old quilt

My mother found this old quilt at an auction--washed it up and it now belongs to my newly-wed cousin Mark and his bride Shirlee.
Very thick cotton batt--may have some wool in it too.
Whisker guard on the top.
Tied--faded but in remarkably good shape.
I love the block. Sort of an inside-out Jacob's Ladder.

food pantry quilt

Our block party has a fundraiser each year--this year we raffled my Cowboy Crumbs quilt to raise money for the local food pantry.
Crumb blocks finish 6 inches. Made with larger sized crumbs from shirt pockets and cuffs. Quilted by Suzette Fisher.

luau on LeClaire! Block Party 2011

Hula Girls as the Block Heads throwing out candy, waterslide, frisbee golf, and the neighborhood pickup band. All went well once the lighting strike during the morning storm was over!

more from Hickory Hills

Fishing and canoeing, knitting and sewing, puzzles, archery, visiting bison and elk, cooking and baking and grilling and eating.

Sixty Tulips

In celebration of my parents' sixty years of marriage.

Quilt is about 78 by 78 inches, batik fabrics, wool batt, quilted by Sue DiVarco.
Celebration at Hickory Hills near Waterloo, Iowa.

tip #3 ugly quilts happen

They happen. Sometimes you can talk yourself into them being charming. My friend Pat and I referred to our ugly quilts as "sister-in-law quilts" (sorry Katie!*), a quilt you can give to someone out of obligation without any pain of separation.

Just get them out of the house and let them be someone else's joy or problem.

*disclaimer--Katie has NOT received an ugly quilt

60 years

Henrietta Scholten and Leroy Dykstra
August 1951

tip #2 buy good thread

When I first started quilting I bought some cheap 99 cent thread. As I was doing a final press of a crib quilt top the iron melted the thread and all the pieces started to fall apart.
I cried.
I put the quilt on the shelf. It took me a few years to finally throw it away.
And I have always used good thread since.

tip #1--flip your mat

Blades are very expensive and if you find you are having to replace them more frequently, try flipping your olfa mat. These are two sided though many people think you only have the side with numbers.
After a few years the plastic self healing mat becomes not so self healing anymore and can interfere with your blade.
You will have a fresh surface that may make your cutting much easier and more accurate.

When both sides are no good, do not hesitate to buy a new one.

6 years of blogging

In honor of my 6 years of blogging since August 2005, I will give tribute to my grandfather, Jan Scholten, who is responsible for the title of this blog. My Scholten cousins are gathering in August so this seems timely. Watch for a picture of nearly the whole dozen of the klein meisjes!

I also plan, for the next year, to blog a tip each Monday. There is so much we do as quilters that is second nature, and we don't acknowledge that we had to learn them at one point. Many of you will say, "I do that all the time," but you had to figure it out somewhere. Watch for simple things, complex things, and things that make you question just what kind of mind I have.

30 years

I was watching my students on the unit this morning and recalled that Andy and I met 30 years ago this month.
Yes, it was during that dreaded July in the hospital (when med students become interns and interns become residents).
Andy, just out of his internship and coming to neurology for his first month of his internal medicine residency walked onto my unit and I thought, "I could fall in love with this guy."
We developed a friendship, he briefly dated a colleague of mine until he came to his senses and asked me out.
I was starting my second year as a staff nurse at the University of Iowa, and we conferred on patients for the three months he was on neurology. I'm not sure when we started dating--it was still warm as we went sailing on our second date.
We no longer work together, but remain good sounding boards to discuss patients. He is a senior attending and I am a clinical faculty member and hospice nurse.
Thirty years and still enjoying our careers and each other!

verdant backing

I used up large prints with green--there are some bunnies on one side.
For the Florabunda quilt.

yellows

The yellow bag yielded:
The incentive project: Bonnie Hunter's Florabunda.
Use: used up a bunch on the Florabunda; also used up lots of florals
Throw away: very little--these fabrics were in good shape
Share: Cousin Jan's bag got A LOT added to it with
prints that I know I will not use, and fabrics that I will use, just not as much as I had, so I tore them in half and put a piece in the bag.
Donate: fabric which is too awful to hand off to Jan. My friend Jeanette will be using this with her high school students
Stash return pile: cut into 6 1/2, 3 1/2, 2 1/2, 2, and 1 1/2 inch strips and just a few pieces to go back on the shelf
All from a 13 gallon kitchen garbage bag.

I did have to dip into the share/donate bag to get yellows for the border fabric for the quilt, and that lead to many thoughts of "Why did I give this one away?"
Note to self: do not look into the bags once you put something in there.

On to the large florals:
Since the incentive project lead to the need for florals, I did start on that next bag (actually, they were in a basket) So, time to finish getting the large florals in order.
Incentive project: a backing for the Florabunda.

Eve

Found this photo on my camera from Eve's birthday several months ago.
She is in Shanghai as an au pair and working on her Mandarin.
(the cake was red velvet from Bittersweet)

florabunda

It's big.
It's yellow.
It's ugly--but in that good way.

Thanks to Bonnie Hunter, who has unleashed yellow quilt fever around the country, I have completed this Jacob's Ladder top. All from stash.
About 87 by 87 inches.
(yes, I see that I flipped a triangle in the second block on the bottom row.)

on to the yellows

The neutral bag (there may be another neutral bag in there too) has been sorted and yielded:
The incentive project: the 5-patch top
Use: made 3 quilt backs from larger pieces
Throw away: fabric that I did not like how it felt when I used it in the past, or it has not held up well in quilts, or, saddest of all, it did not hold up well just sitting on the shelf
Share: this has been claimed by my cousin Jan who I did not even know read my blog; knowing she wants fabric makes it easier to let it go.
Donate: fabric which is too awful to hand off to Jan.
Stash return pile: cut into 6 1/2, 3 1/2, 2 1/2, 2, and 1 1/2 inch strips and about a dozen larger pieces to go back on the shelf
All from a 13 gallon kitchen garbage bag.

The next bag I opened had yellows, so I guess I will be joining Bonnie Hunter with her Florabunda.
As I told her, it is turning out ugly, but in that good way.

5 patch top

32 strip blocks, 31 five-patch blocks, finish at 7 1/2 inches. All made from 2 inch cut strips and squares.
All the dark squares are from plaid shirts. The lights are mainly old neutrals, with a few shirts too.
Borders cut 6 1/2 inches.
It made a nice dent in the neutrals bag. I am using up a lot of old VIP, Cranston, and Peter Pan tiny prints on the back of this one and for the courthouse steps quilt.

five patch

Scaled down from a pattern in Kim Schaefer's Cozy Modern Quilts that had 10 inch blocks.
My blocks finish to 7 1/2 inches.
Strip block: 5 strips cut 2 inches by 8 inches
5 patch block: 13 dark squares, 12 light squares

I am on a mission to sort through fabric that was bagged up in the attic when we re-roofed. My incentive is I get to come up with a new project with what is inside each. This quilt was inspired by the neutrals bag.
I sort into use, stash, share, donate, and throw out.

courthouse top complete

I am going to keep it without borders.
Measures about 64 by 80.

courthouse steps

When the 1 1/2 inch strip drawer needs taming, it is time to make a log cabin.
8 inch finished block made from 2 1/2 inch cut center, rounds cut from 1 1/2 inch strips at 2 1/2, 4 1/2, 6 1/2, and 8 1/2.
I have 40 blocks made, 40 more to go.

quilted and bound

Serendipity snakes with the 2 inch scrap strips.
I quilted this myself with the walking foot.
Bound with four leftover binding scraps.
46 by 59 inches.

S quilt

Seth loved the H quilt I made for my mother, and I recalled Wanda Hansen, in showing how she came up with her H pattern based it on Kaffe's S pattern--so, I went back to the beginning.
I love the secondary design of the backgrounds.
Blocks finish 7 1/2 inches.
Background: two rectangles 6 1/2 inches by 2 inches
Print: three rectangles 8 inches by 2 inches, two squares 2 by 2 inches

Need to make a pile more blocks.

serendipity snakes

There is a method of sewing up strips that I've done for quite a while that is showing up on the web as a way to use purchased strips.
I have taught this as the "snake" method of patchwork.
I use this method to clean up a pile of neglected strips, usually the ones that I leave behind because they are not inspiring me.
Take a pile of strips and sew them together to make a long (very long) snake. (I use straight edge piecing as I think it has a more primitive look--I see many people mitering.)
Take the head of the snake and the tail of the snake and sew them together along the sides to make a snake two strips wide. (You will need to cut the fold that occurs at the new tail of the snake. It may twist in your sewing--that is ok, just cut it before you get to the end to untangle it.)
Again, take the head and the tail and sew them together to make a snake 4 strips wide.
Repeat to 8; repeat to 16, repeat to 32, etc. You can stop at any number and use the panel as fabric and cut it to what you want.
This delightful top came from my two inch light strips drawer. Again, short pieces I had passed over many times come together with serendipity to make something wonderful.
Click serendipity snakes label below to some other examples of my use of this method.

Japan 1989