February TIF Challenge

The February Challenge is to do with what you are old enough to remember. Well, I was born in 1964 and grew up in Epping in Sydney (Australia). I was the youngest in my family with two older brothers.

I remember at school the little bottles of milk that used to be delivered first thing in the morning which would sit out in the sun until recess when they were handed around for us to drink. I'm sure this is why I don't like drinking milk now.

I remember Black and White television and dial phones. The only thing I remember about the Landing on the Moon was being told to keep quiet as I was too little to understand the significance of what was going on. I remember watching Disney on the television every Sunday night (this must have been alot later as it was in colour). I remember seeing the Cup and Saucer ride in the introduction to the show and saying to myself that one day I would go on that. I got to fulfil this dream when I went to Disneyland in the 90's. I also remember watching the Waltons every Sunday night as well - "Goodnight John Boy". This would have been when I was older too.

I also remember having a washing machine where you had to pass the clothes through rollers at the top to wring the water out of them. It was a funny looking thing, but a good invention for the time.

I remember the crackling sound as you put the needle down onto a record, also the repetitive sound of when it got stuck on a scratch. I remember my mum always playing Bing Crosby's White Christmas album, over and over again each Christmas. It seemed to make Christmas that little bit more special. I also loved singing along to "I'm dreaming of a White Christmas" while we were dripping with sweat from the summer sun.

My mum and dad had lots of old 78 records which were alot thicker. There were records of Al Jonson, Frank Sinatra, Debbie Reynolds, Judy Garland and many more that I can't remember. I remember when we got a new record player that was part of a large cabinet with inbuilt speakers on each side, that had an automatic needle, where you just flicked the nob and the handle came across all by itself and went down onto the record on the song that you wanted. I remember dancing all over the lounge room playing air guitar and jumping all over the lounge to Suzi Quatro's "Devil Gate Drive". I remember my mum taking me and a friend to my first concert to see Sherbet an Australian band.

I love this picture. This is me driving my first car. It was taken in the backyard of the house that my mother grew up in. We moved from there when I was about 4. The car in the background was our car. I remember gradually seeing the suburb we lived in, Epping, get bigger and bigger. After we had moved, a Service Station was built on the corner and then some years later the whole block that included this backyard that I'm driving my little car in was turned into office blocks.

Over the years I have heard so many stories from my mum about the neighbours that we used to live near in that street, the shopkeepers, how the war affected them, etc. To go down that street today you would never know that our little old timber house used to be there. I find it quite sad that as times change old buildings get pulled down, people pass on and all the wonderful characters and stories get lost in time. Thankfully some of these stories, buildings and objects get saved in museums and in history books, but there is still alot that gets lost. I suppose lots of times we think our lives aren't really very interesting, but most of us have a wealth of stories to tell. I've found it interesting reading the starting comments for this challenge. I've even learnt a few things - I had never heard of the March of Dimes before.

So from all this I've decided to do a small quilt, I like the 6 x 6 size which should be managable for me to finish in time. I'm going to further my skills as I haven't done photo transfers onto fabric before, so I'm going to use this photo for a transfer. I'm also going to have a tree of life in the background.

This relates to the TIF theme as I'm old enough to remember this peddle car and when our old timber house and backyard where still there. In this photo I had my whole life before me, driving along in my little car with no map to guide me along my way and the tree of life is like a pathway showing all the many different possibilities that could be taken.

I'll keep you posted on how I'm going.