Thursday 16 January 2014

Turnip Tags

 
 
Today's Featured Mittens
Evening in Paris
 
        When I started naming mittens, I used the backs of old cards to make labels.  After all, recycling and being cheap is part of my "philosophy". I cut the card backs into star shapes, labeled them and tied them to my mittens.  Example below---"Rainbow Through the Fundy Fog".

Rainbow Through the Fundy Fog
 
              A few months into the mitten-making craze, I remembered the turnip tags I had recently been given by my sister Kathy during her clean-up of the family homestead woodshed.  She had proudly and sarcastically gifted them to me as part of my inheritance.  The turnip tags carry a great deal of memory and were the perfect size to work as mitten labels. 

Turnip Tags 
 
 Memories on the front.....
Moss Glen
 
 
Mitten names on the back.......
Candy Cane

A Turnip Tag Memory:

 When I was a little girl (how many stories start out with this line?), growing up on a mixed farm, everyone in the family had jobs from a very early age.  Although I do not remember the actual incident because I was only three years old at the time, my subsequent work experiences and memories confirms it as truth.  Family legend has it that I was invited to go to visit my Aunt Gladys and her family for a sleepover.  I was very happy to go to her house to visit as the recent birth of my sister had displaced me as the baby in our house.  When I visited Aunt Gladys' house, I was the baby again.  And there was a houseful of people to dote on me, including her elderly parents-in-law.  On this particular visit, I was only allowed to go if I took my work with me.  My job, at age 3, was to string turnip tags on three foot lengths of baler twine.  We used the tagged twine to sew up the top of 5o pound burlap bags of turnips, one of the vegetables we sold from our farm.  So I took my turnip tags and baler twine and went to Aunt Gladys's house.  Once there, Grandpa Harry, Aunt Gladys' father-in-law, felt sorry for me and did my work for me.  Thank you, Grandpa Harry!
 


 
Until next time.................
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

2 comments:

  1. I have been reading your blog with a lot of interest but think that it is something that I should 'save' for a time when I can't talk to you in person.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'll read it when you die or live in T.O. or Denver.

    ReplyDelete