Today’s Kona Cotton color of the day is Lake. Lake is that light blue color that you just want to swim in.
When I was a kid, we lived in a rural farming area. I actually lived on a dirt road. They only paved portions of the road in front of the houses to help those that lived there, but that only occurred when I was 9 or 10 and we moved from there when I was eleven and a half. But about a 10 minute ride by car from where we lived was a lake called Conesus Lake. It’s pronounced Co-NEE-shus.
There was a little place called Long Point Beach Park near the midpoint of the lake. My parents had been taking my brother and I there from the time we were little, like 2 and 3 years old. We grew up with that park. It had swimming from the beach part. It was roped off from the larger part of the lake for the swimmers. And they had a platform for jumping off and diving into the lake. Of course the bottom of the lake (in the swimming area) didn’t have sand, it had rocks, most of them smooth. It didn’t matter, it was fun anyway. It was sad the summer we moved away because the lake level had fallen so much that they wouldn’t allow anyone jumping off the platform, the lake was too low and it just seemed like the fun was kind of gone. But the memories live on.
This lake park also had fun rides, like a small rollercoaster, a tilt-o-whirl, and one of those…. scrambler type rides. They had food booths, arcade type games and a rollerskating rink, although we were too young and my parents never went or took us rollerskating. It was always lots of fun because our parents would take us there at least 2 – 3 times every summer. My brother and I LOVED riding the rollercoaster and from that point on…. ANY rollercoaster. At my age now though…. rollercoasters are not fully my thing anymore. I think the realization of my mortality has taken some of the fun out of it. Also, I have other priorities now. Things change. But I’ll still have my memories of those days of fun.
I’ve been in Texas for roughly 43 years now (yeah, I know. You just figured out how old I am), so it’s been a long time. I looked it up to see how and what’s changed for Long Point Park. Well, it’s not the good old days anymore. The park is still there and it looks nice. They still have a roped off swim area, but it’s much smaller than it once was. And there are more houses and buildings along the shore that weren’t there before. The park is more of a campground park with a pavillion than what was once there long ago. The buildings are gone and there are no “carnival” type rides or games. The building that housed the rollerskating rink is also gone.
This is why going back to some places long after you leave is difficult. Because what’s changed competes with your memories. And sometimes the reality is starkly different and not always for the better. It’s not always for the worse either, but the fond memories of childhood will always argue with reality for what was good and fun and reality will always lose to the memories. I’m a very sentimental person and the things that I find that I have loved over the course of my life, I haven’t liked change. But time marches steadily on, its the one thing you CAN’T change and change is ever constant.
This is why labeling your quilt is SO SO important. I don’t know how to stress that enough. Also is journaling about your quilting processes and journey. It’s history. History is important. Who were the people involved in making something so beautiful and tremendous? What was the quilt based on? Practically every quilter names their quilts. It’s like a rite of passage from start to finish. It speaks to them and hopefully also to the recipients of their quilts. Do me a favor, huh? If you’re making a quilt, PUT A LABEL ON IT. The label should contain at bare minimum who the quilt is made for, who the quilt is made by, the name of the pattern or designer (if there is one) and the date. The date matters, but you can put the year, or the month and year, specifically the year it was finished. Some give a date of when it was started and when it was finished….. because with UFO’s….. you know, there was a lot of living in between.
Finish what you start and label your quilt. Your future friends and family will one day appreciate that tiny bit of history.
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