Attic Lace

A Cozy Visit

The day after Thanksgiving, N and I took a much needed trip up to my mother's childhood home in upstate New York. I kid you not, the property is called "Podunk" (Yes there really IS such a place), which I find particularly amusing because its kind of in the middle of nowhere, as the saying goes... Anyhow, My grandmother lives close to the property, and our relatives were in from Oregon for the holiday, so we had a wonderful little reunion for the weekend. 

 Many years ago, when my grandfather passed away, my mother and father took over his property.  An old farm house on many acres of rural farm land, it's surrounded by hay fields, corn fields and miles of open blue sky. When my grandfather was alive, he ran a cross country ski shop on the property and my parents have turned the sweet red barn that was the shop into a cozy cottage/cabin.  Meanwhile the main house, which has been home to renters for the past several years, is up for some renovation.  N and I decided not to tow "Sunny" up with us due to the bitter cold that descended on New York last week, so we opted to stay in my mothers childhood bedroom in the empty farm house, about 20 yards from where the rest of the family slept, in the ski shop turned cottage...

We cozied up in the little blue room with blankets from cottage's blanket chest.  I wanted to share a few photos of the awesome quilt that kept us warm the past few nights...

The whole quilt is made up of hand stitched squares that the "Podunk Ladies" quilting group made in 1976.  They were a local sewing group made up of all the neighborhood ladies, and my grandmother won the final quilt in a raffle.It's especially fantastic because each of the squares (made up of many, many awesome little snippets of all different fabrics) is "signed". The signatures were hand stitched on by each of the ladies that worked on it. I distinctly remember this quilt from my childhood visits, reading all the beautiful and old fashioned names (Betty, Mabel, Charlotte...) and admiring the embroidery work.  No two pieces of fabric are the same and there are sooo many amazing prints!! I had just as much fun our first night this weekend looking at it once again, and running my fingers over all those sweet names and beautiful stitches...

 Here are a few more details of the quilt, as well as a few other little bits from the house that I love. The pink shell light fixture that hangs in the bedroom; bold navy, blue, and white wallpaper in the dining room; and a very cool reddish orange spice rack from the kitchen...

Podunk is one of my favorite places, I will be sharing many more snapshots and stories as time goes on...but how fabulous is that quilt!? :)

Hope you all had as wonderful of a holiday as we did.