Every year in Gualala a very large Christmas tree is set up inside a shopping area. On it are heart ornaments that people use to remember someone who has died. Several years ago I put up a heart ornament for my Grandma Irvine, and one for Rick Hansen.
A couple of weeks ago at my Tuesday quilting group, Lori brought all of the raw materials for making these hearts. She had volunteered to make some, so she roped us into helping her! It actually was quite fun. One person traced shapes onto red felt, green felt, and white cotton. Another person cut out the red felt, another the green felt, and someone else did the white cotton hearts. Then we each took several of them home with us to finish up by layering the fabrics, inserting the ribbon, and doing a decorative stitch around to hold it all together. Lori encouraged us to put a little decoration on the hearts, like a button, or a bow, or green felt holly leaves. I sewed mine up, then looked in my button container for some appropriate buttons. I saw this little tractor button that I had been saving for a special occasion. And I thought, even though the tractor is the wrong color (!)* this would be a good way to remember my dad. So I wrote his name and dates on this heart when I gave all my hearts back to Lori.
There are literally hundreds of these memorial hearts on the large tree. And now my dad's ornament will be there with them.
* For those of you who don't know your tractors, this green and yellow tractor tells us it is a John Deere tractor. On our farm, we had red tractors, which were made by Farmall. But, the tractor button I found was green, so I hope no one minds about the discrepancy.
