an extravagant welcome begins

Melissa Kane organized the wonderful quilt of little blocks of children for our guild's raffle about 5 years ago. She put the blocks (made by guild members) together, I put on the borders, and Sue DiVarco quilted it.
It needed a name so I decided to call it An Extravagant Welcome because of those outstretched arms.
It is a phrase the United Church of Christ uses in its materials, and I really wanted to win the quilt to hang in one of St Pauls' Sunday School rooms.
I have spent the last half decade pouting that I did not win this quilt.
(That shows how much I must listen in church.)
Yesterday I decided it was time to replicate the quilt and there are now 13 little children on my design wall.
If that pace keeps up, I could have them all made in a month.
I'll post directions and my progress over the next weeks.

exuberant color

This little quilt, just 11 1/2 by 13 inches, was a study for a class I took nearly 20 years ago with Wanda Hanson, now of the wonderful blog Exuberant Color.
I've been to quite a few workshops. Some are very active and fun and silly and a good time, some are not so much fun.
But this one with Wanda has stayed with me all these years. I left that day with a sense of reverence. She showed such respect for her work and ours, and made me feel like what I was doing really mattered.
While cleaning my studio last week I discovered this little piece and thought it was time to give it its due. I machine quilted it with a squiggle grid and bound it this morning. There are a few other studies from that workshop around here somewhere, and I will finish them up too.

pink lemonade--Humble Quilts quilt-a-long

Thanks again to Lori at Humble Quilts for her delightful quilt-a-long with this project.
I really enjoyed using some of my special brown and pink fabrics--about 6 fabrics are from repurposed shirts. My nod to the lemonade part of the challenge was one little half block of yellow fabric. Head over to her blog to see many other takes on this pattern.

The back is this wonderful print of double pears from Moda. I machine quilted it in parallel squiggle lines.
And, it was bound with some leftover binding I had on spools!

tip #16 cutting and storing extra binding

I am working on the binding of a quilt which I love the backing as much as the front.
These Alexander Henry fairies were so wonderful.

Tip: I use bias bindings because I like how they look and feel. But, they are a pain to cut. So, when I cut for an intended quilt, I cut extra that is ready to go for smaller projects as they come up. I store them on spent spools to keep them in good shape. For scrappy quilts I often use up several different extra pieces.
If I was a more organized person, I would pin to each spool the length of remaining binding. I'd rather live dangerously and see how far it goes.

shoofly, contemplating borders

Shoofly from Lori's quilt-along at Humble Quilts.
I may decide no borders.
The plaid setting squares are from a shirt I took apart.
Thanks, Lori!

half of the half blocks--shoofly

I have half of the half blocks done.

Someone asked what Italian Lawn is--lawn is a fine weave fabric, think Liberty of London. The paisley bee fabric was made in Italy.

I asked Andy to take my picture last night so I could post it for my students to know me on D2L.

I think I need a stylist.

what I like about January

The low sun streams into church so beautifully.

shoofly

Lori over at Humble Quilts is having another of her delightful quilt-alongs using an old shoofly quilt.

The bumble bee paisley has been an important part of my stash for over 25 years. It is a piece of Italian lawn that shows up in many of my quilts.

Thanks, Lori!

a quilt!! Jacob's Ladder

Jacob's Ladder--quilted, bound, sleeved, and labeled.
Quilted by Sue DiVarco.

Inspired by Bonnie Hunter's encouragement to use yellows and large-scaled florals to replicate a vintage quilt in her collection, Florabunda.

Merry Christmas 2011

Merry Christmas from Chicago!

another barn is built

After a devastating fire in 1953, a barn is rebuilt.
This is the barn my sisters and brother and I worked in--cleaning the bulk tank, feeding calves with a bottle and then out of a bucket, cleaning the gutters and bedding the cows with straw, feeding the cows silage, ground corn, and hay. Also, a place of danger with the fierce bull and the openings of the haymow floor to throw down bales. We loved to shout in the silo to hear our echos.
The haymow was a wonderful place--sweet hay smell, newly born kittens to find in the bales, a long rope to swing from, loose straw to jump into from high bales.
Construction by Chuck Stienstra and Bill Hoekstra.

a barn is built

A new barn is built by my grandfather in 1943. Alas, it is doomed to burn down just 10 years later, struck by lightning.
This magnificent barn is where my father worked as a teenager and young man.
Construction by my great-uncle, George Meerdink.

lunch with the Dykstras during baling time

Uncle Joel, Uncle Donald, cousins Harlan and Kenny, Beth and Lynn and Grandpa.
Sioux County, Iowa mid 1960s.

cousins

Glenda, Leanne, and Lyle DeVos with Lynn and Janna Dykstra
Sioux County, Iowa mid 1960s.

cousins during the Depression

Robert Meerdink and Leroy Dykstra
Dad said you could tell that Robert's family was even worse off than theirs because his cousin Robert had to wear his sister's hand-me-down shoes.
Sioux County Iowa, mid 1930s.

grandpa and grandma

American Gothic
Sioux County Iowa, early 1960s.

plucking chickens

My grandma Cynthia Dykstra with the curlers, Grandpa Jurrien Dykstra in the hat. Janna and me in the background at work.
Beth is the half naked onlooker.
Sioux County Iowa, early 1960's.

friends of Aunt Hattie

Dela Vande Hoef

Arie Bousema

Photographs of friends of my Great Aunt Hattie Scholten.
As you can see, fashion was quite the thing even on the prairies.
Early 1900s, Sioux County, Iowa.

siblings, back door/front door.

Back door: Leroy Dykstra, straight from the fields, with his children, Janna, Lynn, Beth, and Lee.
Front door: leaving for church--wearing matching seersucker outfits made by Henrietta Dykstra.
Note the white-hair gene pool!
And, Scamp, one of our favorite dogs.
Circa 1967.

plowing with Cynthia and Jerry

My grandparents, Cynthia (Meerdink) and Jurrien Dykstra behind the plow with their horses.
Jerry would buy wild horses from Montana, break them into good farm horses, and sell them. He was known to be very good at this, and to be very good to the horses.
Cynthia walked to the fields with Jerry's lunch, and plowed while he ate so the horses would not rest too much and be too much to handle in the afternoon.
Cynthia would fall in love with these horses and deeply miss them when they were sold. This cycle played over and over for decades until tractors took over. Fifty years later she could name each horse in every photograph in her album.
Sioux County Iowa, about 1920.