Memory Quilt #1 - Ready for the Next Stage

 The top - all held together with paste, ready to add some fabric paint in a few places, including the crease in the sky and some shadows.  Then, it's time to sit at the sewing machine and sew down every little piece that has been added to the quilt top, and then do some thread painting.  When that's done, it's time for the quilt sandwich, and some quilting to finish up.  I think I'll just add facing and a sleeve to this quilt, and not worry about a border.

 Detail - My solution to a couple of problems, including the disproportionate pictures on the left.

 The tree - how many pieces?  I lost count.

And, the lone sunflower plant  - couldn't leave them all out.  That poor bird was supposed to be a meadow lark in the fabric.  Think it's tummy will become the proper yellow.

Designing and constructing this quilt top has been a lot of fun, and brought back many memories.  If Dwight hadn't been the amazing photographer he was as a "kid", with his Baby Brownie camera, we wouldn't have these incredible nostalgic pictures that are on this quilt.  I'm trying to decide what the subject of the next memory quilt will be.  By the way, no one has given me a name for this quilt?????

(This is the story that I concocted - in the picture above, you can see that I have a shadow of the actual fork.)  

Alfalfa Hay was first mown, and later raked into windrows so that it could cure in the sun.  I drove the John Deere, following the windrow of hay, and the hay was picked up by a hay loader that trailed behind the wagon, that had teeth that carried the hay up onto the wagon where my brother, Dwight, arranged and packed it.  When the wagon was full, we would head for the stack yards, where the giant derrick for the Jackson Fork was used to build large haystacks for winter use.  

    

My grandfather’s derrick for the Jackson Fork was well built of poles, and the pulley system carefully constructed.  Our team of horses, named Pet and Babe,  was hitched to the pulley system.  Grandfather would be on top of the haystack, Dad would be on the wagonload of hay, and Dwight would be ready to lead the team.  The horses would go far enough ahead to raise the large fork from the ground onto the hay wagon.  Dad would push the fork tines down into the load, and secure it.  He would give the signal to my brother, who would lead the horses ahead, so that the fork full of hay would rise from the wagon, and swing over to the haystack.  Grandpa would grab the trip rope and pull, and the hay would be deposited on top of the stack.  We often held our breaths, as the large clump of hay would threaten to cover him, but there were no mishaps.