not plaids (well, there are a few)

Yes, I can use non plaid fabric. I have a nice collection of Japanese fabrics. We were in Tokyo in 1989 and I still have some I bought then at a department store. Paul was 15 months old, a beautiful blonde child who got me access to places regular tourists might not have gotten--a bride was choosing her wedding kimono and she let me sit and watch her being dressed.

I love the old Momen House prints of the late 1980s/early 90s. I would search quilt shops for the narrower boards that would hold these wonderful fabrics. I picked up a few Mrs. March/Lecien at the quilt expo here this March and decided to use all of these, plus a few American, French, and Italian taupe type fabrics and lots of shirt parts in Bonnie Hunter's Chunky Churndashes.

It is a great, simple pattern, reminds me of the Shinto lanterns or gates. I used a beige/blue vermicelli and a great tomato red/beige reproduction print that had been on my shelves for quite a while for the hour glass blocks.
And, I had the delight of meeting Bonnie in person at a meeting she lectured in Lake Bluff.

cape cod

We are just back from a week on Cape Cod, where Andy vacationed many summers in his childhood.
Andy and Eve flew because of work/school time constraints. The boys and I drove out...

In a note to my sisters I wrote upon arrival:
I started out from Chicago Friday at 0700. We stopped twice for breaks, stopped by some friends on Lake Chautauqua for a hour and a half, stopped at 10pm to sleep some place in the Fingerlakes District, were back on the road by 0730, stopped for two breaks and a grocery buying venture, and got to Cape Cod at 730 pm to find...Michigan.
Yes, 36 hours of travel to get to a place that looks just like Michigan.
The only differences I've found are there is salt in the water and there are tides.

Those two things better make the extra 34 hours worth it.

Andy is like a little boy (in a good way) so the rest of us are going to make the best of this.

But, from now on, Benton Harbor here we come.
Lynn

My mood improved over the week. There were dark skies and rain most of the time, but Andy was able to take them sailing one day.

Seth loved the tidal flats. Here the tide comes in on their castle.


We went ocean side one afternoon--beautiful day.

And, had a wonderful sunset the last night.

But, I am just back from the return drive and coming by the exits to Michigan at the end of the journey made me even more weary.
Why do I always need a vacation after my vacations?

dishcloths

Dish Cloths--How I make them.
One 3 ounce skein of Lily's Sugar 'n Cream variegated cotton yarn will yield 2 dish cloths. You can make these any size you wish, my mom likes me to make them bigger for her, but with this size I know I will get two out of the skein.
Cast on 4 stitches.
Knit 2-3 rows, knitting up the tail of the cast on as I go.
I always slip the first stitch of a row over onto the needle making a smoother edge. I count this as my first knit stitch. There may be knitters language that explains it, but I don't know it.
So, back to the cast on and initial rows.
Knit two, yarn over, knit to the end of the row.
Keep doing this until there are 53 stitches on your needle.
Knit one, knit two together, yarn over, knit two together, knit to the end of the row.
When you are down to 6 stitches, knit one, knit two together, knit two together, knit one.
Now you will have four stitches on the needle.
Knit 2-3 rows, bind off, weave in just one end because you knit in the first end at the beginning.
I am all for efficiency.
I especially like to knit up the leftovers for our use.

home again

I had these three quilts hanging at the arts center. I enjoy getting reacquainted with quilts I haven't seen for a while.
I think all were made in 2001.
This was a mystery on the web. A rare example of a quilt of mine not made with many fabrics. I do like it.

A little quilt, part of a guild challenge so the fabrics were selected by someone else--I added a few. I named it Toba for the place in Japan we saw many seahorses. Quilted with close parallel curved lines with variegated rayon thread.


I took a workshop with Margaret Miller. Quilted in random intersecting squiggle lines with variegated rayon thread. And, it has a great Senegal fabric of chickens for the back.

a major influence

Jennifer LaCivita started the Portage Park Center for the Arts here in our neighborhood of Chicago in 1999. It was a pilot program of introducing neighborhood based arts support and the city bought an old church for the center to use. The center was wonderful to have in the neighborhood. I was home with 3 small children and quilting, teaching a few friends once a week at my house.
I went to Jennifer in 2000 and asked if she would be interested in a fiber arts addition to her programming. She welcomed me in and I started with two students. We developed a once a week evening class and monthly Saturday workshop. The classes were very popular and I am proud of the work I did there.
It was also a great place for my family--the kids all took arts classes there, and I was right in the neighborhood when I taught.
The arts center is closing now (building is in need of major repairs that the city is not going to make, leading to unsafe conditions) and funding for arts is no longer a priority in the city budget. PPCA was a treasure for the neighborhood for a decade, and it's ripples will continue.
My teaching there gave me work experience that helped me going back into nursing, and on to teaching nursing.
Thank you, Jennifer.

Decoration Day

My Father, Cpl Leroy Dykstra, US Army, service 1952-1954.


My Father-in-law, Edward Davis, US Navy, service 1955-1961


My Grandfather, Pvt Jerry Dykstra, US Army, service 1918.


Cynthia Meerdink, my grandmother, far left, with other members of the girls society at First Reformed Church in Hull, Iowa, sewing a service banner for our church, during the Great War. It and the one for the Second World War were still hanging in the church when I was a young girl in the 1960s.

I urge you to spend some time reading stories at my sister's site Wartime Remembrances.
http://www.jefferson.k12.wi.us/jms/LibraryHomePage/WartimeRemembrances/Veterans/allnew.htm

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.