Penny Sanford Porcelains

Feeling Sassy!

Here's a peek at my sassy new hairdo!  I love it!

We still have hot steamy days here in Mississippi, but the mornings and evenings are cooler.

Fall is coming!  A little burst of air will create a shower of leaves across the yard.

Likewise, my stylist created a shower of hair falling on her studio floor!  Yet one more attempt to grow my hair longer has been sacrificed to my impatience, the Mississippi hot weather and my intolerance of hair that requires much fuss to "do"!

If one can donate hair for Locks of Love , then our scientists should get to work to figure out how to let us donate Pounds for People Who Can't Gain Weight!  *gleeful laugh* 

I'd be delighted to donate some pounds grown on farm fresh vegetables and pesticide-free farm fruit, and other excellent Southern cuisine!

Ahhh, back to work with a fresh pear to crunch on, picked this morning.  Delicious!  Wish I could share with you!

45 Years Ago...

It was before 7:30 p.m. on September 22,... forty-five years ago tonight.

Our beloved family doctor, Dr. Homer Howard, M.D., in Winona, MS, told my mother that he wanted to watch a football game on television, and that she had better get busy and have that baby! 

It was Ole Miss vs. someone.  (Ole Miss is the University of Mississippi.) Dr. Howard was probably only partly teasing.  He was quite focused about his football!

At any rate, Mama took Dr. Howard seriously, and popped me out in time for him to get home to cheer for his alma mater (or so I am told).  I hope Ole Miss won that night. 

From the family slides and photos Gordon continues to digitize and re-master (clean up scratches and restore color), it appears I was a bit of a camera ham!

See that stack of books on the table behind my mother and me in the first photo?  That was 1964; I was two. 

I've never outgrown that love of reading!  Thanks, Mama and Daddy, for spending countless hours reading to me as a child.

My love of dogs and other pets began early too.  This mechanical dog was a Christmas present in 1964.  That is about the same look that bursts forth on my face with each new pet that blesses my life, even now.

March, 1966 (age 4), I was the cover girl for Volume 30, Issue No. 1 of the Mississippi Library News. 

From that same photo shoot, a billboard was created that popped up all around Mississippi in 1966.  As I understand it, local businesses around the state sponsored the billboard encouraging children to read.

Wow, I'm 45 years old tonight! How did that happen so fast? 

My mother was 40 when she gave birth to me... an only child.  She and Daddy waited four years for me.  They had just about given up hope.

Now, after almost four years of marriage for Gordon and me, I struggle at times with the steel thud of realization that we won't have a child of our own.

That was just not a scenario that I ever thought would play out for me. I always thought I would have a child late in life like my mother.

I never thought I would personally understand the deep ache of an empty womb and empty arms and an empty corner of my heart... or the sense of failing as a woman in an area God designed just for women.

For whatever reason, God has chosen that Gordon and I should expend our energies elsewhere.

Our life is full and happy... and overflowing with responsibility.  We nurture my 85 year old mother and 81 year old uncle, both of whom live on the farm with us. 

Our arms are full of rescued dogs and one rescued cat, all of whom absorb all the love we have to give them. They return that love many fold.

It is still not the same as giving birth to a baby who came from the love that Gordon and I share... and seeing on Gordon's face the same look that is on Daddy's face in this picture as he held me, age two.

We have a choice in how we respond to the vagaries of life. I have to choose (sometimes many times a day) to see my vase half full, not half empty.

God has a reason for allowing us to remain childless. Whatever He has ahead for Gordon and me will fill us completely. 

But sometimes, at some significant milestone of our journey, I have to stop and allow myself time to cry. No regrets. Not even what if's. Just a woman's need for cleansing tears from time to time.

American Profile Article about the Studio

Taking a tiny break this afternoon while working on some wicked porcelain deadlines.  Blogging is always refreshing, so.....

Here is an article from earlier this summer. 

Actually, this is a snippet about the original article written seven years ago in American Profile magazine about the studio, Penny Sanford Porcelains.

Someone from the publication called earlier this year to verify the facts in the original article were still accurate. 

Then a synopsis or excerpt of the original article appeared in the May 28, 2007, American Profile publication, the paper version inserted into close to eight million papers every week.

Now I see where American Profile has built an online compilation of Trivia and Tidbits for each state.  Here is the one for Mississippi with my blurb down in the list.

Here is the original article that ran in American Profile on December 10, 2000.

To the lovely friends who mailed or delivered a copy of this latest mention in American Profile, thank you very much.  I would not have known about this tidbit had you not told me!

My Life Through the Passenger Window

Sometimes the only way to capture a moment is to just point and shoot....and not worry about perfection.

Coming back from giving a program to the Tallahala Chapter of the Mississippi Daughters of the American Revolution in Ellisville, MS, Gordon was sweet to turn around and go back for a significant number of pictures. 

On the way home on Highway 49, we passed four or five polished, sparkling vintage cars.  I think these were the type that are retrofitted with whatever will make them roadworthy in the 21st Century.  There must have been a vintage car gathering in that part of the state yesterday.

I happened to have camera in lap, so these two snaps did not escape me!  Practicing in Adobe CS2 this afternoon (stumbling around blindly is more like it), I played with sepia tints.

So as our days speed forward on this Highway of Life, there is personal nourishment in grabbing an unexpected photo through the passenger window and experimenting with some new-to-me technique. 

The fast-track version of "Stopping to Smell the Roses"?

Now back to the clothes and dishes and never-ending TO DO list and taking care of family, both two-legged and four-legged...

Choosing a Vase Half Full

Yep, I've been seduced by another Block of the Month Quilt. 

Robyn Pandolph's Botanika

So while riding back to the farm from giving a speech to the Samuel Dale Chapter of the Mississippi DAR in Meridian, MS, last week, I realized that the progress on my first block of Botanika perfectly expressed how I choose to view life.

My vase is half full.  Not half empty.  It is a choice I have to make, sometimes every day, sometimes every hour. 

If you and I do not choose to view life's challenges in a positive light, we all could be overwhelmed and buried under the complications.

This is a cornerstone of my Christian faith, and I believe that when this symbolic vase if filled, the journey will have been well worth the bumps in the road.

(Feeling a bit philosophical about the emotional release sewing has been giving me lately...*grin*)

The style of this fun Block of the Month quilt is  a bit of a challenge for me.  My default style setting is either realistic or traditional.

Botanika is more stylized than anything I've ever done in any format.  This will be a fun stretch to my creative habits.

The fabric choices from Stitchin' Heaven are much more beautiful than the original quilt, IMHO.  I especially love the parchment-colored floral background material over the original striped material.

(Yes, I realize I seem to be stuck on that quilt shop.  What can I say?  Repeated quality experiences, and they continue to capture my creative attention.)

Continuing Education:  If you know of a book that will help me learn about the differences in the quality of fabric, please share that with me. 

I really want to learn the terminology.  What makes a sateen?  What is the thread count of the high quality fabric used in this BOM kit? 

Ok, so I understand thread count.  Since this is a cotton producing farm, I have a beginning understanding of cotton staple (length of fibers).

Is fabric identified by weight?  So would this super background fabric be identified as ___ count ____ pound _____ 100 percent cotton from the ______ collection from Moda?  (I think this is Moda fabric - forgot to look at the selvage).

How Sewing is like Life

Here is another drive-by photograph...for which hubby would not stop and let me walk closer for a better shot.  C'est la vie.

This photo moves me.  It was snapped in Waveland, Mississippi, a few weeks back.  The emotions it evokes in me are not sad, though.

The debris of the house has been cleared away.  The foundation remains.  This sewing machine remains.  The green grass and leaves have begun to weave a visual covering for the scars of the monumental hurricane.

I can't quite put my feelings into words yet, but there is something about starting again...sewing (symbolizing life) and the love thereof being a journey of new starts...fresh starts...remaking from old fabric, adding new fabric.

That is what life seems to be all about for Gordon and me in this season of our life together.

We have an ever-growing list of rips and torn fragments from all areas of our lives waiting to be repaired, patched, remade and even turned into something more beautiful (like a quilt). 

Sometimes life hands us some pristine new fabric, giving us an opportunity to learn new techniques to make garments (relationships) stronger ...or to make the same mistakes in construction that cause the garment (relationship) to fray and come apart far before its time.