Grandma Scholten and her chickens

My neighbor, Steve Johnson gave me this wonderful painting of my grandmother. I knew he had been painting industrial type things, and gave him some photographs of farm scenes with machinery to look at. I was so happy to see this little (5 by 7) painting--it is framed and by my front door, so I see it as I leave and enter the house.
Grandma Hillegen "Ella" Scholten is known to us only in stories. She died in 1948 on the same day her second grandchild was born. There came to be 26 grandchildren. From all accounts, she was a gentle, unassuming woman with a subtle sense of humor.
Read Steve's take on this painting at
http://slimjohnsonpaints.blogspot.com

spliced log cabin

Mary and Eleonore, in my small group, have been making spliced log cabins--where you splice together the fabrics, pay no attention to keeping one side light and one side dark, and just keep sewing.
I like the subtle internal diagonals the splices give the quilt.
I used a basket full of plaid (of course) scraps and really like the results. My logs are cut 1 1/2 inches, finished blocks are 8 inches.

mom

Judy encourages us to use stash this month in a quilt for/inspired by our mothers.
My mom, (who reads my blog, so I must be careful here) is a wonderful seamstress. She made most of our clothes when we were growing up, including our wedding dresses. She saves her scraps, and kept very special ones in one box.
For her 70th birthday, I asked for access to these sacred scraps. She was reluctant to let me near them, but I took just 2" by 12" of each. I used a Fons and Porter floral pattern, and I think it turned out beautifully.
My sister took the tiny waste triangles and made a legend to tell where each fabric was from.
Mom loves the quilt, but is still not very happy that I cut into these scraps.
Mom, note almost 8 years have passed and you haven't made anything else from this box yet.
You know you can find several sacred stashes of mine that I haven't touched and cut into them!

Donna's pattern

My friend Donna has been playing with optical illusions in her quilts and has developed a pattern. I am honored she asked me to test the pattern, and am thrilled with my results. The tiniest square in these quilts is 1/4 inch finished. I love how they turned out, and the whole family has claimed the pillow. I made a mistake in the red quilt, that is why it is off centered. I like it that way. And I like how the paisley cut apart.
Contact Donna at donnainchicago@netscape.net for information on purchasing a copy of her pattern.

more crumbs

Another crumb quilt--someone asked why I call my plaid quilts cowboy quilts--I like cowboy fabric and find they work well with plaids. I love the little boy quality of these quilts, very playful. I may be projecting my life with this playful 9 year old boy!

insomnia

I have periods of insomnia, nothing terrible, but when I find myself tossing and turning too much, I head downstairs to the davenport. I awoke to a flash, to find Andy taking my picture--quilt included.
Eve and Paul have caught me downstairs, and I thought I had better explain my move was not due to a fight, but that I was trying to protect Andy's sleep. Eve said, "I thought you might be doing this because you were irritated with him." I explained that if I was irritated with him, I would have stayed in bed and made his sleep miserable!
Note the cat--This is the Creature Who Has No Purpose. He escapes the house and terrorises raccoons. He stands in the middle of the road and stares down cars. I really dislike this cat (most cats, actually) but he lives here so I feed him. Andy and the kids adore him.

monocromatic crayon box

I finished my version of Bonnie's Crayon Box. I have been trying to get a handle on the plaid shirt problem in my sewing space. I tackled the small parts in the blue pile and cut them into pieces for this--put together with no concern for value of light, medium, and dark. I did not use the sashing, butting 20 blocks together, spining alternate ones. This puts in a subtle secondary pattern of a woven cross at the intersections.
Thanks Bonnie!

the usual suspects

I belong to a group of wonderful women called "Tuesday Knitters". Our children were in preschool together, and we would get together on Tuesdays to knit. Time has past, children grew, and we now gather yearly on Super Bowl Sunday.
I am a very basic knitter, with it used more as a calming/distracting activity than a chance to showcase amazing skills. My usual output is dishcloths, for crying out loud. But, rearranging a cupboard today brought out this lineup. I loved making gnomes. These are all well played with. I think the ZZ Top guy on the left is one of the first ones I made. I'm sure I made over 50 of them, giving as gifts and to a school shop.
I have lots of bits of yarn around, in small quantities. Time to make more gnomes.

serendipity

Eve and I are just back from a few days in New York, doing touristy stuff, and getting a Chicago angle by visiting the site of our of our favorite John Cusack movies.
We also went to see the play Grey Gardens, about a mother and daughter who are crazy and grow old together.

We took notes.

boys

Seth loves my quilts and my fabrics. A few days ago, when a revolution was forming on LeClaire and a banner was needed for the troops, some of my hand dyed fabric of Robbi Eklow was commandeered.

another cowboy quilt

I finished this quilt last year--another cowboy quilt made from thrifted plaid shirts.

married life

Andy and I were married on St Patrick's Day 23 years ago. Here we are early in our married life. We tell people we chose St Patrick's Day because we are too disorganized to remember dates without a trigger from the world. Living in Chicago, this means we note when the river is dyed green, the green Hostess Snowball cakes come out (we had them circling our wedding cake), and McDonalds serves Shamrock Shakes. One of those a year is plenty.

advent at lent

I am finishing an advent wall hanging for our church auction. I have made many of these over the years adapted from a Debbie Mumm piece--I usually find her stuff a bit much, but loved the simplicity of this tree. I changed the construction techniques, put 24 buttons on for advent, and include small ornaments to hang each day.
I have made some of these as mourning quilts, using buttons of loved ones who have died, one with uniform buttons of a veteran of WWII; she was one of the first WACs.
I also add a dowel and make a storage bag for it all, giving a bit of organization out of my life of chaos.

crumbs from shirts

I have been making crumb blocks from plaid shirts I have taken apart--the great stripe for the border has been on my shelves so long I have no memory of buying it. The blocks were trimmed to 6 1/2 inches.
Yes, those are Christmas lights still up on March 6th.

students!

I really enjoy teaching--my quilting students are so wonderfully excited about their newly discovered talents.

buzz saw mountains

One irritation with the new blogger is it rotates my photos. I will take time later to fix this, but has anyone else been having this problem? (((FIXED!!)))
Here is a delectable mountains variation of the buzz saw pattern--made with plaid shirts from the thrift stores.

strings

All the wonderful string quilts showing up on the stashbusters ring got me to make my first string quilt. I had made blocks before, but is my first whole top. The strings are lights that have been languishing in my 1 1/2 inch strip drawer--the stuff that was not selected over time due to the blah feeling of most of them. I used 3 different blue solids I had pieces of for the diagonals, and had some 5 1/2 inch squares given to me by someone for some unknown reason that I cut in half for the corner pieces on the foundation. I used Bonnie's method with the wax paper, and 8 inch strips of 6 different lights for the borders.
A cheerful, summery looking quilt made in my unheated attic when it was -1 degree outside!

Bible Story Theater 2007

I needed two shots to get the cast of thousands (ok, cast of 169). This year, it was "Follow Me" a look at the calling of the women and the disciples. We reused/altered many costumes from previous years.


These are some of the demons who disturbed Mary of Magdala


And, a drop of the Sea of Galillee with her fish, and some of the catch.

cropping

I am getting ready to teach a Buzz Saw class--it has been a while since I made one, so I have been having fun making samples this week.


This is a photo of my shelves. I worked very hard last spring sorting, donating, throwing out stuff.


Uncropped.

her mother's footsteps

Eve decided, like her mother, to make many of her Christmas gifts. Also like her mother, it is the middle of January and there are several still not finished.
I am very proud of her chosen project, to make 12 tote bags for her friends. She looked at her purchased bags, looked online for patterns, came to me for technical support, and designed her own pattern. She raided my collection of solids and purchased cotton webbing for the handles. I love how she is embellishing them with buttons from my button collection. I also am amused that she considers these nearly free gifts, since she only had to pay for the webbing. Apparently my fabrics and buttons and needles fell like manna.