Happy Friday...

Fridays are normally family sewing nights for me, that is unless the aunt who usually hosts us is on one of her world tours.  Well, not really the world, but she could be going anywhere in the US, that's for sure!  She's been to

and

 

 and to see the nation's parks on bus tours.

 



 

This week we're having a baby shower for the significant other of my other aunt's grandsons.  That's -- let's see -- second cousin twice removed, third cousin once removed?  Oh gosh who can get that right.  Sounds like a good subject for Jeopardy!

 

My 'sewing circle' consists of aunts and cousins and other miscellaneous relatives who are just part of the big category 'FAMILY'.  I tried to do a family tree.  I need a forest. 

Seriously.  In southeast Wisconsin, if you're part of the Paskiewicz family, you can hardly go anywhere without finding someone who knows one of your relatives.  I moved to Waukesha county eight years ago, joined a new church, went to a quilt guild workday and the lady at the ironing board said "do you know Jeremy?"

Of course!  His dad is my cousin Peter!

Here's my attempt at rendering the relationship between just the ladies in my sewing circle...

My mom (upper left blue square) was one of 13 kids.  She had two brothers who married two sisters. They always joke that when they like each other they're sisters, and if they're not getting on so well they're sisters-in-law!

They were part of a big family too...  I'm not sure how many there were, but just say lots. 

So back to the tree... my mom's side are the three blue circles and boxes.  The 'other side' are green.  I'm showing mostly sisters.  Two green squares are my aunts by marriage, and the one colored yellow is our sewing circle hostess.  That's not the whole family by any means. 

The green E is another sister who I include because HER daughters are in the inner circle.  We're the 'serious sewists'.  (We have two non-sewers who come just because.  We sometimes put them to work -- one is excellent at pressing.  They're our groupies.)

front row...center two are the sisters who married my mom's brothers. Another sister at far left.  Back row, from right, three cousins, a family friend, another cousin from the sewing circle and another family friend.  These ladies are all related by blood.  I'm the odd woman out -- only truly related to two of them.  The rest are family by osmosis.

Are you dizzy yet?  On the chart, I put my siblings down the left side of the page.  But then when I tried adding in my cousins, the paper wasn't big enough.  If you include spouses there are over 100 of us just in the first cousins generation!

She's the common thread.

 
The yellow circles represent my 'sewing sisters'... We ALL have our aunt/hostess in common.  We all grew up in the same general part of town, so I always knew them.  I always refer to all of them as my cousins, because I've know them all of their lives.  Even though sometimes their mom was only related to mine by marriage, their mom and dad were always called auntie and uncle, out of respect.  Probably not strictly accurate, but in my heart they are family. 

Somewhere are photos of us when we were all young kids and we had good laughs trying to figure out who was which and did you remember that you had that dress?? 

So tonight we'll welcome a new 'cousin' and her new baby-to-be.  We'll eat cake and laugh and hope we don't scare her off.  I knit a little sweater.  I'm sure someone made a quilt. 

Who knows, maybe she'll want to learn how to sew or iron someday...

Happy Friday, and sew on...