My Back Porch

“People in, say, Georgia aren’t sitting on the front porch singing anymore.  They’re inside in the air-conditioning, watching cable like everybody else.”  Charles Reagan Wilson

Hummmph!   I don’t know who this guy is or if he has done a statistically accurate survey on this topic,  but I do know that here in central Florida, my family spends a lot of time on our back porch.  We don’t often sing, but that’s out of consideration for the wildlife and any neighbors within hearing distance.   However, that’s not to say we never escape to the air conditioned house to watch cable like his folks in Georgia.

We spend a great deal of time out there enjoying a variety of pleasant activities.   I often smock or do handwork while my dear husband and I watch college football game re-runs, each of us in our personal rocking chair.  We are regular American Gothic grandparents.

Here, the grandchildren have tea parties, play with the doll house, build with blocks or do art work on a table in place for that purpose.  Being on the porch together is good family time.  It gives me a nice,  cozy feeling.

What a shame that every home does not have a big porch.  The very word  evokes any number of pleasant images.  I’ve searched the thesaurus but the suggested synonyms, i.e. balcony, deck, portico, stoop, veranda, are architecturally inaccurate.   Nor can they conjure up warm visions of  family and friends enjoying one another’s company, children playing while adults relax with glasses of sweet tea,  grandmother smocking a baby dress…. list goes on and on.  Nothing BAD is supposed to happen on the porch. But who knows what might happen on a balcony or stoop.  I don’t want to think about it.

Of course, there was that unfortunate incident when our black Lab puppies, Jacob and Esau, ate my antique wicker love seat, but that was an isolated fluke/catastrophe that I have chosen to forget.  Mostly.

This is not a great picture. Why did I center the exercise bike?

 I don’t know who Charles Holley is either, but his statement I like:   “My vision is to see a nice neighborhood with children playing on the street and people on porches, with smiles on their faces.”  Charles Holley

Our back porch looks over the swimming pool and we do smile as we watch our children and grandchildren splashing there in the Florida sunshine. Well, I smile–Bob is usually in the water in the midst of  the action.

At one end of our back porch is this sitting area and a work table for the grandchildren’s  arts and crafts.

At the other end, near the kitchen, are porch toys, the little tea party table and a doll house.  Also, an old picnic table that Bob put together when he was 12 is our preferred dining spot for cookouts.   We eat there because everyone can be seated on the wooden benches in their wet bathing suits.

I’ve neglected this busy center of family activity for some time now.  The start of my mini makeover is this  quick machine embroidered sunflower pillow. It began its life as a tea towel from one of my favorite sites, www.allaboutblanks.com and was easily re-purposed as a pillow cover.

In February, when I taught at Sewing at the Beach in Myrtle Beach, All About Blanks had a market there.  Their display of products and the samples they had made up were a wealth of inspiration.  Several of these checkered hem towels  in a variety of colors came home with me.

The sunflower embroidery design is from Babylock’s Jacket Backs collection.  The jumbo buttons at the bottom  begged to be included.  The large designs in this Babylock collection are  great for pillows. I plan to make one for Independence Day using a whimsical flag  made up of lady bugs, strawberries, flowers and other patterns.

A dishtowel pillow would make a quick and easy little gift for anyone. My Aunt Aileen lives in a nursing home and might enjoy a seasonal decorative pillow for her bed or the chair in her room.

I might make one each for Laurel and Robert to put on their beds here at our house. On their beds at home, there are so many stuffed animals that making the bed is akin to moving a herd of cattle from one pasture to another. In fact, there are so many that for more than a month Laurel chose to sleep on a quilt on the floor, because there was not room in the bed for her, all of the animals and her almost life size Minnie Mouse!   I’m certain that my darling DIL wouldn’t want more bed decor.  Alastair is too young for decorative bed pillows but his day will come.

This also would be a good beginner sewing project for children—a little measuring, straight stitching, hand sewing on the buttons. Hummmmmm….

I have a lot of ideas for these versatile, stylish towels. What I don’t have is a lot of time. I wonder how many will end up as pillows and how many will end up in my kitchen towel drawer.