past work

I made this Jacob's Ladder quilt in 1997. Seth was a newborn and I bought the wonderful background print on one of our first outings. I hired a neighbor girl to watch him for a hour a day so I could get back to quilting. It has one of my few attempts at applique.


Eve was given this Blackford's Beauty with a mulberry print for her 7th birthday the next year. I love the backing for it.
Both were hand quilted by my parents' neighbor Augusta Bolks.

sweet

I like how it turned out--sweet and not too saccharine.

letter box in progress

McCall's June issue has a quilt made with 6 by 12 inch finished letter box blocks. I am adapting it a bit and using my wonderful light plaids and stripes.
It is interesting how it needs some of the more intense/darker/greyed fabrics to make it work. I have about 1/3rd of the blocks made.

Center cut 2" by 4 1/2", first round 1 1/2 by 4 1/2", 2 1/2 by 4 1/2", final round 1 1/2 by 8 1/2", 2 1/2 by 6 1/2".

added border

Yes, this quilt needed the border.
(It is the pattern I lifted from Tazzie's site)
I added nine-patches of plaids around the center and am much happier--sometimes a quilt just needs to be bigger to push it into becoming a better quilt.
I am getting some quilts back from my longarm quilter and will post them as I bind them.

This one, Common, has been claimed by Seth who loves this quilt.
I am almost finished getting the plaids under control--and that leads to me working with them, which yields its own chaos. I am working with lighter/pastel plaids right now--fitting for these beautiful spring days we have been enjoying in Chicago.

happy birthday, Janna

We celebrate my sister Janna's birthday today. I've always admired her work as a teacher and librarian and organist, her flexibility being a career army wife, and her raising three great nephews for me, but I am most grateful for her bravery, demonstrated when we were children, scaring the chickens out of their roosting boxes so I could gather the eggs.

success!

It is Mothers Day and our mother had flowers to wear to church! They were beautiful and delivered on time to the correct Henrietta, and with no threatening phone calls between any parties involved! A Mothers Day miracle!
The photograph is of my mother sewing my wedding gown 25 years ago this past March.

scrappy blocks idea of Tazzie

Tazzie showed a quilt she made based on a friend's. I loved the look and did it with, of course, plaids. Again, using up all my red and having to get more!
I made mine with three units all finishing 6 inches (6 1/2" unfinished), a square, a rail fence, and a 9-patch.
Cut sizes of pieces: a 6 1/2 inch plaid square; a nine-patch made from 2 1/2 inch squares, all plaid except for a red square in the center; a rail fence with a 2 1/2 by 6 1/2 inch red center, three 2 1/2 cut plaid squares on each side.
Like Tazzie, I am also contemplating adding making a border with 9 patches of plaids.

much better

Yes, another 18 blocks makes me happier with this quilt.
This red has shown up in so many quilts here--I chose it at first because I had a length of it, more than any other solid. But, not quite enough, so I bought more to finish and used it in about 3 others. Now I am making another and ran out again, so I will be buying some more. I rarely used solids before this last year when I seem to be drawn more to them again.
The red is a Kona Cotton. The dye lots change a bit, but that is ok with the style of quilts I've been making.

strips

I've seen this idea on several blogs.
My 1 1/2 inch strips drawer was pretty lackluster, most under 9 inches long, a few longer pieces. But, I have memories of all these fabrics and wanted to use them. I made them into a long snake, sewing the pieces end to end. Cut it in half, sewed together along the length, cut in half again, and did this over and over until I had a piece of fabric about 50 inches wide. I did this 3 times and used up the drawer!
Our neighbor Mrs. Pals wove rag rugs for us growing up. I still have a few of hers. I loved watching her at her loom. This quilt reminds me of Mrs. Pals' rugs.

corsage saga: the Henrietta Confusion

Today I placed the order for our mother's corsage for Mothers Day.
Faithful readers may remember our problems with our small hometown of 1800 people with three Henrietta Dykstras.
Yes, three different women named Henrietta found three different Dykstra men to marry. Even when we use our Dad's name, flowers get delivered to the wrong Henrietta because the deliverer gets the idea someone must have made a mistake.
This has gone on year after year after year with at least 5 florists from 3 towns. Three years ago a florist threatened to take Beth to collections for refusing to pay for flowers that were delivered to the wrong house, picked up AFTER Mothers Day and shoved in the storm door of our parents' house.
One of the Henriettas is no longer of this world, but the confusion continues. Last year my parents were invited to a wedding of a family they hardly knew. Being the polite people they are, they attended with a lovely gift, to realize once there that the other Henrietta and her husband were the intended guests. They enjoyed the cake and went home.
There is a new florist in town, wife of a childhood classmate's little brother, who I can only hope is less annoying than he was 40 years ago.
She assured me the flowers would go to the correct Henrietta.

Yeah, we've heard that before.

We have fragile hopes for this year.

a few more rows?

I used a free pattern on the Moda site for this. I like it without borders and may add a few rows to make it bigger.

"not so straight, not so narrow"

An Iowa Quilt
Made from 70 6 1/2 inch plaid squares cut in half to 6 1/2 by 3 1/4 inches. 

Red strips in each row, cut 6 1/2 inches long: 2 cut 1 3/4", 2 cut 1 1/2", 2 cut 1 1/4", 1 cut 1". 

(I cut some 6 1/2 inch red strips then cut my little strips from them.) 

What I like about this quilt: 

The plaids recede to background and are not on a grid because of the uneven sizes of the red strips. 

But, because of planning and using the reds in equal numbers in each row, the rows stay the same length. 
Made commemorating marriage equity in Iowa.

thrifty block

I love this wonderful block from Bonnie Hunter's book. My sashings are cut 2 inches instead of 2 1/2. I am awaiting finding a great cranberry fabric for the border. It is in my head, not on my shelves or of any fabric story I've been to.
Eve and I are back from a college tour trip to St Louis. My first time there--I really enjoyed it. The redbud was blooming.
We stopped in several thrifts and added a new stack of plaids to my life. I need ideas for what to do with buttons.

vintage block

I liked the simple vintage block Bonnie showed over at Scraps and threadtales'. The block is huge, 17 1/2 inch finished.
I am working on cutting down about 15 years of thrifted shirts that I had taken apart, but were not organized well (kept the backs, cut everything else down to 6 1/2", 2 1/2", 2", and 1 1/2", and random crumbs).
Whenever I got really tired of ironing and cutting, I'd make a few more parts for this quilt.
A simple pleasure of quiltmaking is the surprise I get when the raw blocks from the design board finally get sewn together--the transformation sometimes is startling.

ready for auction and feeding the stash

My Sarah's Sisters group at church helped me name these quilts for the auction this weekend. First is Green Whimsy, second is Chicago Blues.
The second is based on Bonnie Hunter's Crayon Box.

Sleeves for Sharon.
I found some of the most lovely shirts I have ever discovered yesterday at the Village in my hunt to replenish my stash (which does not need replenishing) . And, while cleaning the basement, found some more that I had bought earlier. Here they are all trimmed and pressed, a stack for my neighbor who swaps sleeves with me from our thrift shop finds.

another stretched star

Andy and I went to Nashville for a few days. Enjoyed the food and music, and had a little time to bind this second stretched star quilt in the style of Kathie, made with blocks I mistakenly had sewn to go the wrong way for the one I made in December.
I really like this quilt and may just have to keep it. Quilted with the squiggly lines on my Bernina.

I did a talk about quilting at a local older adults center. I go there with my nursing students in the fall. In November they were working on the spring calendar and asked if I had any topics to present. I decided against a health one and offered to show some of my quilts.
I had 7 attending--we sat around a table, studying and touching each quilt. I brought about 6 that I made and 6 old ones. I also brought an unquilted top so they could study the construction on the back.
I miss teaching quilting at the arts center--they closed last fall. I need to find another place to teach.

happy, happy anniversary

We celebrate our 25th anniversary on St Patrick's Day, and hosted coffee hour at church today. Today is also Eve's birthday. I was too busy to take photographs while the reception happened--I saw someone with a camera, so I hope to get a few pictures.


Two of our nephews helped with the day. We all went out to eat afterward.

broken

My machine quit working last evening--no loud noises, no smoke, no warning. The needle just stopped engaging.
While getting it ready to take to the repair shop, I had it on its side and noticed a button that looked like a resolution button. This machine is the Bernina 1530, one of the early computerized machines. I bought it in about 1993. The past 6 months I thought the screen was burning out as it was very difficult to read. I would move the mouse as far as I thought would be enough by memory to get to different stitches.
It turns out someone had turned the resolution button way down. Finding this out at home saved me from my fear of a big ticket repair and from embarrassment at the repair shop.
It is difficult being in the house without a working machine--my backup is at the arts center. I took in the 830 found at the thrift too--we are going to have it set up for the rest of the family--maybe it will keep them away my machine and from the resolution button---, the one I didn't know existed despite 17 years of daily sewing!

urban planning

More shirt parts.
I wanted to encourage use of lights, (and this quilt certainly uses up a lot of them) playing with the negative space.
Rows are 6 lights and 5 darks, cut 2 1/2 by 4 1/2 inches.
Alternating rows are random pieced lights, made from 2 1/2 inch strips.
Borders are from 6 1/2 inch strips.
I have been cutting down all shirt parts (except the backs, I leave them alone for odd shaped pieces) into strips 1 1/2", 2", 2 1/2" and 6 1/2".
My mother reminded me of her stacked bricks quilt she made in the 1970s out of wool scraps, shown below. She used an old coat of hers for the background rectangles. My recent quilts seem to be channeling this quilt.

irons

There is much discussion among quilters about which iron is best. I had a Rowenta that I liked for its weight. I don't understand why manufacturers boast about their light weight irons--makes you have to push down harder using your shoulder muscles.
But, the Rowenta spit alot, giving me several burns, so I finally only used it with a spray bottle. I had it fixed once at great expense, and the second time it died I threw it away.
By then I had discovered the joy of using an old non-steam iron. They have no holes to catch little points on quilt parts and get so hot I rarely need to use a spray bottle, the ambient moisture in the fabrics is enough.
I pick them up at yard sales and thrift shops. The sole plates clean easily because there are no steam holes to get gunked up.
These four are now in my collection (I also just like how they look).
The Sunbeam is really heavy. The other three are General Electric.
Two are 1100 watts, two are 1000 watts.
I also love my old General Electric Waffle Iron.

This is my second one, my first wore out. I love it because there is no teflon so it really bakes rather than steams the waffles.
So, search the thrifts or yard sales. Unless you live in Chicago, where I ask that you forget everything you read here so I can find these remaining treasures.

common

When I wasn't feeling well, my friend Barbara told me to haul out my quilt magazines and find an "old favorite" pattern that I've always wanted to do but just never got to.
I've always liked the Boston Commons. (I love the idea that this park and city center is named for the common pasture. My home town's common pasture became the park behind my grandparents house when they retired from the farm.)
My construction of the pattern is a bit different from the traditional. Made with shirt parts, it is indeed common. It was a contemplative piece in that I had to use pins on for each patch to ensure the staggered bricks came out correctly. (I rarely use pins other than for borders.)
I will keep it common by not adding a border, just a dark binding.

Bricks finish 2" by 4", except for occasional 2 by 2 and 2 by 6 inch pieces needed to make the design. I cut the edge triangles from quartered 4 1/2 inch squares. It floats it a bit.

my beloved knitters

When Paul was 4 and starting preschool I made friends with these women who all had children starting school. We met to knit weekly and our called ourselves "Tuesday Knitters". Our older children are now in their 20s. We gather annually on Super Bowl Sunday. I look forward to this every year.

anniversary quilts

These quilts were made for my parents' 45th and 50th anniversaries.
The 45 Tulips are from Mary Hickey's Angle Antics--a book with many errors so if you have an old copy, make sure you check with the publisher for corrections. I found a few errors they did not have on their list. It was quilted by VJ Smith, the most amazing machine quilter I ever worked with.
The second quilt, for their 50th anniversary, was hand quilted by my mother's neighbor, Mrs. Bolks. She quilted two wedding rings in each golden star.

auction quilt

My mother bought this wonderful redwork quilt included in a box of linens at an auction near home, and discovered her grandmother's name embroidered in one of the blocks! Carrie (Graada) Diekevers is on the top block along with a lot of other Diekevers.
I love the swan (duck?) and the owls. I will get a photograph of the whole quilt next time I'm home.