I forgot a couple

This is the quilt I did for my granddaughters, Bella and Caroline, for their room upstairs at my house. The painting is by Carthage artist, Nancy Waggoner—Fancy Paints. Check her out at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001082437880

This is a scrappy table runner in the Chevron pattern. I promise I'll find something to blog about this weekend that does not involve quilts.

Quilt Gallery

My 1970s tribute quilt

Dr. Amanda Stone's wedding quilt

Jason and Janice's Ginger Jar quilt

Garrett's T-shirt quilt

Anna Mary and Chad Meyers' quilt for Ben

Ashley Hicks Foresman's wedding quilt - Citris

Ashton Godbold's victory quilt - Citrus

Hayley's quilt - Citrus

Rhetta and Daniel Conn's quilt for Parker

Olivia's quilt Jan. 2011 Ohio Star and mustang and pottery applique

Sampler (first quilt) Oct. 2010

The adventures of Cash continue

Obedience lesson No. 2.

We practiced every day since our first lesson. At home, he was sitting by my side, doing sit/stay/ a reluctant down, stay/come, heeling, but still pulling.

We get to class and he is a mess. He hasn't been properly socialized because he is out of control! He wanted to check out every female dog there. He wasn't even really interested in treats.

So here we go into the exercises. He wouldn't sit, wouldn't lie down, did OK on the figures eights and circles, but pulled me around like a rag doll. In a lifetime of showing horses I've never had a horse drag me around like that.

A recent trip to the vet showed his weight at 84 pounds. "He'll mature at 100," my vet said. I better hurry and get him under control before he weights as much as I do. (Not that I weigh 100)

Today my back hurts, my wrist hurts, my neck is sore. Is is worth it? You bet.

Daddy's last mare found in ideal setting

I had such a great surprise yesterday. I took my 16-month, 80-pound Labrador, Cash the Dog in Black, to a basic obedience class in Hernando at Critter Camp. When I drove up the tree-lined land, I noticed a pasture of Appaloosa horses.

When I met Sandra L. Selph-Gooch, the owner of Critter Camp, I told her my father had been one of the first breeders of Appaloosa Horses in this area. After his death in 1998, I sold his last mare, Poco Snowbird. I told her I’d sold her to a guy from Hernando but couldn’t remember his name.

She said, “Was it Eric Beene’ of Journey’s End?” I said, “Yes.” She told me that Eric was her son who had given me directions earlier. The property was now called Southern Winds Ranch. Then she also said, “Your mare is probably out there in the pasture with that pretty filly by her side.”

I almost cried.

Snowbird was Daddy’s (Hayley Dandridge, Senatobia) last horse. He died in 1998 and was buried on his 85th birthday. He was past his riding days, but he loved feeding Snowbird everyday, just putting his hands on her, and got to see her broken to ride.

She was the culmination of his lifelong breeding of Appaloosa Horses and Quarter Horses. In her pedigree were some of his own mares and stallions. Others included Prince Shannon, Colida’s Bill Hancock (twice), Red Angel, Chief Waggoner, Miss Pie Fuller, Tahawus Trapper, Tahawus Sissy Hancock, his stallion High Spots Pride, and even to his old favorite Quarter mare Penny.

He would be so proud of the home she has and the beautiful offspring she has produced. I miss him everyday. Just when I’m ready to let go, something pops up and brings with it a smile and a tear.

For the love of quilts

I said when I retired that I was going to learn to quilt. That's an understatement. First I need to tell you about how I fell in love with quilts. One rainy afternoon my Daddy and I were up in my grandmama's attic and found an old quilt in a chest.

"Can I have it," I said. He agreed. It was a friendship quilt. Made by members of the Looxahoma, Thyatira and Barr communities in eastern Tate County. It was made by my relative Lucy Cathey Dandridge (double kin) in 1934. It used the Grandma's Fan pattern and was done by hand. Each square was done by a lady in the community and signed.

It contains the names of my grandmother "Ollie" or Miss Ollie, as she was called—Ollie May Dupuy Dandridge, and her sister Neelie Dupuy and countless others. The names as well as the memories of those dear ladies are fading.

But it was years later when I moved to Holly Springs and was living in Cedarhurst, the home of noted female writer Sherwood Bonner, that I fell in love with the quilt. I had a terrible case of flu. Lying there underneath this quilt, I counted the names, looked at the different fabric swatches, and felt I had been transported to another time.

Bonner had been a forward-thinking female writer in her time and secretary to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. She had come back to Cedarhurst to be with her family during the yellow fever epidemic. When financial hardship hit, lore has it that Longfellow paid the taxes on the mansion and saved the home.

She thrived on the literary criticisms offered by editors that rejected her early work and was brash enough to prevail upon the renowned poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It is a credit to Bonner’s social grace and personality that within one hour’s audience with Longfellow, she secured a lifelong patronage; he provided both financial support and professional encouragement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Sherwood_Bonner_McDowell

So here I lie, covered by this vintage quilt in the home of Bonner (upstairs apartment), a photo of her on the dresser......was it the atmosphere, the sentimentality of my family's quilt, or the 104 fever? Whatever it was, I'm glad this experience inspired me to learn to quilt.

Pics of my attempts to come later.