Category Archives: Arts

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Early Family

Today I’m sharing early photos of my mother with her family.  These first two are with her mother, Ferne Koontz Harris:

The next one is with her father, Kenneth C. Harris (he was known as “KC” and I knew him as “Pop”):

Here she is with both of her parents:

I love these photos with her grandparents.  The first one is her paternal grandmother, Jennie (Fleming) Harris:

This is her maternal grandfather, Cicero Baxter Koontz (known as “CB,” “Baxter,” or “Papa.”).

Here is a favorite photo showing my mother with her brother, Baxter:

Finally, we have a great (and early selfie) of her, once again, with her brother:

 

 

 

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A Great Mother

This week I’m focusing on my mother, Pat (Harris) Chaney, whose 90th birthday is Saturday.  She was a great mother, and unfortunately passed away from cancer in 2001.  My dad missed his 90th birthday by one year and my mother left us much too early, well before her 90th.  Today I’m sharing some of my favorite photos of her, starting with one of her birthdays.

My dad helped us make a “cake” for her, with no recipe or proper baking procedures.  It looked atrocious but she happily posed with it.

I happened to be right beside her in this photo (I wonder what I thought of the cake we made by pouring everything from the kitchen shelves into the batter).

Of course, following the arrival of the pretend cake came the real one!

Here are some of my favorites of her with the two of us (I am the younger daughter):

She sewed and knitted a lot of her own clothes and was always changing her hair color and style, as you will see.  In this one she is wearing very fashionable boots in the 70’s.

She loved traveling to the mountains and the first thing she always did was take off her shoes and put them in a cool mountain stream.

My parents were married in 1949; here is their wedding photo and one of my favorites in their later years together on a cruise.

This is a very early “selfie” of her with her brother, Baxter:

They always had dogs around and this is one of my favorite pics with one of them:

Again, I was right beside her.

Finally, this is my favorite holiday portrait of my mother–so pretty!

 

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Texas Quilt Museum

While in Houston recently Sarah and I made a trip to LaGrange, TX to see the Texas Quilt Museum.  I had seen photos of the facility in magazines and was thrilled to be able to visit it in person.  To my delight, the artist that was being featured at the time was Caryl Bryer Fallert-Gentry.  I’d been admiring her creations for a long time.

I was not disappointed — it was fantastic.  It isn’t a huge museum, but they have plenty of space to display quilts from the featured artist, as well as additional quilts in an adjoining room.  We were not allowed to take photos, but they did offer to take photos of us next to our favorite quilts (I begged for an extra pic and they willingly obliged).  Here they are:

Although not a large quilt, I had admired it when I first saw it in a magazine.  It’s called “Cattywampus Log Cabin #4,” and you can see her design concept for it here.

This next  one is called  Jacuzzi Jazz #1.  Take  a look at  her design concept here.  

Last,  I really  liked  this next  one called  Spirogyra #1.  The colors are  so pretty together.  Click  here for Caryl’s Design Strategy.

I’m sure you would enjoy looking  at her website, where all of her quilts can be seen — click here.

 

 

 

 

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A Quilt and a Shark

I recently made a new quilt for Sarah–a lap quilt for her couch.  My plan was to match her gray couch with its lime green pillows.  It turned out very nice.

She opened the birthday gift here, then took it home to Houston.  It wasn’t long before I received a Snapchat from her that was similar to this photo:

One of the things we both liked most about the quilt was the elephant fabric I’d found to use for the backing, which can be seen below:

I also did some sewing for Chris’ birthday.  I was looking for something related to sharks (since he’s been fascinated with them since he was a child).  Lo and behold, I found a pattern for a shark pencil pouch, and I decided to give it a try.  It turned out great!  Here is the link for the free pattern.

I think he was pretty happy with it, but he especially enjoyed lunch out with Mom and the dessert provided by the restaurant.

 

 

 

 

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Baby Quilt

I recently had the pleasure of delivering one of my quilts to an adorable baby.  I enjoyed making this for our friends.  The design is called a “Disappearing Nine Patch,” because you start with nine squares sewn together, cut them up, then turn them to create this design.

Here is the new father and daughter!  Congratulations Mom and Dad!