like she can. They are made of 7 flat pieces of fabric she sews together and braids. She made this rug for the lake house living room.

This rug was started when I was pregnant with my youngest daughter who is now 26. We finished it to this size about 10 years ago. I say we because I sew the rings together after she makes them. We use mono filament  fishing line to secure the braids together. It is invisible and sturdy. Aren't they beautiful?

A smaller version in the kitchen. She uses old draperies, men suits, and upholstery fabric as well as scraps from all her sewing. I told you she has been an ecologist since the sixties. She doesn't waste a thing, and by the way the beautiful colors just happen...they are all different.

Here is a quilt my mother made in 1992 while visiting me when I lived in Little Rock, AR. She took the scraps from the dresses I had made my girls and used them to make the stars. This is a special memory quilt for me..  The quilt above I tied or "tacked" it as my mother would say and then turned up the edge and hand feather stitched along the inner border edge. 

 

 Stars are my mother's favorite quilts and has made so many I can't count them all

So you see my mother, "Big Ella" is quite a woman. She was also a junior high/high school teacher for over 40 years. That alone deserves a metal.   We hope and pray Miss Ella will have the same talents, strength, and faith that made her Great-grandmother "Big Ella"!