the farm girl becomes a school girl

we're home again, home again, and while we had the most wonderful time away for the past 2 weeks, it's so nice to be home.

To see our mountains covered with snow, to have coffee with Mr. Jefferson and visit with "the treasures"

and sleep in my own bed again.

While were away celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary

I did a little something just for me...

I attended the

"Remember Me When This You See " ~Embroideries and Painted Arts of the New Republic~

Symposium in Colonial Williamsburg.

It truly was a most wonderful experience.

I felt like an enthusiastic and eager school girl, drinking in every delectable bit of the lectures in story telling, pictures and seeing first hand the early school girl arts, mourning art, early clothing and textiles-most wonderful were lectures given by Linda Baumgarten, Curator of Textiles and Costumes at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Amy Finkel of M. Finkel & Daughter Samplers and Silk Embroideries.

On the last day I was one of 15 other women that were able to go on a tour with Linda Baumgarten into the conservation buildings where all the treasures are stored. Behind locked doors and temperature controlled rooms, wearing white cotton gloves Linda pulled out huge flat drawers, one after another filled with everything imaginable that could have been embroidered and hand sewn of wool, linen, cottons and silks. 1700's French ball gowns, hand embroidered silk stockings, mitts, shoes, caps..some with the silken threads still bright as if new, 2 drawers full of embroidered and stitched men & ladye's pockets-

be still my heart-

there were embroidered silk mourning pictures,theorems, paintings, hand painted wallpapers...

what we were able to see is still overwhelming to me

and my visit much too short.

After all this,

I will never be the same again,

inside or out.

~~~

So now this farm girl will continue her efforts as a school girl herself.

I've begun to draw up a large sampler to stitch of silken threads on linen.

a large farmhouse in the center surrounded by trees and fields and

gardens filled with flowers

& every bird and animal on our farm.

and most certainly a winding flower'd & fruited border surrounding it all

and in the very center

all the names of those I hold dearest stitched between.

happy to be home,

xoC