Merry Christmas!

1895 Harriet Powers Bible Quilt

On the 24th Day of Christmas

1855 Star Quilt

On the 23rd Day of Christmas

On the 22nd Day of Christmas

1850 Baltimore Album

On the 21st Day of Christmas

Cucumber Quilt

On the 20th Day of Christmas

1840 Star of Bethlehem

On The 19th Day of Christmas

1860 Pineapple Quilt

On the 18th Day of Christmas

1910 Sunshine and Shadow

On the 17th Day of Christmas

Tree of Life

On the 16th Day of Christmas

Democrat Rose I am headed to New York City to do enjoy the sights and shopping of Christmas, so it may be a few days before I post again!

On the 15th Day of Christmas

The Custer Quilt

On The 14th Day of Christmas

1930 Amish Crazy Quilt

On The 13th Day of Christmas

1930 Honeycomb Quilt

On the 12th Day of Christmas

Snail Trail

On the 11th Day of Christmas

1850 Canadian Square in a Diamond Quilt

On the 10th Day of Christmas

1860 Cradle Quilt

On the 9th Day of Christmas

1920 String Star

On the 8th Day of Christmas

1852 Burgoyne Surrounded

On the 7th Day of Christmas

1920 Snow Crystals

On the 6th Day of Christmas

1858 Silk Quilt

On The 5th Day of Christmas

Pennsylvania Album

On The 4th Day of Christmas

1920 New York Beauty

On the Third Day of Christmas

1853 Folk Art Quilt

On The Second Day of Christmas

1850 Pokeberry Quilt

On The First Day of Christmas 2012

It’s that time of year again. The time when I love to celebrate the holiday’s by posting pictures of fabulous antique quilts that I would love to have to display in my home during the Christmas season. I don’t own any of these beauties I just have a file of saved pictures of my favorites. I plan on posting 25 of these fab quilts before Christmas. I always start out early on my 25 days as I know I will miss a few days here and there getting them posted. I hope you enjoy these as much as I do! I have a joyous holiday season!

Happy Halloween!

I work in ag research so this is a busy time of the year for me, so not much quilting happening. In my free time I have been watching old scary movies. My favorite ones are the Vincent Price movies. I am not sure that they are that scary but they are fun. He was just a creepy guy. Last nights choice was The House on Haunted Hill, the night before was The Raven and tonight I plan on watching House of Wax. What fun, a good way to wind down at the end of the day. I found and taped these off of Turner Classic Movies so I would have them waiting the week before Halloween. I have crazy little traditions and this is one of them. And for some inspiration another wonderful Amish quilt. Love the strings. I can’t stop looking at this one. Always believe in God because there are some questions that cannot be answered by Google.

Sometimes karma can be bad. I was sitting on my couch trying to draw out a spider for a quilt I am working on when my phone dings and I get the above picture from my son. He and his brother are on a month long driving/backpacking trip out west. He came across this tarantula somewhere near where the following picture was taken. I gave up long ago trying to keep track of where they are.

When this trip finishes up my youngest son will be starting a job in Colorado and my oldest son is headed to Peru until the middle of January. I am so glad they are getting this time together. Talking about drawing, how do you plan out your quilts?? Do you only work from patterns? Do you draw out a small drawing and go from there or do you draft it out according to size? Do you make blocks and lay it out as you go? I would love to get your input as to what works best for you. I tend to make a small drawing and then usually draft a small area out by size and once I have that area done I wing it from there. Let me know how you work. Be bold. Be confident. Be alive. A gallery of possibilities awaits for you when you make change your friend. - Bob Bone

Inspiration

If you haven’t went through your stash of books lately, I would highly recommend doing it. My quilting stuff has been packed up for the past 4 years and in re-visiting it I have been inspired in a whole different way. Let me explain. I have a love of words and things a little bit on the wacky side. I also love large shapes so my more recent quilts have included the wacky, the strange and a whole lot of me getting my 2 cents in. So you can only imagine my surprise while going through my things I kept getting pulled away by those bright amish quilts. The large geometric shapes, the color, and best of all the quilting I started scanning pictures like crazy. The sense of color just amazes me and the no math pattern is right up my alley. Then there is the quilting. I love hand quilting heavily on a quilt. Free form fans would be so much fun to do and so easy.

Well the first thing I had to find was my tub of solids so off to the garage I went, found said tub and pulled it in the house. Okay lets hope the choices in solids has gotten a little better since I last purchased some as mine are not inspiring in the least. I am sharing a few of my pictures I scanned. Let me know what you think.

Trying and Doing are two different things. When you try, you hope. When you do, you succeed.

Back in Business

I have obviously taken some time off from blogging but it has been time well spent as I have a beautiful granddaughter – Kallie. I love her to pieces and lucky me she lives on the street behind me. I just have to walk through my backyard to see her. Let’s just say grandma has a hard time staying away. My son in law put a lock on the gate, I got the message, Lol and have been trying to do better. In the midst of grandbaby, son graduating from college, etc, etc I have become an empty nester. I love it! No meals to cook, no cleaning up after anyone, it is a wonderful life! I spent my summer going through boxes of quilting stuff that had came here with me almost 4 years ago in my move. I have thrown a lot out, re-visited a lot of fabulous fabrics and patterns and fell in love all over again with quilting. I now have a sewing room again. It is so nice and clean and pretty that I am having a hard time getting to work in it. I have a few fun things going on in this head of mine and I am ready to get busy again. First I am tackling some finishes up from old projects that are new again it has been so long since I have worked on them. So keep an eye out for pictures as I get them finished! Progress has little to do with speed, but much to do with direction.

Fusing Words

I was asked how I did my lettering on the borders. There are so many ways out there to do letters on your quilts. I have done various ways over the years. True appliqué, letters pieced from square and half square triangles, embroidery, liberated letters, fused, etc. This time I chose to fuse the letters on. I would have to say my favorite look is the liberated letters that are a bit wonky. But in this quilt the letters my friends made are definitely the stars of this quilt and I didn’t want the border to move the eye away from them, so I chose to fuse smaller letters.



To get started on this I decide what width my border is going to be and what words are going to be placed on what border. I then choose a font from my Word program on my pc. After finding what font I think will work best I then play with the sizing, printing different sizes out of a few words on paper and then placing them on the border until I get a size I like. Once you find your font and sizing all you have to do is print the words out, turn the paper over and using a sharpie outline the letters so you have them in reverse and then trace the reversed letters directly to your fusing paper.



After fusing the letters to the border I then like to sew a straight stitch around the edges of each letter to make sure they will hold if the quilt is washed. I do this using matching thread to the actual letter fabric and my machine. To finish the letters off I embroider around each letter using matching embroidery thread and a buttonhole stitch.



Viewing the quilt from a short distance you can’t even tell this step has been done, but I like how it pulls the letters off the quilt a bit. You could do the embroidery by hand or machine. I always enjoy the handwork. I am including a couple of examples of previous quilts I did using this method. I hope you give it a try, very easy and words always make the quilt!

"If you obey all the rules, you'll miss all the fun." - Katherine Hepburn

Moving Forward

Three years ago my husband of 25 years went on a fishing trip, he came back with a new girlfriend and a divorce and thus my life forever changed - for the better, lol. I don’t know if I could have said that three years ago but I have definitely come full circle and really enjoy the person I have become. Life is funny like that sometimes. When this all took place my quilt friends being the wonderful group of gals that they are gifted me with some letter blocks. You see I have a love for words, always have. It goes back to my days of being a young girl and immersing myself in the poetry of Emily Dickinson and Rod McKuen. Words started showing up in my quilts in the early 90’s and have continued to do so since. So it was only natural that when I was feeling down they each made me a letter spelling out there love for me. I love these letters, they are all so unique, so the friend that made them. I have cherished them for three years now and know that the time has come to create a quilt with them.



I have completed that circle of disbelief to happiness. The time has come to put those letters into words, my friends words, my own words. Thus the divorce quilt is evolving. The letters are sewn together and the work on the borders, my words, has begun. As I said before, life is funny like that sometimes, you don’t know what it has in store for you but with a little bit of love from your friends and a whole lot of faith you will survive and continue to move forward.

“I am not afraid of storms for I am learning to sail my ship.” - Louisa May Alcott

Heading Out

Two little finishes. I have had the quilting done on these two little quilts for quite awhile but as I tend to do I never got the bindings put on. Binding is definitely my least favorite part of quilting. I don’t know why I just tend to put it off forever. Maybe it is a psychological thing; I don’t want the process of that particular creation to end. Possibly, possibly not. Anyway, I got my act together and was able to spend the whole 2 hours that it took me to make and sew these bindings on.



I like having little quilts to quilt on. They are so easy to pick up and work on, easy to maneuver around and easy to travel with. I have two more I am working on then I will have to get busy and put some of those ideas in my head down on paper and create a few new ones.



Remember the Would Your Rather quilt with friends or go on a cruise question? Well I would definitely choose quilting with friends as I have the bestest quilting friends ever!!! I am packed and ready to head out for a weekend of quilting, eating, talking and even movie watching with these friends. We all started reading the Janet Evanovich books together back in the 90’s. Lucky for us that the movie based on book one is premiering this weekend so while we are all together we are going to take a trip to the theater and have a few laughs. I have been busy preparing a “Special” project to work on. Hopefully I can get some pictures snapped over the weekend and share it with all of you.

“The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.” - E.E. Cummings

A New Day

I’m walking on Sunshine, oh yeah, I am walking on Sunshine is the title for my quilt. I definitely love getting up each day and experiencing this wonderful life that has been gifted to me. So with happiness in heart I created this quilt top. The sun is shining and my new life is growing (yep that’s for me!!). A few years ago my life took a drastic change and I found myself starting over again. But I can say it has been a happy change for me and I see life in a whole new light. It is to be enjoyed, the good, the bad the happy and the unhappy. I read a quote from Leonard Cohen a while back that has really stuck with me, “Act the way you’d like to be and soon you’ll be the way you act.” Give it a try, it works! It won’t be long and I should be done with this quilt. I have the background quilting done, now I just need to finish up the quilting in the wool areas.

Everything can be taken from us but one thing - the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance. – Victor Frankl

Time Off Well Spent

I was lucky enough to have a couple of weeks off over Christmas. Laura + Time off = Couch potato. I can honestly say that I barely left my house. I didn’t even go gather my mail, just sat around hand quilting and watching Westerns. Those who know me know that I am a big Western junkie. So I DVR as many as I can and I pay extra for the Western channel each month so that I will have an endless supply of entertainment. My favorites are the black and white ones from the 40’s and 50’s. Plus I can never get enough of Randolph Scott, George Montgomery or James Drury as The Virginian. My love affair with Westerns goes back a long time. My oldest son was named for the character Jess Harper in the tv series Laramie played by Robert Fuller who also portrayed one of my favorite characters “Cooper Smith” on the Wagon Train. So I enjoyed my few weeks off with my favorite guys and about four different hand quilting projects. I didn’t want to get too bored with any single one so each day I worked on each one a little bit. I have two small ones in the works, a crib size that is done in both cottons and wools, and a large bed size that I made for my daughter back when she was 11. She is now 19 so it is definitely time to get it quilted. I am happy with what I have accomplished so far and will be sharing my progress along the way. Now off to do a little more quilting and watch Eddie Dean sing a little and then ride off to catch the bad guys.

You were born an original. Don’t die a copy. - John Mason

Would You Rather -

Fight a polar bear or a grizzly bear? That is how my summer was spent, playing the; would you rather game. One of my jobs at work is to oversee the summer interns that work for us. I work in ag research so we spend many an hour outdoors taking samples, monitoring fields etc. The very first day one of the kids asked the above question and thus the summer of would you rather, began. At times I thought I was going to go crazy from this silly game as they would argue as to who had the right answer and then google what they felt was the correct answer on their Iphones to support their argument. The game seemed endless as they never ran out of questions to ask. The very last day they worked one of the last things said to me by one of the boys was a would you rather question.
Summer is gone and we are in the middle of winter and the game continues to haunt me. For Christmas one of my superiors at work placed a wrapped gift on my desk and told me to open it on Christmas day. It was the boxed game of Would you Rather? How funny that these kids are still bringing a smile to all of us months later. So welcome 2012, I think I will start off with my own game of Would You Rather? Let me know your answers.
Would you rather Hand quilt or Machine quilt?
Would you rather use batik fabrics or plaid fabrics?
Would you rather machine piece or appliqué?
Would you rather take a quilting cruise or a weeklong quilt along at home with friends?


You don't stop playing because you grow old; you grow old because you stop playing.