Master of Arts

                                                 Master Of Arts



     I sit alone in the house I once shared with Linda, I look around and see her in everything around me. Every wall, every shelf, where ever there is a space to put something there is something that Linda made with a needle and thread or piece of cloth and even a few things of ceramic.
     Linda first learned to sew in a high school home economics class and later when she stayed with my parents, while I was in Vietnam, my mother introduced her to other forms of needlework such as crochet and knitting. Somewhere along the way Linda picked up embroidery, counter cross stitch, quilting and anything else that could be done with a needle and thread. Over the years she tried them all and was very successful at most of them with the exception of knitting.
     I don't know why knitting was not to her liking but it wasn't, the only thing she ever knitted was a turtleneck sweater for me, she worked on it for quite sometime  but it just didn't turn out the way she had hoped. I thought the sweater was beautiful, it was a nice maroon color and it was warm, it was also big enough that both of us could fit into it at the same time which did not bother me as I liked Linda close to me. Linda wanted to rip the sweater apart and start over but I talked her out of it and wore it as it was, I was proud of it and loved it and it was very warm.
     Linda's skill with needle and thread developed quickly and she became a master at her craft, all of her work was not only beautiful, it was perfect. Back in the early 1970's we bought an older home for our first house and one Christmas I bought her a needle point kit titled " The Four Seasons ". It was something she had been wanting for sometime but it cost $50 which was a lot of money back then. The kit when completed would be a picture 32" x 25" and take her several years to complete, the completion time was not due to the size of the project but rather the care which Linda put into it. One night I walked in and she was pulling out all of the thread from the work she had completed which consisted of about 1/3 of the project. When I asked why she showed me where the threads were not consistent  so the nap was uneven, she did this several times after that but to look at the finished work you will know her persistence was worthwhile. It has been several years since I have seen the kit advertised, the last time it was valued at more than $400 as a kit, to me the finished work is priceless. This particular piece of art occupies a wall in the bedroom and when I am gone it will be passed down to one of the Grand kids who will hopefully recognize it's value as an heirloom and pass it along to future generations.
     Over the next few years, between raising two boys and putting up with me dragging her and them all across the country and back, she worked on many projects but seemed to narrow them down to quilting and crocheting.
     Not long after returning to Georgia Linda met up with a lady who made ceramic dolls that ranged in size from a couple of inches high to several inches high, they had one problem, they were naked and needed clothes desperately. Diane Waring was the lady who made the dolls, Linda would create, by trial and error, a pattern for each doll then crochet dresses, pants, shirts and accessories for them. Linda and Diane bonded and one of the most beautiful friendships developed between them, it lasted for at least 20 yrs. until Linda's death.
     In celebration of our 25th anniversary we left the kids behind and took a trip to Gatlinburg, Tn., we stopped at a small welcome center in the Georgia mountains area and looked around. I found an older lady siting in a corner cutting octagon shapes from stiff paper, she had a couple hundred stacked up so I asked what she was doing. The lady explained that this was an old English method of quilting rarely practiced anymore, I found Linda and got her to talking to the lady, which wasn't difficult, and as we drove off the wheels started turning in her head. Not long after we returned from Gatlinburg Linda started piling up a collection of octagon shaped pieces of stiff paper and fretting over the correct design she intended to produce.
     When she started this project we had a king size waterbed, this was another one of those projects that took awhile to complete but the day did finally come around. I was there when Linda took the massive quilt and spread it out on the waterbed and I watched as her shoulders slumped upon realizing she made a slight error. The quilt when spread out on the waterbed also piled up on the floor around the bed, this was just a slight miscalculation which only took a few more months to fix.
     The quilt turned out beautiful and a great conversation piece, it now adorns Danny and Marie's bed, I hope that they will take care of it so that maybe one day it too will become an heirloom to be passed down thru generations.
     While living in California, Linda crocheted for an organization that needed baby booties and hats, they used these items as gifts to encourage young unwed and often unemployed pregnant girls to keep their doctors appointments. She made hundreds of pairs of booties and hats from scrap yarn, she never charged them for her time or materials.
      Not long after moving into this house she hooked up with a lady named Fran who worked with an organization called " Newborns In Need ", they crocheted baby blankets and hats for premature babies, small oranges and golf balls were used to size the hats. I can't tell you how many blankets she made over the last few years, I do know that in the last year of her life she made in the neighborhood of 150 blankets. She used store coupons, loose change and even had me collecting aluminum cans to pay for the yarn.
     In addition to working on the above projects, she worked on other things such as baby blankets which she sold to people who gave them as gifts, some were given freely to friends for their newborns. She made trinkets such as her wonder wallet, Barbie doll clothes and dresses for other brands of dolls and sold them at craft shows, the proceeds went to tuition for Danny and Clay.
     Once in California another mother who was a Cub Scout den mother with Linda was dying of cancer and wanted to go to Salt Lake City to see her sister one more time. Linda and another den mother worked tirelessly for several weeks prior to Easter making crochet Easter Bunny baskets from plastic milk jugs and then sold them in front of the local grocery store to raise funds for a plane ticket. They bought the ticket and had enough left over to insure a happy Easter for the lady's kids and husband and give them $200 cash for whatever they needed.
     These projects were close to her heart and she did them with love and as with everything else they were beautiful, not a stitch was out of place, they were perfect. Countless strangers have benefited from her artistry, children across the country born in less than ideal situations and conditions were warmed by her works of art made with love.
      Now I look around and see the things she made to brighten her own world, the quilts, wall hangings, afghans, table cloths and pillow cases, the list seems endless. She would spend countless hours sitting on the back deck or the couch in front of the TV even riding in the truck as I drove  on a long trip, she paid attention only to the piece she had in her hand, to her it wasn't work it was enjoyment, an act of love. For someone who could not see her own beauty she left the world a more beautiful place in her deeds and her art and in that she was a master.