I know that my passions help keep me alive. Celebrating milestones can be part of that “lust for life”. Last August friends planned a small party to help me honor my eight decades on Earth. One talented quilter friend created a custom wall hanging made of tiny fabric hexagons to spell out the number 80–can you see it hanging on the wall in the photo on the right?

We, who create with our hands, are a passionate breed. Both my parents were lifelong creators of beauty. Marie created with fabric, yarn, needle and thread. Paul was an accomplished woodworker and built much of the house our family of six lived in. My infatuation with fabric and sewing has been a lifelong interest starting with doll clothes in the 1950s. Creating over three hundred quilts and wall hangings over the last thirty-two years has kept me creatively engaged! Many of those quilts you’ve seen here.

Today I’m writing about how interests from earlier years can reappear in our lives. Our brain and hands are still full of possibilities and excitement, probably even enhanced by all we’ve seen and experienced!. At times, we may circle back to earlier interests. For example, In high school I took an aptitude test about possible careers that might suit me. The top result was “forest ranger”. Yet, I graduated from college with a degree in political science. I worked as a flight attendant for TWA from 1969-1985. During those years I lived in Kansas City, MO and became both a union activist and a lesbian-feminist activist, certainly sparked by my interest in correcting the balance of power in our culture.

My dream in 1987 when Jeanne and I moved to Arkansas included building our house, living close to Nature, and “to garden all summer and to quilt all winter”. Building the house and gardens became our priority. Each was a challenge as we designed and built our 800 sq ft house and it’s surrounding terraced garden. As keepers of this land, I guess we are some version of a forest ranger!

Here’s the backstory for the above photo. In the late 1970s, I was making shell necklaces to sell at our Ozark women’s festival. A dear friend used her artistic talents to design the business card in the picture. If you look closely, you can see that I am wearing three of my own shell necklaces. At right is my favorite leather handbag which I discovered earlier this year at a local thrift shop. I’ve created an amulet for myself featuring parts of found jewelry, shells, a variety of beads, and a few items from a craft store. The sight pleases me. I’m reminded of girlhood visits to the Gulf of Mexico and to the crowded beaches of South Beach (along the south Florida Atlantic) near where my mother had grown up.

What is an amulet? An amulet, talisman, or good luck charm all refer to any object believed to offer protection, and/or grace, or healing to the wearer. It may or may not be considered a spiritual object, as intended by the wearer.

Historical context: Beads, linked to the earliest records of humankind, have been humanity’s constant companions. To this day, when strung together, interesting objects from nature like beads, shells and more, will draw our attentions. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

The symmetry of these archaic human creations grabbed my attention while visiting the archaeological museum in the capital city of Crete. I took this photo which illustrates the reality of beads and pendant necklaces being valued by the ancient people of the Mediterranean at least 4,000 years ago.

Museum caption:“Pendants and necklaces with beads of stone, faience and clay from Messara, Crete 2300-1900 BCE” (yes, about 4,000 years ago). Note: Faience is earthenware pottery decorated with colorful opaque glazes. These were skilled artisans who produced a kiln capable of temperatures exceeding 1,000 °C (212° F) which was required to fire this sophisticated pottery bead.

Following that digression, I will return to my own crafting of amulets which I’m now making for my own pleasure and for sale. I’ve attached each amulet to a card with this brief explanation.

Amulets: Each shell in these clusters was born
in the sea surrounded by multiple challenges
just as we are every day. These clusters
include beads and ornaments from recycled
jewelry making each unique.
I’m an untrained collage artist who hopes you
will chose an amulet that seems to draw you in,
or one that sparks precious memories.

Today I find myself wondering, “How, and when, did this passion for creating amulets from found objects begin? I now spend about two hours every evening playing and creating the amulets. I’ve realized there are multiple threads of experiences which brought me here.

As a dedicated quilter, I’ve long enjoyed the challenge of working with a variety of textures, sizes and colors in an effort to recombine them into a pleasing whole. Then I recalled the creativity of my quilting friend, Sherron Hayes, who solicited unused or broken jewelry and beads to make elasticized friendship bracelets for every quilter in our large quilting group. Sherron had a good eye for what combination could make a pleasing bracelet. She urged us to pick one pleasing to us.

I’d met and liked this warm-hearted woman at her shop during my first trip to Crete on the Goddess Pilgrimage led by Carol Christ in 2017. Karolina, as Carol was known to her Greek friends, brought these groups every spring and fall to visit the well-preserved 14th-century Byzantine frescoes of a tiny nearby church. I’d been enchanted by the large shop and small cafe run by family members.

When I again met the shop owner in 2022, after Karolina had died, she and I acknowledged our grief at loosing Karolina who had learned Greek and adopted the country as her home. That day she served our group homemade pound cake and fresh lemonade with the genuine hospitality the Greek people often exhibit. Her delightful offering of her handmade amulet touched me. She had carefully chosen the color of her gift to work with the blue shirt I wore that day. It still lives on that light-weight travel purse.

My own interest in shells and other amulet jewelry was rekindled when I purchased an amber pendant in Crete several years ago. On my first trip I had met the three generations of family jewelers including the woman who designed my pendant. Amber has a long history of being considered a healing substance since it is a petrified resin of an ancient, now-extinct pine tree.

Millions of those trees produced the resin to repair a damaged area of the tree. Later the hardened resin washed to the shores of the Baltic Ocean. The amber is the fossilized remains of that resin, and can still be found along the shore. The youngest amber is considered to be at least 17 million years old, most is much older. More about amber on another day. Some of my own relatives from Denmark and the UK may have collected this treasure and wore it themselves. I’ll write about my passion for amber beads and jewelry soon.

How did my amulet-making journey start? I’ve mentioned the threads of interest, but what event moved me to action? After discovering an inexpensive three-part charm at a thrift shop last January, I made my first amulets. I was intrigued by that single charm which was meant to be shared among three people. I made three slightly different clusters of shell-and-bead amulets. One for me, and one for each of two good quilter friends. Both were pleased, and each woman immediately attached her “treasure” to her handbag. Since then, I’ve given amulets to friends and, sometimes, strangers. And I’ve sold some too.

“Our hands are essential to learning–we engage the world and its wonders, sensing and creating primarily through the agency of our hands” Doug Stowe wrote in his book The Wisdom of The Hands. This Eureka Springs, AR woodworker shares many other opinions and insights about the vital connection between creating with our hands.

Whatever our medium, fabric, wood or shells and beads, we are shaping our environment–perhaps even making sense out of chaos! I’m hoping you will have your own story to share about creating with your hands. Tell us your story!

On an ordinary, quiet Saturday night at home, we received a phone call about a nearby fire burning in the woods. We were told to evacuate immediately since the fire was close and moving toward the only road out. After living here almost forty years, we are well aware that should the road be blocked by fire we had no way to drive out. First thought: “Is this real? Is it a credible threat?” Jeanne and I agreed it was. What to grab? Jeanne loaded our dog, River, in the car. She got the cat carrier to the house. We loaded Scout inside despite his complaints. We reached for identification, passports, cash on hand, medications and warm jackets. Computers and phones were packed too. I took a nightgown and a few pieces of jewelry. At the last minute, I grabbed two small quilts I’d been working on.

As Jeanne raced the car up the steep hill, we each had visions of fire possibly blocking our exit. I thought, “We are leaving it all behind…the house, the other car, all the solar equipment, and all my quilts made over the last thirty years….”

Our glimpse of orange flames was quite sobering. We were not halted by fire. We were blocked in by all the fire fighter trucks preventing our exit to the only road down the mountain. The St. Paul Volunteer Fire Department had local fire fighters monitoring the fire. Eventually, with assistance from another nearby fire department, as well as people from the forest service, they managed to contain the blaze. This took several hours. They built a firebreak, sometimes called a double track to slow the progress of the fire. Fortunately the wind was not strong that night. The firebreak created a wide gap in vegetation, removing the pine needles and other combustible materials this fire need to grow. The firebreak acted as a barrier planned to slow or stop the progress of the fire.

For hours we did not know the outcome of this strategy. Jeanne, the animals and I sat in our car wondering and waiting. We did little speculation. We got occasional updates, but no outcome was certain. The flashing strobe lights of the official vehicles added to the tension of the scene. I finally tucked those little quilts onto the visors to shield our eyes from the penetrating flashing lights.

We had packed no food or water--a sure sign of our haste since we always take both when we head to town for any length of time. About eleven, we were told that all seemed under control and we could return home. We were assured that they would be monitoring the fire location and would call us if we needed to leave.

Relieved to be safely at home we began to relax, until we realized we had no phone or internet connection. Should the fire re-ignite, and the wind had already picked up, would anyone drive down to notify us of the danger? Without a phone connection we were vulnerable. After considering our options, we drove to the area of the fire. It was deserted. We could see a small orange flame deep in the woods, but no one was around at all. What to do? Finally we called our nearest neighbor to let them know our phone was gone. We felt reassured and they agreed to alert us if it became necessary to escape.

When Jeanne took the above photos of the fire site on Sunday morning, she did find two forest service employees working there to make sure no fire remained. (In her second photo you can see the figures, if you look closely.) That morning, she found that our phone line, which the phone company merely draped from tree-to-tree along the edge of the road, had been severed in two places. This presumably happened when the many vehicles tried to maneuver around each other on the narrow mountain road that night. It took until Thursday morning for Kinetic to restore our phone and internet services.

How did the fire start? The forest service people found burned beer cans scattered around a campfire in those pines. This seems the most likely cause. The blaze was strong enough to be seen from Highway 16 which is located below the south side of our mountain.

You’ve now read the facts. If we were again told to evacuate, I would grab this 1940s quilt off my bed since it is my favorite. Here you see Jeanne and River taken last summer. I actually started this blog to write about the feelings surrounding our evacuation, short lived though it was. But the facts, the backstory had to come first. Realizing how everything can change in a single moment is always shocking. Deep appreciation is one result of this averted moment where we could have become homeless. We wrote a note of thanks to the volunteer fire fighters who also faced danger on that Saturday night.

Jeanne and I have now weathered one more harrowing life experience together. We built this house in 1988-1989 with help from several women carpenters. Our lives are centered in this haller. We have nurtured our garden for each of those years. We’ve harvested food from this soil to sustain ourselves. We’ve been caretakers of these forested woods. We’ve rescued wild Lady Slipper plants when the deer decided they were dessert.

I’m beginning to understand that my own reactions to this “near-miss” will unfold over the next days and weeks. Today, when the wind became wild, I found myself alarmed about possible fire danger. I will turn eighty in August and have already experienced a series of life changes I’ve not expected. I know there will be more.

I recently read that well-known architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, believed that decay “was another form of growth”. Decay is certainly an essential part of Mother Nature’s plan for our world. “Change is the only constant” is another way to express this idea. I find I’m re-learning that reality which I first embraced in the 1970s when I had a 1888 Victorian house in downtown Kansas City, Missouri. But, that is another story…. Jeanne and I moved from that “nest” to build our house here in the Ozarks.

Today I’m grateful to live in the shelter of my home and family in the house and haller we’ve know for decades and long ago named Cedar Hill, a simple name for our Ozark cabin.

Recently I spent several days on this porch of the building we call the “cottage”. No dog and no summer hat. I’m getting serious about “downsizing”. The porch has become my “loading dock”.
I’ve long been a “collector”. Others of you, especially quilters, will know the challenges of managing our collections.

However, my collections are overtaking our space. We plan to create a “tiny house” for our visitors. With this goal I’m embarking on what seems to be, at times, an “archaeological dig” composed of multiple layers of “debris”. I find myself sifting through it all deciding what to discard and what to keep with me.

Living in the country, you never know what you might need, so stuff accumulates. I’m finding that the hardest part about moving things on is my ongoing emotional connections and/or memories attached to various things. If I can find a “good home” for particular items, it is easier to let them go. Any ideas or suggestions you’d like to share? What’s worked for you?

This photo spans almost seventy years of my life. In the back row, the larger blue cardboard suitcase was mine on our family camping trips in the late 1950s and early 1960s. When my youngest sister, Lea turned four in 1956, our family of six began long summer vacations exploring distant locations in the US. Our two-tone Chevy station wagon with three rows of seats and no seat belts or air conditioning took us to twenty-two different states. These trips were part of the good years for my family.

My Girl Scout troop flew to the Girl Scout Cabana in Cuernavaca, Mexico, in 1962 during winter break of our senior year of high school. (We raised the money ourselves for the trip.) That flight on Pan American Airline was my first airplane flight. This humble suitcase went with me.

In 1968, a year after college, I applied to be a “flight hostess” for TWA. Because I was over the airline’s height limit of 5’9″, TWA flew me to Kansas city for a “special interview”. (The white woman who interviewed me said she could hire white women directly, but had to send anyone over the height limit, Black or Spanish-speaking to KC for this “special interview”.) This original interview was in Miami, Florida where I grew up. For this trip, I had new luggage–actually a set of luggage!

In 1968 these were the uniforms in bright colors that I eventually wore after being hired as a flight hostess.

TWA’s ad seeking flight hostess employees had read: Be A Woman of the World. A year earlier my parents had given me a four piece set of Samsonite luggage as a college graduation present. This extravagant gift had surprised and pleased me. The gift seemed to say I was a woman “going places”. When I flew to Kansas City, I packed my things in one of those “Biscayne Blue” Samsonite suitcases.

Inspect this vintage ad, circa 1965, for the Samsonite “Silhouette” luggage in Biscayne Blue like my set.–even the round “hat box”.

Once I was hired by TWA and finished the six weeks of training in Kansas City, I found that the luggage TWA expected us to use as part of our uniforms was the cream color version of the same Samsonite Silhouette luggage as seen in the above photo.

That cream colored suitcase was my constant companion for a decade. I lived out of my suitcase which became a connection to my active life at home. I packed needlework projects and later lots of feminist books to keep me occupied on layovers in cities around the country.

Early on, I got involved with our local flight attendant union as we worked for better wages and working conditions–like having meals provided by the company (as the pilots did) when we worked ten to twelve hour days. In 1973 I was part of starting the national group Stewardesses for Women’s Rights. Our goal was to support each other as we organized “to inform the public and other flight attendants about airline companies’ sexist advertisements, company discrimination, and airline health and safety hazards” like radioactive cargo carried in passenger aircraft.

Once I connected with the women of the Kansas City Women’s Liberation Union, I rarely traveled for pleasure. My life centered around our women’s center and the varied activities we organized.

That molded plastic suitcase became my traveling companion on a series of adventures I could not have imagined as a girl growing up on the edge of the Everglades. How can I discard it now?

How-to articles on downsizing often mention taking photos of treasured objects. I’ve done that. I’ve written this too, but will I then be able to part with these particular items? Stay tuned. Send me any advice or encouragement!

Postscript: Yes, I will be writing next about my October return trip to Crete, Greece. I did have a wonderful trip….

I’ve been wishing, I’ve been dreaming. I want to do that return trip to Crete, Greece next fall. Selling some of my quilts will help finance that dream. The December 2nd quilt sale was quite successful! Many friends shopped and chose a quilt or wall hanging that “called to them”! I got to see women I’d not visited with in awhile. Quilter friends, Lila and Adele, helped with setup and with fielding questions about the quilts. Jeanne handled the record-keeping and money, as well as much of the loading and unloading of suitcases full of quilts.

To attract attention, I draped a bright polyester hexagon quilt top with a “quilt sale” sign by the road to direct everyone to the sale. Many women were there for the 10:00 opening. Each was looking for just the right quilt for themselves or for a friend. Take a tour…..

I pointed out that each quilt had a label and a sleeve for hanging and a price tag. Cash, checks or layaway were the payment options. Women came prepared–several women brought $100 bills! The sale was rather like hours of “show & tell”. It’s fabulous to feel like each quilt will go home with someone who loves it and wants to live with it. They hear the story of what inspired the quilt, and I get to hear what attracts them to it, or what pleases them about the design.

This dramatic log cabin quilt (above) was designed by Lila when she had her quilt shop, Quilt Your Heart Out, where I first learned to quilt. Some of the rich purple fabrics are batiks which were first becoming popular in the mid 1990s. One very happy woman, with a good eye for design (she sews all her own clothes) chose this quilt!

Everyone wandered around inspecting and exploring with enthusiasm which I appreciated. The smaller items were displayed on the enclosed sun porch at the rear of the house (below).

Yesterday’s sale proved to be successful, and it proved to involve a lot of work as I sorted, priced and packed almost a hundred quilts–yes, some were small. Next spring I’m going to offer another quilt sale–this time with more advance notice. Today, should you see something in the above photos that you would like to know more about, please contact me.

I saw a huge double rainbow arching over the countryside, as I drove home south along Highway 16! A perfect ending to a very good day! What a beautiful and awe-inspiring vision. We sighted it for almost a full half hour as I drove along the twisting turns of that highway. I remembered that rainbows are often said to be signs of hope, new beginnings, and transformation. Photographing the double, and lighter, arch proved impossible. But this gives you an idea of all we saw that rainy afternoon when the sun was behind us and the rainbow of color was reflected off the water droplets creating this magical arch of color.

Prequel to the quilt sale:
On Thursday afternoon, I was showing Jeanne the last 29 small quilts I had just priced. As we turned each one over, she reacted to this small chicken quilt I’d done as part of a quilt challenge. She loved the visuals I’d put together next to the stars (the theme of the challenge). I told her it was hers, if she wanted it. She did–especially when she read the inscription on the front, “Respect Yourself, Honor Your Gift” (which is also the name of the quilt). Today, Sunday, we finally had time to hang it.

Quilting as a Grand Adventure” was my first blog post in 2013 when I began this blog. http://paulamariedaughter.com/?p=6 I am not abandoning this “grand adventure”. Please know I’m still excited about quilting! I want to share my ideas and my portfolio of quilts whenever and wherever possible! However, my collection of quilts must be trimmed.

Even this large TimeSpan quilt needs to find a new home. I found the vintage signature blocks and made the quilt decades later.

The sale will be from 10:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m. held at a local women’s center adjacent to Gulley Park in Fayetteville. Address is 2610 N. Old Wire Rd., Fayetteville, AR 72703. This rambling house is easy to find and has lots of parking. There is overflow parking at the Gulley Park lot south of the house. Cash and checks accepted. Layaway is possible. Door opens at 10:00 a.m.

Every quilt is composed of three layers: usually the top, then the batting or filler, and the backing. The quilting stitches holding the three layers in place make it a quilt! A quilt can be many things to many people, but a quilt is not blanket. Treated with care a quilt will last many decades.

Your quilt may be hung on the wall, or cover your bed, or drape around you for comfort. I’m grouping the quilts I’m selling by size. The price will reflect the amount of work involved in that particular one especially if it involves hand beading, hand applique or hand quilting. Contact me here with any questions.

Please know that the quilts shown here are only a small sample of what will be at the sale!

Amish-style quilt hand quilted by Valerie Doyle.

Antique quilt top, circa 1890s. A true “library of fabrics” in this huge quilt top from that era! I added a border and a backing and a sleeve for hanging for support.

Huge ‘Oak leaf & Reel’ in style of 1800s large Four Block quilts. Hand appliqued! Now with borders and backing. Not quilted. Needs to be finished by you or by me.

“Paris, Without Jet fuel!” Stating with a Paris-themed fabric, I offer a “slice of life” as imagine it on a Paris street–complete with bicycles.

This class sample from a class I did on pieced circles indicates my interest in circles is long-standing. Photo is suppose to be rotated 90 degrees to the left, but the program will not cooperate–I gave it three tries to fix it!

TimeSpan quilt built around a vintage flour sack, small wallhanging

This large wall hanging features cotton sateen fabrics in a “strippy” vertical setting with a bright border

Titled “Confetti”. This large wall hanging uses the “strippy” vertical setting highlighted by hot colors and a bold border

One fabric cut apart to repeat adjacent designs keeps the eye swirling along the path, large wall hanging or a throw

Large wall hanging with dupioni silk sections and bead work, Some parts are repurpose fabric.

Ch

In 1930 Ellen Church, who is pictured above, was a trained pilot and a nurse. That year she applied to pilot a commercial aircraft for Boeing Air Ways. Church was refused because of her sex. Determined to fly, she persuaded Boeing to hire her as a “sky girl”, the first designation for female flight attendants. Church had convinced the skeptical male executives that using nurses on board would convince the disbelieving public that flying was safe.

Her first flight lifted off on May 15, 1930. That Boeing 80A aircraft was not pressurized. It carried fourteen passengers. Church made thirteen stops as she worked from the Oakland/San Francisco airport to Chicago. She was on duty for twenty hours! In addition to attending to the passengers, the women “sky girls” were expected to, when necessary, help with hauling luggage, fueling and assisting pilots to push the aircraft into hangars.

Little has changed since Ellen Church’s time spent as a “sky girl”! Exploitation of workers is considered “good business practice” or “smart strategy”.

1969, the beginning of the “jet age”, was the year I started flying for TWA. I learned quickly that my employer was exploiting us as workers, and exploiting us as women doing what is now known as”emotional labor”. At the same time the airline companies were trying to convince us how lucky we were to work for them. I became a union activist until I left in 1985.

Here is a statement from another woman, Domenica, who outlines exactly how the current airline companies have managed to steal pay from their employees. You will learn how just compensation for required labor is denied thousands of flight attendants every hour of the day. Please consider signing her petition.

“Being a flight attendant is a hard job, and has only gotten harder since the pandemic. Domenica, a former US flight attendant, is fighting to ensure that the folks who keep us safe while traveling are paid what they’re due. Join the 180,000+ travelers standing with her.

A new video of unruly passengers being kicked off of an airplane seems to go viral weekly. Passenger incidents increased 47% from 2021 to 2022. But while our flight attendants are dealing with difficult passengers so our planes can take off, most of them aren’t being paid. Nearly all major airlines do not pay flight attendants during the boarding process. The clock doesn’t start on their compensation until the pilot pulls the brakes.

Flight attendants schedules were originally built off of railroad schedules. Currently there are no airlines in North America that compensate flight attendants for boarding. We only get clocked for our flight times. When the pilots pull the breaks. Not when we have customers on board or delays or mechanicals. Even though we are required by the FAA to complete specific job related safety procedures and interact with customers.

Since this is “free” time for the airlines, they are able to manipulate us as much as they would like. This makes us work longer hours, keeps us away from our homes longer, and puts significantly more stress on our bodies, and physical and mental health.

I want to leave aviation better than I found it. I know how much money our companies steal from us, and I know how much we deserve it.

It is incredibly challenging to be a flight attendant. I hear it all of the time “I couldn’t do what you do.” We are professionals. Customer service experts. Energy experts. Time experts. We work really hard to keep planes moving on time and customers happy. Just like everyone else at these airlines.

We deserve to be compensated for the times when we are working. Our hourly rate looks amazing, but at the end of the day we are working under minimum wage for at least the first 5 years of our career. Adding on terrible rest rules, overwhelm from corporate emails, and unpaid time for paperwork, annual and quarterly training or being on airport standby.

In a perfect world we should be paid as soon as you step foot in the airport until your trip ended, but I will settle for pushing the needle to getting paid for boarding.

I would like to note that pilots are also not compensated for this time.

Thank you for your consideration, support and sharing this incredibly important matter.”

Paula asks that you follow this link and sign Domenica’s petition.
https://www.change.org/p/flight-attendants-need-to-be-paid-for-boarding