Saturday, April 21, 2012

S ~ sy = sew

My Farmor and Farfar left with me such a rich legacy of love, heritage, family, and tradition. A huge part of that legacy is in the crafts they taught me to do. Today's word is sy which means to sew.

Pronunciation:
I got help from Best on today's phonics lesson. I was stumped as to how I was going to explain this to you. Of course, she nailed it. She has magic ears.
See ya!” only you're in such a hurry that you kinda leave off the “a” at the end. Try it. Good, just one more time. I think you've got it!

I have way too many examples of Farmor and Farfar's work to display them all at the same time. At first it was only Farmor who did cross-stitch, but when Farfar retired (he was a plumbing engineer) he took up the hobby. Let me share a few of my favorites with you.  

Farfar made several of these.  The name of the piece is "Stjärngossarna" which means "star boys".  It's a reference to the December 13 celebration of Lucia. 




Here's a "real life" picture of boys fulfilling this role.



This next piece is a traditional confirmation celebration embroidery.  In Sweden, all (well most, you know every culture has its rebels) 14 year-olds are exposed to the gospel message of Christ dying for their sins, and spend a year in weekly classes, or a summer session of several weeks in camp, learning these lessons.  At the conclusion of the studies, there's a ceremony.  Afterwards, there's a reception, and lots of gifts are given.  Here's 14 year-old Tina posing with her gifts, and you can see the embroidery hanging off the front edge of the table.  A table which is now 1.8 miles from my Colorado home, at my parents' house.  The entire five piece furniture set was handmade, and in this picture, 3 of those pieces are visible.  


My Farfar also embroidered a long wall-piece of sunflowers for me.  This was well before sunflowers became my passion.  






I'm so glad I have these pieces of their love decorating my home.  What did your grandparents teach you?  Do you have any handmade family heirlooms to share with us?

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Just a reminder that on May 7th we'll be doing our annual reflections posts.  What did you learn?  Who did you meet?  What the next step in your blogging journey?  If you want to get an idea of reflections posts, here's mine from last year.


18 comments:

Cheryl said...

My MorMor would and could make a silk purse from a sow's ear mostly because time's were tough and her kids needed clothes on their backs. Besides sewing, knitting, and crocheting, she did crewel (shoot me now!) which was extraordinary. Later in life she crafted using whatever was at hand.

My FarMor sewed out of necessity too. Later in life, she embroidered with thread to create gorgeous table cloths, runners, and wall hangings.

My FarFar and MorFar both worked with wood.

I have many pieces from all of them.

Brian Miller said...

very cool...i like the embroidery and the symbolism that goes with each...even those harry potter convention pics...hehe...just kidding, the star boys....

Sara Hill said...

Beautiful handiwork. I especially love the St. Lucy tribute, which for sentimental reasons is my favorite saint.

Unknown said...

Very intereseting. I love family heirlooms and grandparents are so important. It is too bad that in the U.S. so many family do not engage in cross generational sharing. All of my grandparents are gone, but my husband's Oma has taught us about gardening and preserving and Austrian cooking. I love that sunflower wall hanging and the pointed hat star people!

Laurita said...

Those are lovely. I especially like the star boys. What treasures.

loverofwords said...

Wish I had my grandparents near me but we moved from New York to the wilds of Colorado, My R, S, and T blogs talk about losing my heritage and then trying to find it and your happy experience with your grandparents where I recommended your blog.

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

The girl in the embroidery even looks like you.
One of my grandmothers was a painter and I have several of her pieces on the wall.

Melonie said...

I used to love doing cross stitch. I kinda lost interest when I got into knitting, but these pictures make me want to get back into it. Thanks for the reminder!

Just swinging through from A to Z.

Tracy said...

My grandmother taught me to sew and garden and a lot of other things...love the embroidery pieces. I use to love to embroider.

Lynn Proctor said...

this is all so very lovely--what a beautiful blog today

Marianne (Mare) Baker Ball said...

I have a handmade rolling pin that my paternal grandfather gave to my mother when my parents married. I also have the gravy boats from each on my grandmothers. Love all these heirlooms. See the gravy boats here...http://adventuresintheballpark.blogspot.com/2012/04/g-is-for-grandparents.html

Unknown said...

Those are beautiful. I love what you've done so far with your theme.

Christine Rains said...

What beautiful pieces. I really love the sunflowers. My Nana and Granddad were very special to me. My Granddad worked at a paper mill and would always supply me with paper to draw and write on. My Nana's still around and a very proud new great-Nana!

Unknown said...

Wow, I love those pieces, especially the sunflowers. My maternal grandmother used to do ceramics painting and painted a horse statue for me. Plus I have jewelry from both her and my grandfather. My paternal grandmother passed away long before I was born and I never really knew anything about her.

Arlee Bird said...

When I was in my 20s I used to do embroidery. I embroidered all sorts of things on clothes that I owned. I have a few of those pieces somewhere.


Lee
A Few Words
An A to Z Co-host blog
My Main blog is Tossing It Out

H said...

My mum tried her hand at loads of stuff; from sewing, knitting, embroidery and crochet to painting, pastels and pen & ink. She was very talented and I have loads of stuff to remember her by.

Liz Brownlee said...

Oh, I absolutely love the first embroidery, but they are all exquisite.

What a fabulous reminder of your grandparents.

Sadly mine had a lot of children and as they dd not name things to go to people, the estate was sold and the money divided with no keepsakes for anyone except photographs.

I'm definitely naming in my will! Gosh - how morbid.

I enjoyed your post, and the lesson on pronouncing Swedish!

http://www.lizbrownleepoet.com

Unknown said...

What can I say ? Another superb post about something dear to my heart, traditional sewing.

Hugs,
Anna

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Utmärkt inlägg om syslöjd, släktklenoder och kärlek mellan gamla och unga. Jag har också minnen från de mina.

Kram,
Anna