A few months ago, my husband and I made what we feel sure will be our last move. We downsized our home by about 250 sq ft and by about 5 closets! We will be semi-retired and have figured out that while we do like possessions, we just don’t need as much “stuff.” So, we began the sorting, saving, and pitching process. I can only speak for myself, but I have found over the years that I am not a very sentimental person who forms a strong attachment to “things.” I’m guessing it stems from moving a lot as a child. Who wants to move lots of unnecessary things halfway across the country? Not my parents. Haha! But I do have a few cherished things. One is a quilt my mom made me when I was 6 years old. It was right before we left for Oregon. She had all our clothes that we had outgrown in boxes upstairs and didn’t really want to get rid of them, so she cut them up and made my brother and I both bed-size quilts. When I came across it in my sorting a few months ago, I decided that was something I treasured. After all, the batting inside it was blankets from her own bed as a child, now 90+ years old. What’s not to treasure, right!? So, it has a special place in my new sewing/craft room.
Under mom’s tutelage I developed a love of sewing, making most of my own clothes, even my own winter dress coats, raincoats, etc. But, even as much as I loved sewing garments, I was always intimidated by quilts. I wanted to make one but just could never muster up the courage. That is until a young friend of mine, who in my estimation had not a domesticated bone in her body (meaning the typical things I was interested in- cooking, sewing, crafts, etc. she had no interest in), shows up at my house one day asking for my help with a quilt she and her grandma were making together by hand. As I looked at the blocks, a basic 9 patch, I saw that the stitching wasn’t good, some of the seams were on the outside, just not what I imagined would make a very pretty quilt. She wanted help putting the blocks together, so we laid them all out on my living room floor and asked my husband to come in and help with color placement, as he has a good eye for that. He got it all “balanced” and then she took it into my sewing machine and sewed the whole top together row by row. When she finished the top, it hit me! The beauty of that quilt was not the perfect stitches or even the color placement, but it was that she and her grandma had made a memory together. Another friend quilted it for her, and she still uses it on her bed every night, snuggling under the less-than-perfect quilt made by her now-deceased grandma and her. It made me think of my old quilt again. So, guess what I did!? I found a free pattern on the internet and, went out that day and bought the fabric for it and got busy making my own quilt! I was off and running and have probably made 50-60 quilts since then. I was even able to make a few with my mom before she went to live in a nursing home. Those are memories I treasure.
As I’m sitting here writing this, I am dealing with seasonal allergies. Springtime in the Ozarks has high readings of tree pollen. But the pull to dig in the flowers and plant and transplant is greater than my common sense, so I’m dealing with the aftermath. I decided to diffuse some Belle Aroma® Organic Sweet Orange Essential Oil in my Belle Aroma Essential Breeze® Aromatherapy Fan. Sweet Orange Oil can be calming, restorative, and antibacterial, so I thought it’d be a good immune booster. My diffuser is Marble Blue, and the other offering is Sage Green. I enjoy this diffuser because it can be battery operated, making it portable, or it can plug into my USB while I’m working. The built-in fan releases scent in intervals, so you can set it and forget it. No water and no heat are required.
Lori Herr for The Gift of Scent