Stitch to Memorialize Auntie T

Auntie Theresa was my Godmother and favorite Aunt who passed away the end of April ; she was 89 years old.  I had mentioned that I was planning to start a memorial stitch for her and had ordered some charts that I planned to pull bits and pieces and motifs from to create my own memorial sampler.  Those have finally arrived, and I gathered them Thursday night and got to a bit of planning.  I have already thought about the things I want to put in the stitch but will start with one motif and then just move on from there to decide what I want to add next and where.   The only thing I knew I would have to do a bit of charting for was one of the main items I knew had to be included and I would have to do an outline chart to make sure it looked right.

This is Stony Hill School just outside of Waubeka, Wisconsin, where my Aunt lived.  It’s on the National Historic Register, you can probably read the sign which tells about it but its recognized as the location for the first  bservance of Flag Day.   June 14 is Flag Day and Waubeka  has a Flag Day parade the second Sunday in June  (this year’s parade is tomorrow) .  This is the 78th year Waubeka has celebrated/commemorated Flag Day.  I don’t know if they have always had parades  all those years but I recall many fond memories of  trips to visit when I was young to be there for the Flag Day parade.  My Granny lived just down the street from Auntie T and was right on the parade route across the street from the judging stand in those days so Aunts, Uncles, Cousins all gathered at Granny’s to watch the parade and for a cookout in the back yard.

Auntie T was involved with those parades for more years than I can remember and was parade marshall one year.  Fundraising, getting bands, floats and other parade participants organized,  helping organize fund raiser dinners at other times of the year and gathering donations for auctions to raise funds, giving tours of the Americanism Center very near her house and so many other things.  She was an officer of the National Flag Day Foundation for many years and was very proud to be involved with all things Flag Day, so that will be the major theme in my stitch.

Now back to Stony Hill School.  When I knew I wanted to include  it, I thought of a chart I had – Cinnamon Stars – that had the sort of rockwork for the building that Stony Hill is made of. 

 

Next, I drew a basic outline of my version of Stony Hill School so I could get the porch roof and support poles in place, doors, roofline and little arched window in place and then sort of follow the  Cinnamon Stars chart to fill in the rocky facade of the building.  The porch roof was a bit tricky to figure out because  at the top of it it doesn’t extend to the end of the building, but is set in farther but I think I have it figure out.

Here’s my quick sketch (distorted because taking a photo of graph paper creates wierd wavy lines) 🙂   but you get the general idea.

And here’s the start on the stitching so far.

Working on the porch roof and need to fill in the door panels.   I just pulled this thread color so need to gather some other colors I want to use for the rock walls.

Of course, it needs a very grand flag flying above the school so I think I will use the one from this chart.

So that is my initial plan for this project.  We’ll see how many of my ideas for meaningful motifs I can actually get on this piece of fabric since I’m just winging it as I go along. 🙂

Summer Schoolhouse progress

I made good progress on this section.  That house is a lot of stitching.  

Here it is alongside the next block.  The project is so long it’s hard to photograph all as one, but you’ve seen the other sections enough. 🙂  This has been put away for a while since I started a new project Thursday so will post some info on that next.