Ranch Wife Musings | Beautifully Unfinished

Posted on August 15, 2026 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

Originally printed in the Custer County Chronicle on August 12, 2026

Carefully kept in my possession is a nondescript box which I have jealously guarded for the better part of a decade. Possibly longer. My grandma, Loretta, was an avid quilter and the supreme domestic, having honed her skills of homemaking and handcrafts over a lifetime of peaceful industry and quiet usefulness to her husband, her five children, and her community. The beds in her house were clothed with quilts she had pieced, and knit afghans graced the arms of the chairs in the living room.

Each of her grandkids was gifted a quilt at one time or another, but my prize was the box of unfinished projects: a finished quilt top, hundreds of squares and triangles cut from old-fashioned floral cotton in a rainbow of colors, a stack of dozens of Sunbonnet Sue appliques, and three beautifully-pieced blue and white patchwork blocks, with enough extra squares to piece several more. For years, I’ve pondered what to do with all of these unfinished pieces. I’m not a quilter and genuinely dislike piecing. I’ve had plenty of ideas, though never executed any of them. Until now. I finally picked up where my grandma left off.

My old-fashioned heart has always longed for a slower way of life in a world that moves too quickly, and tangible forms of industriousness in a world that is ever less tangible. Ever since I was a child, I’ve gravitated towards those old-fashioned skills and handcrafts, from sewing to crocheting to drawing and painting to music to writing and more, taking delight in putting my hands to something and watching it take shape over hours, days, or even years. I remember entering all manner of handmade items in county fairs and in 4-H as a teenager, and having that yearly boost of excitement and competition that was fuel for the next year’s industry.

Societally, we have been conditioned to give preference to the easy way. If there is an easier way to do something, we are conditioned to assume the easy way is the best way. We avoid inconvenience. If there is a more convenient choice, we are conditioned to assume the more convenient choice is the best choice. We are a fast-food society, a next-day-Amazon-delivery society (well, not in rural Custer County, but you get the idea). In this fast-paced, convenience culture, we have seen handcrafts and homemaking go by the wayside. The shrinking entries in the open class exhibits at the Custer County Fair are suggestive of this. Why spend hours upon hours crocheting a blanket when you can buy one for a fraction of the price? Why learn to sew? Why make anything by hand when Amazon always has a cheaper option available? Why learn to paint when you can just insert a command into Chat GPT and have it spit out something that sort of looks like a painting? The gods of convenience and cheapness have led to a dearth of quality and enduringness, and a dearth in the learning and sharing of skills.

Some of my favorite childhood memories are wrapped up in this sharing and learning. I remember sitting cross-legged, knee-to-knee with a friend, crochet hooks in hand. She was righthanded, I’m lefthanded, so I learned by mirroring her. I remember the sewing class I took as a 10- or 12-year-old, sewing nothing but straight lines, the afternoon spent with a lady from my church who helped me sew clothes for an American Girl doll, and the hours my mom coached me as well, before the skill almost took on a life of its own. I remember the art class, and the writing club I started with a bunch of friends in highschool.

Unlike our digital alternate reality, which invites people into isolation disguised as connection with nothing material or real or tangible to show for it, these old skills thrive in community and are inherently social. Even if you’re learning a crochet stitch or leatherworking technique from a video tutorial, and bypassing that initial social context of the teacher and the learner, there still tends to be a very human context for that skill, as handmade items are gifted, bought and sold, passed down, or simply used to beautify one’s own home. They are real, and used, and delighted in.

After a few scattered hours of cutting and stitching and ironing, contending with my 9-month-old’s innate desire to be held and played with, I tied a blue and white patchwork bonnet on her blonde head and the sweetness was impossible not to ponder. When Grandma was piecing those blocks, she had no way of truly knowing what they would become, or what completion would look like. But I can’t help but think she would be touched to know that her handiwork was picked up by her granddaughter and will be used by her great-granddaughter and, perhaps, a great-great-granddaughter someday. How neat is that?

What in our digital age will be enduring? What relationships are forged? What generational continuity is fostered? What will be passed down to children and grandchildren? Who is invited in?

I get it, everyone is busy. With our stupid smartphones in hand, we convince ourselves we’re busier than we truly are. Are there skills we opt not to learn or share, because of a perceived lack of time? Do we opt not to start something because we are afraid we won’t finish it, or even because we know we won’t? Maybe it isn’t for us to finish. It might be that our grandchildren or great-grandchildren will be the ones to complete or enjoy what we began. And there is something incredibly sweet and poignant about that.

I wish we were more accustomed to thinking this way. I wish we could think of more than the next month or year. I wish that when faced with a choice or an inconvenience, we could have eyes to see down the road further than the easy way out. I wish we could think more fervently of our children and our children’s children, and what we will one day leave behind. Will we be so absorbed in our own pursuits that we don’t leave room in the future for others? Or will we be so absorbed with others that we invite people in, that we invite our children and grandchildren in, and those things that we leave unfinished can be theirs to complete? I hope to leave some things, many things, unfinished. Beautifully unfinished.

Whimsical Windows

Posted on March 25, 2016 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

There’s a lot of fabric in an old bed sheet. And, depending on the sheet, good fabric, quality fabric. Perfect for curtains. Yesterday afternoon and evening, I sewed and hung curtains for the two living room windows in the homesteader cabin, from sheets we found while cleaning up the place. Until yesterday, we’d been using blankets (and these sheets actually), draped over the curtain rods to keep the warmth in and the dark out. But simple white curtains are so much homier and more beautiful, and are a lot better at diffusing the light.

I’ve always loved the look of glass sparkling in sunlight – Old jars and bottles and prisms, anything to add a little simplistic sparkle and shine. So, naturally, old insulators catch my attention. A little touch of rustic whimsy.

Soon to come…

Posted on May 28, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

The weather has conspired against me for the past two and a half weeks. For two and a half weeks, I’ve been saying that I’d get pictures on the next nice day. And that next nice day has really not come yet. For two and a half weeks, we’ve had rain, then snow, then melting snow, then rain, then snow again, then rain, and more rain.

So my precious dolls have been kept safe inside, which means I have yet to get pictures of my doll clothes which will soon be for sale on my Etsy shop. It is currently inactive, but it will be called HomesteadNotions.

However…I do have a preview of the doll outfits! Minus the little items to go with the dresses, this is what I’ve been doing in my free time for the past couple of weeks!

The patterns are from Simplicity, American Girl, and Heritage Doll Fashions. The two Regency dresses were made from the same pattern, which I tweaked a bit for the plaid one, to give it a gathered bodice and short sleeves. The two Colonial dresses were made from another pattern, which I tweaked in both to have growth stripes in the skirt; I also added pin tucks to the bodice of the brown dress.

I didn’t realize how much I missed sewing until I started doing it again!

Winter in May

Posted on May 10, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

The snow fell thick and heavy today, and our springtime world was transformed into a winter fit for greeting cards and calendar pictures. Sarah and I both got off work because of hazardous road conditions, and consequently spent our day in various quiet tasks and occupations…because, as Anna said “There’s just not much to do,” meaning, when it is snowing a gale outside. When it is snowing slush and turning the ground into a slippery, sloppy mess, I’m thankful to have “nothing to do” that forces me to be out in it, getting soaked to the skin!

The Miner’s Cabin, in spite of somewhat outdated insulating techniques, was my haunt for much of the day, since my sewing machines are out there. They are competing with the yet-to-be-sorted family items, such as Grandma and Grandpa’s travel souvenirs and miscellaneous household items, but it is a better sewing room than I could find anywhere else at this time! A little space heater doesn’t exactly keep it warm, but it takes the edge of the chill. Oh, for the day when we can have a fire in the stove! But there is some maintenance to be done on the chimney yet, which will probably have to wait until this coming fall. It will be ready by winter! Hopefully, however, I’ll get some blankets hung up over the bedroom door and the lean-to door, to keep the heat in the living room. In spite of the mess, it really is a lovely place to sew.

Coveting the photo opportunities, Sarah and I took a short excursion in the jeep, with the dog as a tag-along. The view from Highway 40 was beautiful and haunting. Distant familiar hills were lost entirely in the snow. The black of the trees had turned grey under the blanket of snow and ice. Green grass poked up through the snow, the only indication that it is springtime, and not early January! It was an odd sight, seeing a cheery red tulip covered in white, or seeing the young crabapple leaves frozen stiff.

By this evening, we’d gotten a good seven or eight inches of snow, I’m sure, and we expect snow all night. The snow is so wet and heavy, the trees are simply covered with it and bend under the weight. Hopefully the damage will be minimal, but for now it is enchanting. Trees have a nasty habit of taking out sections of fencing, and the cattle are supposed to arrive in less than a month, if all goes as planned! Too dry, too wet, not enough grass, crushed fence, cows too hot, cows too cold…I guess there’s always something. Maybe it is the promise of daily variety, the very real sense of risk, that play a role keeping ranchers coming back to ranching. I had one tell me he almost quits every week. But he doesn’t.

Thank God for a warm, snug home. It is shamefully easy to forget daily blessings, but when the weather is inclement and snow is piling deep, I realize what a true blessing it is to have a roof over my head, a source of heat, and a bed with warm blankets at the end of the day.

A day at the Mercantile

Posted on May 4, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

It really is a great deal. For one job, I get paid to ride horses, and for the other job, I get paid to play with fabric all day. There’s been a learning curve for both jobs, but each is going well in its own way.

The Hill City Mercantile is a relatively recent addition to Hill City Main Street, and is a beautiful renovation job on a building from the early 1900s. Pam and Gary, the owners, have done a marvelous job on the interior of the building, and it is just a gorgeous workplace. Sliding doors and exposed brick give the shop an industrial flair, and the warm, bright lighting sure brings out the colors in the fabric. It is an eye-catching interior!

I’ve been sewing since I was about ten, and on and off over the past few years I had tossed around the idea of working in a fabric store–What I perfect fit it is! It might be a little difficult to hang on to my paychecks, but hopefully I’ll have sufficient self-control. Everything seems to suggest projects to me, whether it be clothing for me, clothing to sell, doll clothes, pillowcases and bedding, curtains…I especially like the Kansas Troubles line of fabric, a gorgeous collection of antique-looking prints. One of the fabrics looks like how I’ve always imagined Caroline Ingalls’ delaine dress to have looked. Green with little red berries on it. I know it was wool and not cotton, but I still think it must have looked something like our cotton print!

Today, I was given the management of remnants and fat quarters, both of which give me a little bit of artistic license as far as arranging the fabrics goes. Both jobs can be mindless activities, which is sometimes exactly what I like. I enjoy having my hands busy so my imagination is free to explore. And there’s something satisfying about baskets full of organized remnants at the end of the day. I’m afraid it is the remnants that get me–That little $2 or $4 price tag is so tempting! And what better for dolls’ clothes than small pieces of beautiful cotton!

Working on the Miner’s Cabin

Posted on April 30, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

Now that we’re getting settled in to our new home, now that we’ve gotten the log cabin organized and looking like a home, Sarah and I have been able to spend some time in the Miner’s Cabin getting it ready for residents. The beautiful old shack has been used as a storage cabin for the past fifteen or more years, and my goal is to get it back to roughly how I remember it being, back when I was little. Add a little pure imagination, some historical instinct, and I’m hoping it will be a lively, beautiful little place.

When Dad was in his early twenties and working on the Burlington-Northern Railroad, he lived in this old shack, and even through the winter–So rest your minds, it is livable. In spite of there being no plumbing. It needs new wiring and the wood burning stove needs maintenance, but the roof is new and the structure itself is surprisingly weather-tight.

My project this afternoon was to get my sewing cabinet set up. The cabin has three rooms–A living room, a bedroom, and a lean-to. The lean-to is where I am hoping my sewing things will get to live. Although it is a little hard to see in the picture, there is a glass-front cabinet against the wall to the left. About two weeks ago, Mom, Sarah and I boxed up all the old jars (you’d be amazed how many there were!), and separated the keepers from the pitchers–Or, rather, the ones useful for canning from the ones we probably wouldn’t want to use for canning. Of the ones we wouldn’t use, I confiscated some and now can use them for sewing organization! With all the extra jars cleared out or put to use, and with the interior dusted and wiped down with oil soap, it works nicely as storage space for sewing notions.

The shelves are the perfect depth for my overlock thread, as well as my normal sewing machine thread. There is an old spice rack and a curio shelf that I’m hoping to put to use for sewing supplies as well. Jars and baskets help organize buttons, sewing needles, machine needles, thread, sewing tools, and ribbon and trim. I’m looking forward to getting my sewing table set up, a gift from a dear woman back in Champaign for whom I did quite a bit of sewing work, and being able to sew away out here!