Quilt and Bees

For all of you who offered ideas for restoring the quilt my mother made for her and Steve, her husband and my stepfather, that upon his death she gave to me, the news is that the quilt is back on our bed splendidly restored. Dwight and I have adorned our bed and kept warm with this quilt ever since we moved to MuRefuge. The restoration process was vast since the binding was worn and many spots tattered as the quilt was made from scraps, some pretty old, others not so much so, not to mention the wear and tear by the four leggeds who have lived at MuRefuge and shared the bed with us.

A corner with the replaced binding

Susan Vorbeck of Designs in Fabric, Petaluma, was the person who restored the quilt and educated me in the process. To make newly purchased fabric antique she boils the fabric in a cast iron pot, repeating the process until she likes how aged the fabric looks. 

Extra fabric for future restoration

And she points out that handmade quilts are imbued with the spirit of the person performing the intricate work, which is readily felt by those touching the quilt. Susan was creative.

A rent in the lower right hand heart Susan creatively repaired.

And she spent many hours lovingly repairing what my mother made over a quarter of a century ago. Yet she honored the amount I was willing to pay for this rather large project.

Restored quilt on bed

In a recent issue of Nature Conservancy appeared the following: "Food Security. The Farm's Best Friend. Wild bees are better than their domesticated cousins for pollinating crops, according to research recently published in the journal Science. Led by Argentina-based scientist Lucas Garibaldi, a global team of 50 researchers found that  wild bees and other native insects are twice as effective at pollinating crops - such as almonds, apples and coffee - as managed bees whose hives are moved to farm fields for that purpose. 'These results dispel the myth that managed honeybees can make up for the loss of wild pollinators.' says Christina Kennedy, a Nature Conservancy scientist who was coauthor of the study."