Susan: CQJP2014, January and February

I finally made my first two new moms blocks last week, the only sewing of the week.

First is my Aunt Bobbie ~ Loetta Abner Beckenbach. She adopted my little sister and me when my mother died when I was nine. She was a woman who always did what was right, always did her duty. She had grace and good manners and tried her best to pass those things along. The photo was taken before she went to Japan and before my mother was pregnant (also in the picture along with another aunt), so I expect that was about 1946. That would make Aunt Bobbie 39, the youngest picture I have of her that's with me in Tennessee, maybe anywhere.

Bobbie and her husband, Charlie ~ the Colonel ~ provided us music lessons, ballet and tap lessons, deportment lessons (yes, I know no one uses that term any more), and in general tried to give us a sense of right and wrong, and responsibility. Mostly, it worked with me. Here is the block I made for her. I wanted to add more lace, but she kept telling me no. She wasn't a woman who cared for frills.



Now Susan C's (yes, our own Suztats!) mother was much nicer about the lace, maybe because she's younger. She let me add a beautiful lace motif that Aunt Bobbie wouldn't. Both blocks have corners of the same linen handkerchief. Aunt Bobbie's had the embroidered cutwork because she would allow that much fanciness, linen always being perfectly acceptable for a lady's handkerchief. There's a pretty bit of bridal lace that I thought suitable because of the picture. It was taken on her wedding day. Don't you love her dress (Oh, sadly, you can't really see the horizontal tucks across the dress!), and wasn't she beautiful?