Lots of quilty fun to share.....

Oh, my, now that the flu is a thing of the past, I have been out and about and busy as a bee! I can't share everything that's gone on in the last three days because if you're like me, you don't have time to read every bit of news of every blog. I do want to thank all of you that stop by my blog. Sorry that I haven't posted the past couple of days but as noted, I was busy as a bee! Here's what kept me busy.........this past Thursday I taught a crazy quilted pincushion class at the Stans Museum in Shakopee. Now usually, we are in the actual museum building which is behind the house in this photo. But because of the opening of their new 1950's exhibit, we were set up in the Stans home which is part of the reasons for the Stans Museum. This house is the boyhood home of Maurice Stans, resident of Shakopee, MN and the former Secretary of Commerce to Richard Nixon. It's a charming little house and if you are in Shakopee, it is worth a visit. I'll share more about the pincushion in a day or so.

I was up early (yes, I really was) on Friday morning and I was............
GONE QUILTING!
......................well, almost. Actually, I went to see a couple of guys......Lenni and George that have a real quilting connection. :-) They are, of course, not really guys but that's their names. They are long-arm quilting machines. Heidi Kaisand, National Sales Director for APQS and other APQS (American Patchwork Quilting System) reps shared their enthusiasm for these machines. I decided to go because I have come to realize that there is no way I can hand-quilt all the quilt tops I have on hand and I have so many projects that I want to make! Plus, I like to do the work myself. I was impressed and when I gave the machines a try, I was surprised at how easy it was to use the them. I also knew within minutes that I preferred Lenni to George. To check out the machines just go to APQS !! And to check out Heidi's blog, go here.

The APQS presentation was hosted by Roseanne of Rosebud's Cottage in White Bear Lake, MN. She is so creative! And if you go here, you will find her blog and a post about Lenni and George. Her shop is currently located in North St. Paul but she will be moving to White Bear Lake soon. (Note to my local quilting buds........I see a road trip to her new shop in our future!)

I am not fond of driving in Minneapolis/St. Paul as, like with most cities, there are miles of convoluted highways, entrance and exit ramps that drive me nuts. However, I managed. I even figured out how to easily get over to my son's place (in MPLS) and drop off birthday gifts for him and his girlfriend, Stacia. And bonus for me........he lives just two blocks from another Twin Cities quilt shop....Glad Creations. I had a specific purpose when I went in to the shop. I was looking for black and white fabrics to go with the ones in my basket. I found a bundle and a couple of fat quarter rolls that were perfect. The fabrics are for a crazy quilt wall hanging for Devlin. I'm not cutting into this til winter but at least now, I think I have enough fabric to do what I see in my mind. :-)

We got some very welcome rain and with that came some beautiful clouds. I love clouds and thought I saw an elephant in this one. What do you think?

Speaking of clouds, tonight I watched "A Walk in the Clouds" with Keanu Reeves and that is a really good movies. Trust me. If you see that it's on, stay tuned and watch.

I may be over the flu but Kaiser is still having allergy issues. He loves to be covered up. I think his name should be Baby instead of Kaiser. LOL! I am hoping we get a freeze this next week and that will nip the goldenrod and such "in the bud" and he will be able to recover. He's on allergy meds so that helps but not enough.



I'm not looking for really cold weather, just a nip in the air that tells me it's fall. It was so lovely outside this

afternoon, though, that I took a few quilts out to the line for some pictures. This one belongs to my mother and is one a few that she has that are crazy quilted calicos. This one has severe wear and tear. I like to thing the holes were made by being tucked along a bedframe and not by mice which is the more likely scenario. The colors are very vibrant and there's a green that is especially bright. Interestingly, the back of the quilt is almost as interesting as the front. It's really an amazing piece of textile and it's just too bad that it has such obvious wear.

I took some pictures of a couple other crazy quilts and will share those in the next couple of days. Looks like I better get to bed now. I have a busy week coming up with a road trip and then a class next week. More later. Off to bed now. Sleep tight!

Sandi

St. Paul's UCC Guest Day

Quilts and hymns and a little bit of history was what I put together for our women's guild "Guest Day". It was easy to set up the quilts. It was harder to decide which ones I would bring! I brought quilts and quilt tops that had family connections and then some that my dad and mother bought at auction. I tied it all together by singing hymns that were written in the decades of various styles of quilting. I love the old hymns and they go well with the stories of the quilts for surely women both prayed and sang and sometimes gossiped or cried or laughed as they worked on their quilts.
In the middle of my program, one of the hymns that I highlighted was "Standing on the Promises". So I used that one for a "stretch" and had everyone stand and sing the chorus with me. :-) I loved combining my enjoyment of quilting with my love of singing. How I love to sing and especially acapella. I used to be a soprano and as the years have gone by, well, I can't hit those high notes anymore. However, when I sing without accompaniment, I can sing in the key that fits my voice and it works great!

Some of the quilts you see in the photos are ones that I have shown in past posts. I displayed my vintage quilts upstairs in the sanctuary. Well, except the one on the podium which is a doll quilt that I started in about 1973 and finally finished in 1998! It is one of my favorites!

I had quilts spilling out of laundry baskets and tumbling down the steps. Don't worry, I had white sheets underneath it all to protect the quilts!

And downstairs where we all enjoyed some scrumptious desserts, I placed a few of the current quilts that I have made. I also brought one of my favorite miniature scenes that I made in the 1980's and the little collection of miniature baby quilts that I made about the same time. It was a very nice afternoon and many of the ladies who came told me how much they enjoyed the program - even those who don't quilt!

Tired tonight, so it's lights out!

Sandi

Birthday Quilts!!

I am feeling really good!!! Almost as good as the day before the pain set in about a month ago. To celebrate, I took my basket out to the line and took pictures of the quilts my mother gave me for my birthday. When I arrived on Friday evening, it was suppertime so we went to the Nifty 50's Cafe on Main Street and enjoyed our meal and seeing old friends. We weren't home very long before my mother got out the quilt top that she bought for me at Sparkey's Auction in Fort Dodge. I knew I was getting it as she went to the auction on my birthday and called to say she had bought this lovely quilt top with lots of triangles in it. I was thrilled. Just by her description, I knew it was going to be pretty. And I don't do triangles well, so I was really thrilled someone else made it!! And here it is................

Just look at all those little triangles!! And the whole thing is sewn by hand! It is in excellent condition and I love it! My mom thinks the center square fabric is from the 20's and she says she's pretty sure it's not feedsack. She did a lot of sewing with feedsacks and she feels this is "yard-goods". There are every color of fabric scraps in the triangles and my favorite are the blue shirtings. This one begs for hand-quilting so now I have to decide if I can do it or need to get a group together and have a "bee". :-) I thought the quilt top was my gift but then my mother showed me these quilts. I asked if I could take pictures of them and she said "oh, they're part of your birthday gift, too!" She said no one was interested in bidding on them so she got them really cheap. She thought the one below could be used as a "cutter" quilt as it is not in very good condition and then stitched into smaller projects. Hmmm, I'm thinking not on this one.

You can see in the close-up that it is very worn but the colors that remain are still so vibrant and I love the intricately stitched zig-zag binding, so I just can't cut it up yet. Now this next one is just lovely, except for one thing..........

......the faded spot in the bottom right. Otherwise, the quilt is beautifully quilted and in very good condition. There are a couple minor places that need to be stitched up but once repaired, you'll never find them again. And a washing in a good quilt soap will take away the suface grime. The fading is another matter. I think someone may have used bleach in trying to remove a spot that is in the area. My mom thought maybe it was sun-fade but it's so localized that I don't think that's it. I took a close-up of a couple of the blocks, as they are all blue and white, except for a couple of blocks that surprise you with their red and white polka dot fabric.

I love the pattern of this quilt and am definitely going to recreate this one in a collection of blue shirtings that have been waiting for just the right project. Add that one to my long list of "projects I want to do"!

That's all for tonight. See you tomorrow with more pics of fun stuff. :-)

Sandi

Blowin' in the Wind!

Yesterday afternoon I took a break from cleaning chores and decided to go outside and hang some quilts on the line and take pictures. It was overcast when I gathered my stuff together and sunny by the time I got outside. Not great for taking pictures. And that breeze I was lovin' so much from inside the house, turned out to be a little too breezy when hanging quilts and taking pictures. I hung the name quilt that I wanted to tell you about and the wind would just not calm down so that I could get a good picture!

Thar she blows!! The wind just kept whipping the quilt back and forth and I decided that was fine because it probably needed to aired out anyway.

This was the best picture I could get so I will have to try again another day or take a picture inside.

Now to the story behind this piece. A few weeks ago, my dad's favorite cousin Shirley told me she had a family name quilt that she was going to give me. No one in her family wanted it, in part because it wasn't made by my Aunt Elsie, her mother. Instead this was a celebration quilt. And before I go any further, I know it's not really a quilt because it doesn't have batting and isn't quilted. It's easier to call it a quilt although it was probably a bedcover based on the shape. In the upper left corner the words "Birthday Greetings" has been embroidered and on another block (mid-quilt) is the date March 26 and 1930. There are many local last names that I recognise. I have never seen anything quite like it. I love the embroidery on the piece and am so glad that Shirley "gifted" me with this as I will happily add it to my treasures.

Shirley gave it to my mom to give it to me so the first time I saw it was the night of the quilt program that I did for the Women's Club in Lehigh, IA almost two weeks ago. And yes, there are more pictures and stories to share. I'll post a couple of times during the day Friday and again on Saturday just to try and catch up! Now if I just had a magic wand that would get the laundry done, and provide meals, oh, and walk the dog.....well, then I would be able to get caught up on my quilting/bloggy stuff in no time. Actually, I have a magic wand that was given to me at a training session when I worked at a computer company years ago. It didn't make the work go away then and it's not going to work now!!

More later today........

Sandi

Happy Birthday Mr. Lincoln.....

Today is the birth date of President Abraham Lincoln. When I was a kid, we observed this day in honor of him. Then when February 22nd came around we honored George Washington. Now as most of you know, the celebration of our President's has been combined into one day that is now a National Holiday. Or National Have a Sale day if you are a business owner. Don't get me wrong, I've shopped JoAnn's President's Day sale more than once, but how is it that the day has become so commercialized? Okay, so I'll get off my soapbox and right here and now, I'm not selling a thing and I just want to share a couple of my favorite old quilts. I think most of my close friends would agree that I am not really a "quilter". I mean, I don't make lots of big quilts but I do make quite a few small ones. I make lots of blocks and one day they'll become quilt tops. I have a few finished quilt tops but they await machine quilting and that's not in my budget right now. I think some of those quilts are going to end up being tied so that they can be used. Kind of like the one in this picture.............

I love this old quilt. It was made my Great Aunt Marian. She gave it to my mother several years ago when my mother admired it as it hung on the clothesline. I love the Log Cabin blocks and just the vibrant color of the whole quilt. And instead of the traditional red square in the center, Aunt Marian used green. Wouldn't it be interesting to know why? The quilt is tied and a couple of blocks are really worn but I still love it. There's another simple lavender nine-patch that she made that is also a favorite. My mother and dad had an auction several years ago and she sold the older worn quilts. I jumped at the chance to buy them. I love the untold stories that old quilts hold.


And since it's only two days til Valentines Day, I thought I'd share this old red and white quilt. It was a gift from my friend, Judith. It was one of two quilts that she purchased at a garage sale in Minneapolis. The other one is a pale green and white quilt. Both are very worn but exquisitely hand-quilted. A young woman was selling many of her grandmothers things and these quilts were among them. She hoped that the quilts would go to someone that would appreciate them and my friend, Judith, knew just who that would be - me!! Even though both quilts are extremely worn, you can still see the beautiful hand quilting on each and so they are both still beautiful to me. It's kind of like us. When we're young, our skin glows, we have more energy, and we spend a lot of time making sure we look good. When we get older, our skin shows the wrinkles, energy is harder to come by, we still try to look good and to those who love us........well, we are still beautiful. I think it's time that I shared another poem, one I wrote several years ago.
It's called..............

The Tapestry of Life

When I was young, I learned to sew
and through the years, I grew to know
that love is sewn in all we do . . .
some days are bright, some days are blue.
Yes, our lives are like a tapestry. We know not what the scene will be.
Some days the stitches seem so fine and other days, they all unwind.
But as we stitch, we realize we weave a cloth,
that in God’s eyes is beautiful and true and soft.
And though we see the knots and tears, God sees the work, the love.
He cares.
He looks beyond our faults and knows,
that if not for thorns there would be no rose.

© 1997 - 2009 Sandra E. Andersen

I was inspired to write the poem during some challenging times in my life. It was also a time of blessings as so often happens in life. We had been to England, one of those business trips for my husband and while he worked, I got to go visit museums and such. I always picked places where I could view textiles - clothing, quilts, tapestries. The tapestries really intrigued me for the amount of work in them is incredible and some were very, very old. And yet there they were, still telling a story though they were worn and faded. I thought how much we are like tapestries and then I just wrote what I felt. I hadn't planned for my post to be so sort of "melancholy" but to be honest, I was having a hard time figuring out what to post. Perhaps a little writer's block? My trip to the dentist today didn't seem worthy of a post. I hope you have found this much more interesting.

Sandi

Grandparents Day and Quilts.......

I promised pictures of four more quilts and here they are...........and actually they are "pieced tops" and not yet quilts. They are still pretty to see and one day they will grow up to be quilts.
In the photo below there's a whole array of quilts and quilted items but it's the quilt spread across the bed that is really special. That little old nine-patch was made most likely in the 1920's. I've been able to figure that out because the quilt was made by my great granny Blair. The story of how I figured that out is little complicated but it's interesting so .......... My mother was raised by her Aunt Bell Blair and Granny Blair was Aunt Bell's mother-in-law. Aunt Bell lived next door to us for as long as I can remember. My mother's parents passed long before she ever had children so to us Aunt Bell and her husband, Uncle John were our "grandparents" on my mother's side of the family. My mother came to live with them around 1933. Several years before that Granny Blair had lived with Aunt Bell and Uncle John but sometime in the 1920's she got sick and Aunt Bell and Uncle John took her home to Missouri to be with family. She died in the late 1920's so my mom said this quilt top was likely made in the early 1920's. It is one of two quilt tops given to me by my Aunt Bell.
Before I tell you more about that one I'll mention a couple of the other items in this photo. This is the room that my grandson, Jacob, sleeps in and he does not mind the quilt stuff at all. As time goes by, I'll tell you more about various quilts and items in this room but right now I'll just tell you about the dinosaur quilt. It was my son's quilt when he was little boy. It's just a dinosaur sheet that I sandwiched to batting and backing and then hand stitched around all the dinosaurs. It was actually on his bed until he was a freshman in high school and then I finally made a black and red quilt that looked a little more grown-up. I kept the dinosaur quilt and the suitcase full of rubber monsters he collected as a kid and now Jacob enjoys playing with the monsters and he loves the comfy bed and quilt. The old nine patch quilt made by Granny Blair was always in Devlin's room as a kid. I backed it with an old sheet and bound it with bits of fabric from my mother. I had to make repairs to some of the blocks and the fabric was so frayed that I used a buttonhole stitch to make my repairs. I would normally have used a more delicate way to repair it, but I remember that delicate didn't work. It's actually in pretty good condition for a much-used quilt.

This next one - "Trip Around the World" was made by my Aunt Bell. I called my mother tonight to get more information on this quilt. She said that Aunt Bell probably made it in the 1930's or even earlier as she does not recall her working on this quilt when she (my mother) was a child. However, she said that she can remember Aunt Bell ordering quilt scrap packets from the Spiegel catalog and stitching up quilts. This one looks well planned and could have been a kit for a "Trip Around the World" quilt. Sometime in the early 1960's, Aunt Bell had my sister and me come over and she let us pick which of her quilt tops we wanted. My mother can remember that I chose this one and my sister took a double-wedding ring quilt top. I mentioned some of this in my posts about the Lehigh Library Quilt Shows. My mother took the butterfly blocks for my brother, Doug, and sewed them into the Butterfly quilt. Click here to see the Butterfly quilt. She told me one more thing about the quilts - "Every spring Aunt Bell would have me take the quilts and tops out of the trunk where they were kept stored in mothballs and I would have to hang them on the line to air out. Even though most of them were just tops, many of the neighbor ladies did that, too, and I think it was just to show what they had made!" Isn't that fun? We go to quilt groups and share our quilts for our friends to see and they hung them on the line for "show and tell"!!

This being Grandparents Day, I am reminded to think of my grandparents. However, I don't need a day to remind me to think of them because, quite honestly, I think of them all the time even though they are no longer here. While Aunt Bell wasn't a true Grandma she surely did treat us as her grandchildren. There will be more stories to share about her from a piece of crazy quilting she did to how she inspired me to make my little Silver Dollar penny rug. Now to my dad's side of the family and to the only "real" grandparents I knew, Grandma Goldie and Grandpa Thurman. Grandma Goldie and the ladies of the United Brethren Church quilted almost weekly but few of their quilts remain as most were sent to missions or given away to family to use. My mother owns one triangle quilt pieced by my Grandma and another one, an autograph quilt pieced by the Ladies Aid members for my Grandma in the 1930's. Both of those were displayed at the Lehigh quilt show. Click here to see the autograph quilt made for my Grandma, plus a couple more autograph quilts.

The quilt above and the one below were made by my mother-in-law, Ora. I post them today in memory of her, the grandmother to our kids, Collette and Devlin, and also Cheryl and Ed, my husband's niece and nephew. Ora gave me the quilt tops sometime in the 1980's, I believe although I do not recall exactly when. She gave them to me as she said her daughter, Linda, wasn't really interested in quilts. I loved them. I would often take out her quilt tops and Aunt Bell's just to unfold them and look at all the lovely fabrics, then pack them away and say "someday I will hand-quilt these tops." I finally succeeded in stitching the smallest of the tops made by Ora. Click here to see the first quilt top she made in 1933 from blue and white shirting fabrics. Ora's mother-in-law, Christine Andersen, taught her how to quilt. Grandma Andersen was from Denmark and Ora married her son, Ed. Ora told me that Grandma taught her how to make the quilt tops before they were married but that she never actually stitched them into quilts. All three tops have been hemmed as Ora said she used to use them for "summer throws" on the beds. I hand-quilted the blue and white Jacob's Ladder and will do the same to the scrappy Jacob's Ladder shown above. If you've been following my blog, though, you know that I have ripped into a butterfly project and I have another vintage quilt I will be hand-quilting. I am going to practice my applique skills on the old butterfly quilt and my hand-quilting on the old vintage quilt and then I'll tackle the hand quilting on these quilts that are more than special because they belong to family!!

This one above is quite large and has an interesting story, too. The fabrics in this quilt are all from Clayton's Variety Store in Humboldt, Iowa. Ora's parents, William J. and Lulu owned the store in the 30's and 40's then sold it to Ora and Ed who partnered with Ora's sister, Norma, and husband. I posted about these quilts in August - click here - but I love them so much that I had to share them again.
These are the quilts I could touch and keep with me. They inspired me to make my own quilts. The memories of the Ladies Aid at the UB church quilting in that pink and white basement inspired me. I love to think of the conversations that may have occurred while the quilts were "in the making". How I wish I could go back in time and hear them!
This has been a long post but, oh, so necessary on my part. They are part of my "Legacy of Stitches" and I am so glad that I can share them with all of you!