Dresden Plate quilt

This little sweetie came from a garage sale near my office in La Crosse on Friday. The seller said it was made by her great great aunt and given to her by her great aunt (daughter of the maker), her Great Auntie Marlys or maybe Marlis (I did not get the spelling) of Hillsboro, Wisconsin, and that the family name Markee is involved somewhere, possibly the last name of the maker. She has my phone number to call me if anyone in the family remembers more.

It's a cute little Dresden Plate, machine pieced/appliqueed in individual squares which were then machine sewn together and then hand quilted. It was self bound and the binding is worn. The backing is a printed cotton. It was dirty when I bought it, and I thought it started as white and had darkened with age and use; however, when I removed the whisker guard, I found that it had originally been a nice yellow and had faded. The top of the quilt where the whisker guard was is at the bottom of my photo. See the difference?

I soaked it gently, rinsed it carefully and dried it on the freshly mown lawn (backing side up, I only flipped it to get this photo). The 1930s prints are still vibrant. Only one fabric deteriorated. I'm thinking of using the fabric from the whisker guard to rebind the quilt. Not certain about that.

Design wall/floor

On the family room floor. Photos taken for blog and also in case a catornado whips through and scrommels up the blocks before I can stitch them together.

UPDATE: The catornado happened.

Scrappy baby quilt for Kristine and Willie's little one

This is a baby quilt for a little boy who may be born already, I'm not sure exactly when he is or was expected. We know his parents slightly and his grandparents quite a bit better. I made it mostly of scraps of flannels and from recycled men's shirts (all those woven cotton plaids, yum) and backed it with a piece of red flannel print from my stash. I quilted it in my own rather inept fashion with an all-over stipple pattern. It should be cuddly and sturdy.

The backing.

The border, featuring my patented 4-sided (and sometimes 5-sided) triangles.

The pattern was one of those freebies the quilting magazines like to send in the mail to try to convince you to subscribe. In this case, it was Love of Quilting magazine, and the original design came from an antique crib quilt in the collection of the International Quilt Study Center & Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska. They just called it a "strippy crib quilt." It's kind of busy, but I like it, and I can imagine it getting dragged around the house by a toddler, or used to make a blanket fort, or having Legos scattered all over it.

Uh-oh....

Look what just arrived in email: Canning Day by Mama's Cottons.

I am really fond of Connecting Threads. I like their products, and they have given me great customer service. This is another cute collection to sigh over. Er, over which to sigh.

Red Crazy Quilt on guest room wall

Barry put this quilt hanging rod up in the guest room for me this morning. I hung my grandma's red crazy quilt on it. It's one of my favorites of all my quilts, hers and mine. She made it for my Aunt Frances.

No, I will NOT be part of Iowa history after all.

Maria,

Jen Cannon, Competitive Events Director, for the Iowa State Fair confirmed that Jim Pfiffner’s quilt design won. His design will be among the other 99 counties in Iowa to have a barn quilt mural displayed on the outside of the Richard O. Jacobson Exhibition Center in 2010. The winning designs will be on display at the Iowa Fairs Conference in December. Please look for an upcoming announcement about the winning design in the newspaper.

Thank you for your interest in the Richard O. Jacobson Exhibition Center Tile Design Contest. I commend you for designing a quilt mural that is truly unique.

Kris

Oh well.

New Albin Library Quilt Show 2009

We still have the flu but there is still some good news.

It's probably H1N1, by the way - clinic said the test would cost several hundred dollars and would not change the treatment plan, so they are not testing for it, but the strain they are seeing is generally believed to be H1N1. Joy. On the other hand, Lil Miss A is feeling better today, and though she still was feverish this morning, she's feeling wonderful now and I am having to tie her up to keep her from running outside to rake the leaves she sees falling all over the place. So she is definitely improving.

Okay, now for the good news, or rather the OTHER good news: A few weeks ago this appeared in our little local weekly paper:




And I submitted this design:




And when I got home from the clinic, there was both a voice mail and an email telling me that my design is one of the finalists for the county, and the final decision will be made in Des Moines.

I'm excited! And I want to make this quilt for real, for a bed.

Doll quilt for niece

Remember I made that yellow gingham apron for one of our nieces? The other one didn't want an apron, she wanted a quilt for her doll, which is a little one, around 12 inches tall. And she wanted it to be purple and orange, her favorite colors. So here is a purple and orange doll quilt. It's pretty small, made just to be the size for wrapping up a 12-inch baby doll.

I'm posting these once I know they have arrived. Roseann called me a split second after her table runner arrived. I know this doll quilt arrived because of the delivery confirmation number.

Sounds like someone I know.

The one thing I really miss about having a working clothes dryer.

We're doing fine so far just using the clothesline, saving the laundry for nice days, and in a pinch just hanging things indoors, on the back porch.

The one thing I miss is not being able to preshrink fabric! I can still wash it in hot water, but I cannot blast it with high heat in the dryer, so I always fear there is some shrinkage left lurking in it somewhere. I have a piece of green batik I need to preshrink before I can use it on a quilt border. It would not matter except that the entire quilt is made up of preshrunk fabric so far. If the borders are not preshrunk I'm afraid the whole thing will end up looking like a big patchwork mushroom the first time I wash it.

Binding a Quilt by Machine: A Judy Laquidara Tutorial

I've tried to sew bindings completely by machine before and they looked awful. I think I'll try again, though.

Judy's blog

Apron Challenge with Vania

My sister-in-law Vania invited me to team up with her and join the All People Quilt Apron Challenge. The idea is that two friends each make an apron from the basic pattern provided, upload photos and are judged as a team. Vania suggested using these fabrics from the Maywood Studio Back Porch Bouquet collection, in colors that go with my mom's/her mother-in-law's kitchen - brown and turquoise. These above are the fabrics I chose. She is using the same stripe but the others are different.

My fabric just arrived. I ordered it from Hands On Tradition, an online quilt shop with excellent service, plus they will sell you small fractions of a yard, as some will not. They are so fast! I ordered April 30th and it arrived Priority Mail today, May 4th.

Name That Handbag! Contest at Yellow Bird Art

Allow me to direct your attention to the contest over at the blog of my favorite quilt ship, Yellow Bird Art. The prize is a delectable collection of gorgeous fabric swatches. The contest is to suggest the perfect name for their new original handbag pattern.

I got to see the sample bag you see pictured over there ==> and it's not only gorgeous, it's a practical, roomy bag that I want! I'll be buying the pattern for sure once it goes on sale.

I got to test-drive a Millennium!

Yellow Bird Art has a new toy - an APQS Millennium quilting machine. It was just set up over there and the staff is learning how to use it. I stopped by on Monday during a surprise ("Mom! I was supposed to be at speech practice 20 minutes ago!") trip to Lansing and found Amy trying it out on some plain muslin sandwiched with batting. She actually let me try it. It's so fun! I have never actually seen one in action before. It's stitch regulated, so it's like a Steadi-Cam for quilters: You move the controls where you want the design to go, and whether you move fast or slow, the machine still stitches the same length of stitches, so it's wonderfully even. It still takes practice and control on the part of the quilter, and my quilting was pretty hilarious (I tried Grandma Burger's ocean waves and they looked like letter Cs made by a serious dyslexic), but I can see how cool it would be to really learn how to do this.

Of course now I want one...

Master K's room is big enough to hold one and has lovely light! I have major plans for his room after he moves out.

Finished by Friday: I forgot to take a picture!

Not only am I posting this a day late, but I forgot to take a picture! Friends of ours, Mike and Sara (mostly friends of Barry's, as he has more contact with them, but they are some people I think extremely highly of) are expecting their first baby in a few weeks here. I made a bright and colorful baby quilt for them. It's backed with flannel for fuzziness against baby skin, and the batting is Thinsulate, so it will be very lightweight yet very warm.

I wish I had taken a picture! It's not actually given yet but Barry has it at work ready to bestow next time he sees these folks. Maybe they will take a picture of their baby wrapped in the quilt for me to post someday. (hint hint)

Edited to add: At least I can show you part of the quilt. I used the fabric panels for this soft book, only I cut them all apart to use as 9-inch blocks for the quilt. Lots for the baby to look at, lots of colors. Doggies, too!

Star Block #4

I was so excited with Block #3, because it was the first that came out to 12-1/2 inches as it was supposed to. I thought I had turned over a new leaf. Alas, no; this one is back to 12 inches square. :o) I would never pick this particular block to do on my own; I don't like the effect. But it will be nice in the sampler of stars.

Star Block #3

I'm happiest with this one of all so far. Now I REALLY want to give Block #2 one more try.
By the way, does anybody notice that my center windmill is going clockwise rather than counterclockwise as designed? Heh.

Iowa Barn Quilt Projects: Link Roundup

Barn Quilts of Grundy County
Barn Quilts of Washington County
Barn Quilts of Sac County
Barn Quilts of Greene County
Barn Quilts of Howard County
Barn Quilts of Humboldt County

After finding all those links, I found this one, which has them all and more: The Iowa State University Extension page. Oh well.

Finished by Friday: Block #2 of Judy's Star BOM [UPDATED]

Here is Block #2 of Judy Laquidara's Block of the Month quilt project. I redid it. I must be crazy, it's 12:37 a.m. and I'm up redoing a quilt block. Anyway, as wonky as it is, this is still better than my first attempt.

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Third time's the charm. I redid it AGAIN. This time I'm happier with it.