wayback machine

Since not much quilting is getting done around here I decided to show some from back in the day. My less than cooperative handlers do not like holding them straight.

This is one of my favorites--a Jacobs Ladder made with blocks swapped on QuiltNet, 1995.

Farmers Daughter, 1995, from a Country Threads book.

Road to Oklahoma, can't find a date on it, but from around the same time.

Sampler, also no date on it, but I well remember making it in 1997 during my pregnancy with Seth. I was very sick and did not get much sewing done, but this was offered as a mystery on the web and I could handle making the block or two every other week.

happy birthday, Beth

We celebrate my sister Beth's birthday. In this photograph you see what a lovely baby she was. Janna and I are wearing reversible houndstooth/grey wool flannel vests and skirts our mother made for us.
I think one reason I remember our clothes so well is I got to wear them through two sizes as mom made matching ones for the three of us. Beth got pretty tired of them after wearing them through three sizes!
Beth is a busy mother and wife, college instructor, and doctoral student in how to teach physics to 1st graders! I spent a day with her last week, watching her review her students' work.

Eve's travels

Eve is studying in China and this is the only photograph she has sent.
My parents and sister are just back from England.
In viewing their photographs, and this of Eve, I am pleased to report the Dykstra family is not, as one comedian said of Americans abroad, "dressed like they are ready to mow the lawn".

orzo salad

Andy's favorite

Dressing:
1/4 cup mustard (use honey or brown or dijon)
1/2 cup olive oil
1/3 cup vinegar (use combination of balsamic and seasoned rice)
1 tablespoon soy sauce

Stir in:
1 small onion minced
1 big or two regular cans of black beans, rinsed and drained
1 regular can of chick peas, rinsed and drained
1 cup of frozen corn (use white super sweet if available)
1 regular can of small black olives, drained

While the above marinates, prepare:
1 napa cabbage chopped
1 pound orzo
Cook orzo, drain, do not rinse, toss hot with chopped cabbage to wilt it.

Pour marinated mixture over orzo and cabbage and toss.
Slice up 8-10 sundried tomatoes drained of oil and scatter on top.
Use lots of fresh ground black pepper.
Is best at room temperature.

This is the basic recipe. At times I add:
Roasted asparagus
Roasted peppers
Artichokes
Chopped fresh tomatoes

bound, labeled and sleeved

Not sure if anyone but a quilter would use sleeved as a past tense verb.
These quilts have been all but the three above for some time now.
The first is an improvisational piece. I loved making it, each section grew as the scraps around me took it in a new direction.
The second, much more rigid, is beautiful. It will be Andy's birthday present and will hang in his office, bringing home a quilt I have not seen for quite some time.
One of the frustrating realities of being a nurse is dealing with shifts being canceled or being on call. I am never able to totally relax in these situations as even if cancelled, they may call me in anyway, and being on call is setting aside time without knowing what will happen. Both of these are really difficult financially, too, as there is no pay for either.
Yesterday I was ready to take report when they sent me home, but said they might call me back. Binding was the perfect activity as it is busy work, productive, and not tasking. It is always good to have some of that type of work available.
Just this hour I got a call canceling me for this evening, but to stay close to the phone in case admissions come in.
I am not faulting my place of work--great staff, great mission, but this is the industry way of dealing with fluctuating patient census levels. There has got to be a better way.
Later: they called me back in, then sent me home after 5 hours.

The back of the second quilt (adapted from the Moda site) uses up the last of my Senegal chicken fabric. Love that stuff.

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.