Christmases Past Yet Again...

Christmas 1965 followed our college graduations - and our wedding followed Christmas.

I made my gown from a Vogue pattern - first I made a muslin dress to fit it to my (then) tiny frame.I chose the pattern because I simply did not like the full, huge wedding gowns that were then still very much the "norm" in wedding fashion. I wanted something plain and easy to wear that still looked classic. As a self-taught seamstress, I should never have attempted a Vogue pattern, but what did I know??? The dress was made from fabric I purchased in London on a trip following my college graduation in June. I made no mistakes whatsoever on the muslin gown...not so on the bridal gown. I put several of the skirt panels in upsidedown...and was hemming the dress the morning of the wedding!

Here we are with our parents:
Ray + Catherine Mullooly Dolan, Frank + Pat, Irene + Ray Gangl. All are now deceased.

Well, after a wedding, guess what happened prior to Christmas of 1966???
Baby makes three, of course!

1968 Mike and our Christmas Tree in Carbondale, IL

1968 - Christmas in St. Paul to visit maternal grandparents and BoPeep and her family. Here is Mike with Shawn, BoPeep's first born.


1968 - Mike with his maternal Grandpa, Ray Gangl, playing the Austrian accordian.

1968 - Four Generations -

Back Row: Frank (father), Herbert L. Buck (maternal Great-Grandfather), Raymond S. Gangl ( maternal Grandfather).
Front Row: Pat (mother), Michael, Therese Grieman Gangl (maternal Great-Grandmother), and Irene Buck Gangl (maternal Grandmother).
1969 - Winter Snows - this was in Carbondale, IL - where it rarely snows.

This was in Palatine, IL where it snowed a lot that winter!

1969 - Christmas: Mike and Chris

1970 Christmas - the Kids with Santa

This has always been one of my favorite photos - Christine really did not like or trust strangers and this guy was just way too TOO for her. He also was pretty tired, poor fellow!
1970 - Christmas...
Did you ever take your children to a "Santa Land" or a "Santa's Village?" Well, we did...once. Chris hated Santa - still - but both kids loved the kiddie rides! Here's Mike with Santa.




Both of our children took after their parents in loving books and reading and researching. Here is Chris with a large Christmas book from my childhood. I still have it somewhere - it's got one of those wonderful fold-out tissue Christmas trees inside the front cover and is full of all sorts of different Christmas stories.



That's all for today, folks!

Christmases Past, continued...

BoPeep mentioned the painting of windows at Christmas time... Yes, we did that all throughout high school - both at home and at school. I only have one photo of myself around the age of 16 and a Christmas window in our home:

After HS came college - in my case, the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, MN - two blocks from my home! I met my now-husband at the 1st St. Thomas College freshman mixer in September of 1961... Back to Christmases...
1963 Junior CSC winter formal with me in the middle and BoPeep and her now-husband (who we introduced to one another in October of 1961) on the right:

1964 Senior CSC winter formal:

Note: the painting over the mantle changes as time passes... I was an art major!

1964 Christmas - My maternal grandparents, Mary Alice Collopy Buck and her husband Herbert Llewellyn Buck - the one who took all those old photos that are scattered throughout this blog.

1964 Christmas - my three adorable nephews by our village under the tree.

Happy New Year 1965 - Frank surprised me by coming back from Chicago early - in time to celebrate New Year with me.

Christmases Past…

I was reading Meadowwoods blog (she's my HS and College best friend) tonight and she reminded me of many Christmases past…

1952 - My sister Susan at a friends home at Christmas time... note all that tinsel!

1953 - Yours truly on Christmas. It was my Ginny doll Christmas.

Christmases past...when we hung the lights, then the ornaments, and finally the metallic tinsel – strand by strand so they would look like REAL icicles. Whenever anyone would open a door, the tinsel would shimmer in the draft sparkling like twinkling stars on the milky way. The ornaments, for the most part, were quite unique. Mom loved Christmas time and she always found some new special ornaments for each year. There was a precious old Santa ornament, one of the few Dad’s mother had managed to save from his childhood. There were also the hand painted balls, hand-made angels – including the one on the treetop – well, she was a small doll that mom dressed up in satin and sequins with angel wings to rest atop the tree and proclaim that the “Christ is Born!”
Christmas 1954 - The Gangl Girls (all cousins) at our home.

We had a village under the tree, complete with house and a church (small cardboard houses with sparkle dust sprinkled on them to look like snow) that were lit from within by a special string of lights. There were skaters on the ice rink, Christmas carolers, a miniature train, and a ski mountain with skiers. Dad was quite clever with his hands – as a machinist, bookbinder, and woodworker. He built a 3-4” high stand for the village complete with a white picket fence all around and painted the whole thing pure white. He built miniature steps up to a swing-open gate where Santa was place each year, either as he entered or as he departed, depending upon the date, of course.

Above: 1954 - Our Christmas tree and our first family pet and the village.

One of my most favorite memories from my childhood Christmases was a special private ritual I created for myself. We played lots of Christmas records on the hi-fi (dating myself, aren’t I?) and I would turn off all the other lights and lay next to the tree and gaze at all the lights and the shimmering tinsel and pretend I was in a magical wonderland of beauty, snow and peace…

Winter in Minnesota was always cold, windy, white and bright. Daddy would build us snow forts when there was lots of snow (which was often). Below is a photo of me at the age of 4 with my sister, Elaine, at the age of 9, inside our snow fort - 1947/48.

In the coldest winters, Daddy would flood the back yard with water for an ice skating rink.

In high school, St. Joseph's Academy (St. Paul, MN), I belonged to the Glee Club and every year we sang the Christmas portions of Handel's Messiah. Here I am with a girl friend. The next photo is the entire Glee Club in 1960.


Our tree with village and gifts in 1960...

News from Southern Missouri...

I have a wonderful friend from HS and college who now lives in rural southeastern Missouri. Having watched the news & weather reports for days now, I was fairly certain that they'd been hard hit with the winter storm out in their neck of the woods.

If anyone is curious as to how one survives such a storm in rural USA, you might take a look at Mary Ellen's blog. They raise Shetland sheep of many colorful varieties out in the hinterlands of the rural mid-west. She has only one photo of the ice on the trees, but that picture is worth a thousand words...

Today...Back to Quilting Again!

After a 3-4 week hiatus from sewing in the hopes my impinged rotator cuff would have a chance to heal, I finally chose to sew anyway. I was undergoing withdrawal symptoms from not using my creativity anywhere but inside my head! Meanwhile, the "Ribbon" quilt has been literally "in" the sewing machine where I left it last...creating constant temptation. Yet I was too afraid of increasing the pain to even give sewing a try. But yesterday, I'd had enough of this self-imposed dry spell. It was wonderful to begin drawing once again with my Bernina. The quilt is mainly red on black, so the quilting has been lots of fun just allowing it to evolve whatever way the curves seemed to indicate. I had completed quilting most of the red image, using varying shades of red through orange. And I chose some blue to quilt behind the red image...and was planning on using black thread for the outside of the entire design to the edge so it fade into the background and not compete with the focal point for attention. Then I decided to highlight the foreground by using a blue thread to quilt between the ribbons as they sway gently on the surface of the quilt. Below you can see some of the colors of thread that I was contemplating today using in place of black.

And here is some of the background quilted:

I decided to opt for varying shades of blue to create a different kind of contrast between the background and the foreground and I'm pleased with the results. Lighter blue threads are at the top, gradually getting darker towards the bottom. About half of the quilt is now quilted - and so far today, I'm not experiencing any pain. I did last night, however...so today I spent more time maintaining awareness of my shoulder position as I sewed and lowering my shoulders every time I noticed they'd crept up yet again.

Today started out quite frosty and cold, yet above you can see my winter pansy is still in her glory. Below are some of the other things I saw or did throughout the day into the evening.





The Full Cold Moon Monday evening, December 4, 2006.

Experimenting...

This is my diningroom table at the moment, covered with dried leaves, rusted fabrics, watercolor pencils and fabric markers of several varieties, and the first "experiment" I'm attempting on the rust-dyed fabrics. I chose leaves because oak leaves at this time of year seem to match the rust-color in the fabrics... and so I collected a handful of leaves on my windy walk today.

At the moment, I'm not satisfied with the results thus far, although I can see lots of potentials with regard to using these tools. I love to draw so drawing with my sewing machine comes very naturally to me - but these drawings are too complete. They don't need any sewing to define the image. Back to the drawing board... and more experimentation. Tomorrow.


Meanwhile, while the wouthwest and mid section of the nation have experienced extreme weather of the wintry sort, we here in central Jersey have had balmy days and nights much of the week. Late this afternoon, prior to the arrival of the cold front, this was what I saw while out getting our mail.


The view as reflected in a puddle...

And at dusk facing the East...

And facing the West...

The cold front did arrive around 8pm this evening with some wild wind and a bit of rain. The power dimmed numerous times, but stayed on and all is now relatively calm.
Our thoughts and prayers are with the millions who have no power tonight and for the unforseeable future.

Rusting Fabrics - yet again...

I decided that 5 of my 9 rust-dyed fabrics (as shown in the November 4th entry) really needed to be darker. This time, rather than leaving them exposed on our deck, I dipped each cloth in vinegar and then wrapped each one around one or more rusty tools and placed them in a LARGE Hefty ziplock bag for over a week. The bag was then placed in the garage - out of sight and out of mind. This way, they don't dry out between spritzing while the rust continued to penetrate the cloth.


Today, I remembered them and figured I'd better check to see how they were doing. Here are all 5 pieces after soaking them in salt water to stop the rust-action, washing, drying and ironing them:

And here are close-ups of each of them:




This one is my current "favorite:"

As you can see, they turned out beautifully!