Roberta Writes – Esther Chilton’s Writing Challenge, CFFC, The Flower Hour & D’Verse – Sewing Terms

#CFFC, #d'Verse, Childhood Memories, poetry, The Flower Hour 3 Minutes

Esther Chilton’s Writing Challenge

I’m late again but Esther’s writing challenge last week was promise. You can read other poet’s contributions here and find her latest challenge: https://estherchilton.co.uk/2025/12/10/writing-prompts-94/

The Promise (haibun)

When I was three-months old my biological father died of a massive heart attack in front of my mother. She was left on her own to raise me as best she could. According to my mother, I was a very easy baby and never fussed or cried unless I was hungry or wet. Mom believes I could sense her sadness and distress and behaved accordingly, making her life easier.

Mom also said that after my father, William Cecil Weatherburn-Baker, died, she promised me that we would always stay together. She travelled with me all the way to South Africa when I was nine-months old and when I was two years old, she married my stepdad who I refer to as Dad. Mom and I have always been together, just as she promised. When I got married, TC and I bought a house in the same road as my Mom and Dad. When Mom could no longer manage the stairs in their house, we sold it and TC and I bought a house with a cottage for my parents. They have lived there for over 21 years now. Mom turned 87 on 21 October this year (2025).

always together

Mom and I, facing the world

remarkable pair

Picture caption: Mom holding me at my Christening

D’Verse

Lillian’s d’Verse prompt is Come Sew With Me Sort Of and you can join in here: https://dversepoets.com/2025/12/09/come-sew-with-me-sort-of/

Holiday Entertainment – haibun

When I was in prep school and junior high, all the girls were obliged to take domestic science as a subject. The syllabus was split into six months of dressmaking and six months of cooking. During my first year of junior high, I was obliged to do an applique project for school. Each girl was required to draw a design on paper and then cut it out of pretty fabric. The process then involved ironing a piece of white backing onto the fabric pieces so that the fabric didn’t fray around the edges. Each piece was then sewn onto the two pillowcases and duvet cover that comprised the project deliverable. Our parents had to purchase the fabric, backing, and bed linen. I decided to create a Holly Hobbie design and took great delight in drawing each piece including a flowery pink dress, patchwork apron, and flowery bonnet. Mom kindly bought me a plain pink duvet cover and pillowcases. I meticulously cut out my shapes and ironed on the backing, ensuring the sticky side was downwards onto the fabric. I used blanket stich to sew my pieces onto the pillowcases and duvet cover. My sewing was neat and tidy and my teacher was pleased with the end result. I was delighted with my new Holly Hobbie bed linen.

I continued to use my applique knowledge to decorate bed linen for my sisters. I entertained myself this way for an entire school holiday. One day, I placed the backing back-to-front and ironed onto the sticky side. That was a disaster as the glue burned onto the iron. I managed to clean most of it off but, after this, Mom wasn’t keen on me using the iron for applique.

I kept my bed linen all through my teenage years until I was seventeen. Cath, however, decided one afternoon soon after her bed linen was finished, to cut out the Holly Hobbie with a pair of scissors. Obviously, that didn’t do the duvet cover much good and it was the end of her Holly Hobbie bedlinen set. She never got another as between the destruction of her duvet cover and Mom’s reluctance to let me use the iron, I gave up applique as a hobby.

applique

fulfilling hobby

creating

beautiful

bed linen for young sisters

came to sticky end

CFFC and The Flower Hour

Dan’s CFFC prompt this week is spring or autumn or both. I bring you spring because why think about autumn until you have to. You can join in here: https://nofacilities.com/2025/12/08/autumn-or-spring-or-both-cffc/

These pictures are also for Terri’s The Flower Hour which you can join in here: https://secondwindleisure.com/2025/12/09/the-flower-hour-10-festive-holiday-florals-and-decor/

These are pictures of the blossoms on my fruit trees.

The following two pictures are of van Gogh’s paintings in the van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. They are both of spring blossoms.

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Published by robertawrites235681907

I am a writer of young adult fiction and poetry

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82 thoughts on “Roberta Writes – Esther Chilton’s Writing Challenge, CFFC, The Flower Hour & D’Verse – Sewing Terms”

  1. How lovely to see those spring blossoms, Robbie! Enjoy the season! I’m sorry you lost your dad so young but glad your step-dad was a worthy new dad to you.

    I also had to take domestic arts in junior high where I also learned to sew. You also taking the classes explains all your talents.

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  2. The story about you and your mother is touching and I love how you have stuck together. The poem is perfect. I loved Home Economics (which is what we called it in Canada) too. By the time I took it in Junior Highschool, I had already been preparing meals at home, baking, and sewing my own clothes. So I often helped the teacher teach the other girls! She appreciated that.

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  3. Your stories always hold that beautiful blend of gentleness and strength, Robbie. The promise between you and your mother is extraordinary. You have a lifelong bond shaped by love and resilience. And your Holly Hobbie applique made me smile. Those early creative moments stay with us, don’t they? Even the little mishaps become part of the memory.
    Oh I do love your Van Gogh photos!!! Your haibun captures all of this so gracefully. It pairs beautifully with the Van Gogh blossoms , both carrying hope, fragility, and quiet endurance.

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      1. That’s such an interesting thought, Robbie. Whether it’s written in the stars or simply shaped by experience, those deep bonds with our mothers feel very real. Perhaps it’s less about the sign itself and more about a shared sensitivity. The capacity to hold memory, devotion, and care close to the heart. I love that you and Greg share that closeness, and even a birthday rhythm too. Some connections seem to arrive already knowing how to belong.

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      1. Thank you, Robbie. That means a great deal to me. I have looked into the background of the first painting and will do so for the second one your post. Vincent painted Almond Blossom as a gift for his newborn nephew, Vincent Willem van Gogh, the son of his brother Theo and sister-in-law Jo. Theo wrote to Vincent announcing the birth and telling him they had named the baby after him. Vincent was deeply moved. Almond trees are among the earliest to bloom in spring, often while winter still lingers. Vincent chose them very deliberately. The painting is a celebration of new life, hope, and beginnings.

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          1. Robbie, thank you for sharing that perspective. It’s one that’s often repeated, and it speaks to Vincent’s deep sensitivity and love for Theo. At the same time, the circumstances of his death are still debated. Some historians now suggest he may not have taken his own life at all, but was accidentally shot, possibly by local boys, and chose not to implicate them. What feels most certain to me is not a single cause, but a convergence: illness, exhaustion, vulnerability, and a lifelong struggle with mental health. I try to hold his death with the same compassion I hold his life: complex, unfinished, and far more nuanced than a single explanation can contain.

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  5. I love the story of you and your mom and the craft work with applique. You two are a remarkable pair. I once touched an iron to the wrong side of some adhesive-backed wood veneer. Fortunately it was an old iron my wife had given me to use in the shop. I was able to clean it but with methods that left it a little too rough for clothing.

    I love the photos and paintings for spring. It’s wonderful to see the promise of spring, even as we slip into winter here.

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  6. You were a beautiful baby!

    The blanket stitch is my favorite hand stitch. I have a Sue Bonnet (or sometimes called Sun Bonnet Girl) quilt that my grandmother made with all the little girls sewn on with blanket stitches.

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  7. Hi Robbie, what a lovely photograph of you and mum.
    I am sure living not far from you and TC is a blessing and comfort for her and your Dad.
    I was completely hopeless at sewing at school, I still am.
    Those blossoms are beautiful.
    Thank you for sharing.

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  9. Your mum sounds amazing, and I can tell you are close. My parents were older when I was born, and my dad died when I was seventeen. I wasn’t close to her before, but we kept together because of Dad, and I understood her better.

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  15. beautiful story of promise with your mother – and how you made it to SA at nine months. My husband got divorced from his first wife when their daughter was nine months old – and it was interesting to see that age in your post. My step daughter and I are god friends and I am glad. Also, happy 87th to your momma and those flowers on your fruit trees are pretty

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  16. That’s a lovely photo of you and your mother! I took home economics in junior high school, but I didn’t like it because the teacher didn’t teach cooking of sewing the way my mother did, and of course my mother’s way was better.

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    1. Home economics doesn’t exist in SA as a subject now. It is consumer studies and the focus has shifted from running a home to a commercial application. I liked the sewing and learned all sorts of things my mother never did. Granny Joan helped me with my sewing projects until she died when I was 11.

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  18. Your promise haibun is so touching, Robbie. I had no idea that all that happened to you and your mother. A lovely photo of you both! 💙

    I’m sure your appliqué projects were wonderful. I don’t remember doing anything like that in Home Ec. I think I managed to make a blue skirt (with a lot of help) that I maybe wore once or twice. We had sewing half the year and cooking half the year. The cooking classes were a joke for me because I already made dinners at home and baked cakes and cookies on my own. The one thing I did like about the classes is that we could talk and weren’t confined to our desks. The boys had “shop” classes.

    I love spring blossoms. It’s nice to be reminded of them when I just heard we could get our first snowfall of the year this weekend.

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  23. Wow, you touched everything with this post. I love the story about Holly Hobby. I had similar applique experiences. I was a disaster with the iron. I made my friend’s trousseau, and I was running late getting to the wedding. I left the old iron plugged into the old wiring in my attic sewing room. End of attic sewing room, iron, ironing board and my huge collection of fabric and patterns. I think I made it to the wedding on time, though.

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      1. It would have except a friend of mine was visiting, and when we weren’t home, crawled through a window to play the piano until we returned. While he was there he smelled smoke. He said it took him three or four tries to dial the numbers to get the fire department because he was so nervous, and he was a volunteer fireman!

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  24. Late to reply – apologies! Loved reading your haibun for dVerse. Yup….I can understand your mum’s frustration when she saw the sticky iron! 🙂 But hey —- all those linens came out of it so I’d say that’s a win!

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  26. Your stories are wonderful, especially The Promise. Thank you for the spring flowers in the midst of our winter. I recognized van Gogh in the second painting, but not the first. Seeing his work up close and in person must be quite an experience.

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  28. I enjoyed reading about your mother. Some family – they are lucky because they truly stick together. After my own mother passed when I was young, my dad did the best he could. But as we all aged … and went off to live in different states… well I’m not as close to those relatives that are left mainly because we don’t see each other and don’t have all that much in common these days.

    I did have my MIL live with us on two different occasions. But my step-mom chose to stay far away which made it harder in her later years.

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    1. Hi Jules, I was thinking this Christmas that this might be the last one when we are all together. Mom is very frail now and I don’t have much in common with my three half sisters now. They are all very different to me and Mom is the one who keeps us all together. I guess that is life.

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      1. I used to have a few cousins that I was close to… but they had their own families and grands and distance doesn’t help. It is hard for me and my own siblings for the same reasons. We make due with our own children, grands and local relatives. It isn’t like the old days when everyone was around for everyone else. But that could also be a good thing to not have so many folks up in your business so-to-speak.

        May the new year be bright with good things for all. (((Hugs)))

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