An epic finish

 It feels like an epic finish.  I started this quilt in 2004 maybe at least that is when the Kim Diehl book was published.  I made this with a group of friends, we each made our own but most followed Kim's directions for half square triangles in the spools.  I did them with the y seam. (click for step by step how to)  I started hand quilting this because that was the overwhelming consensus to hand quilt.  So I did until a couple moves ago when it ended up in a box and then on the top shelf of my art materials closet.  I pulled it out this winter and studied it for a while.  Finish hand quilting this or just finish it?!?!   Only 3 spools left to quilt but all those geese.... .....and then somthing traditional in the plain borders. Will it ever get finished if I hand quilt it? In all honesty, probably not, then it will end up on a rummage sale when I am gone.  I really love these colors and the pattern.  Its my quilt..... finish it by machine and finish it.  So I did and I feel so go to finish a quilt that I started 17 years ago.  --Ann--

Out of the cupboard

 

On one of those cold windy days last week I folded the last of the Christmas quilts to put away for the year and pulled out this summery quilt and took a short mental vacation to a warmer sunnier greener spot.  I made this  well over 20 years ago with mostly William Morris fabrics.  The quilt guild I was a member of would get  bales and squares of fabrics from a company called Merryvale they had the complete line of all the newest fabrics and since the town I was living in did not have a quilt shop at that time it was great way to get new fabrics.  The squares were 6 x6 and the bales were 6 x 18 inches.  The only fabrics that were not from a Merryvale bundle were the flowers and foliage.  The flowers were all hand appliqué either blind stitch or buttonhole with embroidery floss.  I had so much fun with the bees and butterflies.  The wings of the dragonfly were from a frosted tree print perfect for the veins in the wings.  The bees are all yellow plaids.  Then I sewed a few bug buttons on because I had them and daughter was too old for cute bug buttons on her clothes.  I also stuck a few broaches on just for fun the blue dragonfly was my grandmas.

The Monarch butterfly is leather and a birthday gift from my mother when I was still a teenager.  I used to pin it to the back of my sweater.  I can't remember where the other pins came from.  The one below looks like abalone shell.  The white one on the yellow flower in the top picture is fimo clay.  No garden is complete without a spider,  I hand quilted the web with metalic thread.  A little bit of summer in my sewing room.  

--Ann--

Antique quilt Bunny Hop

As I sort through the closets I find lots of treasures including this heirloom.  I got it from my mother and I'm sure her mother made it but what ever I was told about the quilt is long forgotten.  Alternating blocks quick and easy then I started to take a close up of the print and saw the bunnies.  Those have to be my grandmothers stitches.  It might have been pieced by her mother or mother in law but Grandma Selma quilted it. She started having fun with the quilting stencil because this bunny is twisted slightly in other blocks for a different position in the hop.  Treasures to keep.  --Ann--

Out of the Cupboard

My maternal grandmother made this quilt in the 1930's, it has always been a source of awe and inspiration. It was on my parents bed for many years, the colors have faded, I tweaked them a bit and brought them back to their original brightness I wish I could do that with the quilt, that and stretch it to a queen size. When I was a little girl I used to walk with my fingers across each color to the center of the quilt. The colors changed so comfortably from one print to the next like the sunset. And Grandmas tiny hand quilting stitched through a heavy wool batting. My mother sewed a satin blanket edging to one side to protect the fabric from chin wear. The colors have faded as summer has faded into fall here.--Ann--

Out of the Cupboard

Twenty-three years ago today I finished the binding on this quilt. I remember because Darling Daughter was born the very next day. She couldn't have timed it better.
I pieced the rail fence in the center because it made me think of the neat little gardens in the Beatrix Potter books. Followed by a row of carrots from the scraps of 1/8 yard cuts.  I hand quilted the figures from the Peter Rabbit and the Benjamin Bunny stories. Then I still had scraps left over so I built a garden wall around my garden with a gate for Peter and Benjamin.  A couple months after she was born I stitched her name, birth date and weight in the space below the flower. It is all hand quilted a lot of it in the ditch. Happy memories.--Ann--
 

Carrots

 Twenty some years ago I made this carrot quilt out of 1/8 yard cuts that I bought a quarter century ago. Doesn't a quarter century ago sound ancient compared with 20 some?? Remember when a fabric store would cut less than 1/2 yard cuts? And I had all that left over fabric............come back tomorrow to see what I made.--Ann--

advent quilt

We had snow and blowing snow the way it usually comes yesterday so between watching the snow drift and pile I put up Christmas decorations. The Advent quilt is a favorite, it has three times as many buttons as it should so each of my kids could hang an ornament everyday. Then the boys got big and thought they were too big to hang an ornament so daughter hung them all and now I don't even take them off the tree. That's what happens when they grow up and leave home. I should count my blessing here that they did grow up and leave home.  It seems like decades ago ok it really was decades ago I found a Christmas fabric with old fashioned ornaments that were perfect for and Advent tree so I rough cut them and fused them to backing fabric and fussy cut them  and attached a loop. I hand quilted with a gold metallic thread around each of the Santas and under the trees in the background fabric. And no label on the back I think I made it in the early 1990's. I miss the dark reds and dark greens of Christmas from 20 some years ago. --Ann--

How I spent my summer......

How I spent my summer vacation...........Sewing log cabin blocks by the dozen and........
reading. I read 4 books about Abraham Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd Lincoln. 
Visual aid please Log Cabin Quilt of course.

This is my first log cabin quilt sewn in 1987, traditional red centers with three dark fabrics gradually getting darker and 3 lights gradually getting darker. It is about 40 inches square and I hand quilted it.
Reading list:

1. Love is Eternal by Irving Stone  I have been reading biographical novels by Irving Stone since college, he researches all of his books the facts are there along with the real places and people, he gives them personality and dialog. He also wrote The Agony and the Ecstasy about Michelangelo, Lust for Life about Vincent VanGogh, The President's Lady about Rachel and Andrew Jackson, Those Who Love about John and Abigail Adams and many more. I should reread some of them.
2. Behind the Scenes or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House by Elizabeth Keckley  non-fiction, this book is referenced in the three novels. She was an incredible woman.
   
3. An Unlikely Friendship A Novel of Mary Todd Lincoln and Elizabeth Keckley by Ann Rinaldi  Look for Ann Rinaldi books in junior fiction and young adult fiction in your local library, she also  researches her characters,events and places. At the end of her books she tells what is fact and what is not and who she created or embellished and why.
4. Mrs. Lincolns Dressmaker by Jennifer Chiaverini  This might be Jennifer Chiaverini's first book not about the Elm Creek Quilters. This is a look into the Lincoln White House, Mrs. Lincoln after the assassination and publishing Behind the Scenes. 

I had no idea there was so much controversy and scandal during Lincoln's presidency. 

another visual aid please    A ceramic figurine that my mother painted in the late 1940's, I think it looks like one of the dresses Elizabeth Keckley sewed for Mrs. Lincoln.

Sometimes when I am reading a book I imagine the actors I would cast as the characters in the book. It was always Sally Fields voice who was speaking to me as Mary Lincoln and I have not seen the latest Lincoln movie. I could not imagine any other actor in that role.

That's what I did this summer.
would I be teacher's pet or what for all this historic reading!?!
  And now that all my kids are done with school vacation just continues for me!!--Ann--

Out of the cupboard-- another old quilt

Another old quilt and my favorite color of blue. My great grandmother made this quilt long before I was born. It was on my bed when I was a little girl. It has a wool bat that has shifted, there is a lot of wool in the bottom corners but not much on the sides or top edge. She didn't sign or label her quilt and now I am foggy as to which great grandmother made this quilt. I must make a label for the next generations otherwise it is just an old quilt.~~Ann~~

Old quilt

My parents are both gone and my brothers and I begin the monumental task of sorting through the house. My oldest brother chose this quilt but then he stuck it in my car. Thank you so much. It was made for our mother born in 1928 by her maternal grandmother. It has a wool batting, it is machine pieced and hand quilted in the ditch and around the pin wheels. As I look back through the family history books I learn that Great Grandma Lena was born in Sweden and died in South Dakota in 1952. I believe my grandmother (my mother's mother mor mor as the Swedes say as opposed to far mor for father's mother doesn't that make it easy to know which grandma you are referring and  mor far and far far for grandfathers) put the quilt together and hand quilted it. My Mor mor also quilted this click.  I think the quilting was done by the same person. I love that color of blue and see the hint of green in the grass, our snow is finally gone.--Ann--

another one out of the cupboard

I seem to be on a theme of blue and yellow they are my school colors go Jackrabbits!
The pieced sashing between the churn dash blocks creates more churn dash blocks. I hand quilted inside the rectangles and triangles and stitched arcs from point to point in the background, I stitched a baptist fan in the border. I call this quilt SDSU Ice Cream because SDSU has a top notch dairy manufacturing program and they make the best ice cream in the world. In 1972 the created an ice cream with dark chocolate cream filled cookies now called cookies and cream for trademark reasons. The label on the back says I finished it in 1999.  Both the men and women won the summit conference yesterday!  Go Jacks--Ann--