Crafty but not quilty

DD Jocelyn is here for several days so I have been spending time with her. She's a knitter and is teaching me to make socks, which I think will be a great take-along project. She finished this adorable little baby sweater for a friend.
See how each piece is a different color?
She also made a 7-stranded challah. To our surprise, 7-strands is a little harder than braiding 3 strands, but not much. Four, five and ten strand challahs are much more complicated.
Turned out great, didn't it?
And neither quilty nor crafty:

I was tagged for a meme. I know some bloggers enjoy these and some don't, and of those who do, I don't know who has been tagged. I like learning a little about fellow bloggers, and hope you will email me if you haven't been tagged for this one and I will tag you.
Jill at Life with Nature Girl tagged me with this one. The rules are:

The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?
In May 1998 I was mom to an almost 11-yr-old and a 13-yr-old. I didn't have a regular job, but I was doing freelance nutrition writing and speaking, and some individual nutrition counseling. Hadn't learned to quilt yet.

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):
Meet my husband and daughter for lunch, finish my first knit sock (while my daughter is still home to help -- she leaves tomorrow), put out the trash and recycling, cut more origami flowers for my swap, yoga class

3. Snacks I enjoy:
nuts, leftovers, baked chips, popsicles, ice cream, toast with peanut butter, cereal, fruit, bread
4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
Start some sort of foundation. Not sure what sort, but part of its focus would be to alleviate immediate suffering and part would be to work to change the things that cause suffering.

5. Places I have lived:
Oh my goodness, I hope you have a lot of time! My dad was in the military and we moved frequently. Here they are, grouped by state and country rather than listed chronologically:

United States
Washington - Tacoma (birthplace)
California - Calexico, Oakland, Manteca, Monterey, Salinas, Whittier, Berkeley (briefly), Palo Alto
Massachusetts - Pepperell, Ayer
New York - New York City (both Queens and Brooklyn)
Michigan - Grand Rapids, East Lansing (sort of and almost), Ann Arbor
Pennsylvania - Wayne (twice, briefly)
Georgia - Atlanta, Macon
Illinois - Urbana, Champaign

Germany - Kaiserslautern
Panama Canal Zone - both the Atlantic and Pacific sides
France - Paris

Tibetan & Nepalese textiles

Noah's potato peppercorn bagels are the best. Whenever we visit the kids, we stop by Noah's Bagels to get some, but as we strolled along University Avenue last weekend I was dismayed to see that Noah's was gone! What nerve -- left without even asking me if it was okay! But my disappointment was assuaged when we discovered that a shop selling Tibetan and Nepalese textiles had moved into Noah's space.
The rich, warm colors and thread embellishments are really striking. Many of the designs are quite simple, but beautiful nonetheless.
A few pieces had more complex designs.

This one is woven, not a quilt, but I loved the design and think it would make a great quilt. Sorry about the washed-out color -- it was hanging on a wall bathed in sunlight.

I actually bought a quilt since it was their grand opening sale, but haven't photographed it yet. There was also gorgeous jewelry! I hinted broadly ("Doesn't this look great on me? It's just my color! My oh my, I would love to have this!") and ended up getting a wonderful necklace for Mother's Day. And the kids tell me that Noah's is a chain, and I can get potato peppercorn bagels somewhere else. Perfect!

Another quilt in its native habitat
I forgot this one when I made my last post. This is the I Spy quilt I made for my great niece and great nephew (and that's my baby on the far right). Currently it's a tent top. And this family gets bonus points for using their quilts -- you can see two others that get lovingly dragged around, one made by their mother (my niece) and the other by, I think, another great-aunt.


Finally, this is one of the things I miss about California this time of year -- the golden poppies are in bloom. They're wildflowers and spring up unexpectedly all over the place. But after this little paen to my home state, let me just gloat that today's weather in East Central Illinois is much nicer than in the Bay Area. We so rarely have better weather than anywhere, but today it's sunny with a high in the 70's; it will break 100 as you head down the peninsula south of San Francisco!

Quilts in their native habitat

During the first year that I took up quilting (AQ 1, or anno quilting-i I, for you Latin scholars), I made quilts for my mother and both my daughters. I just spent a very happy Mother's Day with all three of them, and over the course of the weekend I photographed each of them with their respective quilts. Wish I had remembered to take a photo of my mother-in-law with her quilt a week ago, but next trip ...
This is my mother, who keeps her quilt on her living room couch. It's the second quilt I made (you can see the full quilt here), in a class where we learned to make pinwheels. We were supposed to work with quilting cottons but I fell in love with a loosely woven Guatemalan fabric (below, shown between the binding and the inner border) and just had to use it. If I were making that quilt now, I would change a lot of things, but NOT this fabric! I love it.
Here's Valerie with her quilt.
Val and her quilt live in a dorm, and the quilt shares honors with some amazing polka-dot bed linens. I have been asked how I could give Val a quilt to take to school, but I have no problem with it. Quilts should be used, and I hope it reminds her of home -- and any stray stains will just bring added memories. I can always make her another quilt when she graduates. Here's a photo of the full quilt.

This is Jocelyn with her African Coins quilt. She wasn't sure her bedroom was up to a photo session, so we relocated to the stairs.
I never got a photo of the back of this quilt, which is made of pieced batik flannels, so Jocelyn obligingly held the quilt open for the camera.

Purple Cows

I'm traveling, so no photos, but just had to make a quick Post. Michelle at Heart and Hands posted The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat poem, which I loved growing up. My grandfather had owned a bookstore and we had my mother's childhood book of poems by Eugene Fields. It had that, and the Sugarplum Tree, and Winken, Blynken, and Nod. All wonderful poems for kids! Paula the Quilter was blogging about The Gingham Dog and Calico Cat, and then added Purple Cow. ("I never saw a purple cow...") I just have to share another poem by the author of Purple Cow, who wrote seriously but was known for his purple cow ditty. Here's what he wrote:

Ah, yes, I wrote the purple cow
I'm sorry now I wrote it.
But I can tell you anyhow,
I'll kill you if you quote it!

Hot colors

My bull's eye swap blocks are done! I cut them in quarters and sent them off to my 3 fellow swappers this morning. Here are 25 of the 40 blocks I made (design wall limitations...).
We were going to do red/orange/yellow as our color scheme, but it seems much more orange/yellow, with lots of pink, at this point. But I like it. We'll each reassemble the blocks using the 40 quarter-blocks each of us contributes. I'm thinking I might see if these blocks will let me get a Mumbo Gumbo effect if I carefully choose center colors. Not sure, but I can hardly wait to play with layouts!

I updated my Hearts for Linus blog that I keep for the Project Linus donations from my guild, and that's about all the quilting-related stuff I've been able to do the last couple days. We did hear that the Central Illinois Chapter of Project Linus is going to be doing a great project for children whose mothers are in prison. It's really a wonderful undertaking, and I'll share more on that later. It's been very thoughtfully planned.

Tomorrow I'm off to California to see my mother and daughters for Mother's Day, plus I'll visit my brother and his wife and hopefully one of my nieces and her family. Can't wait! I should have internet access while I'm there but don't think I'll be able to post until I return.

Finally, I wanted to share this photo of Stone Circle, Whanganai Bay, Lake Taupo, New Zealand. It's on the cover of photographer Martin Hill's book Earth to Earth (which is on my wish list...).
A card with this photo sits by my computer, partly because I love the photo and partly because I love how I got the card. I was smitten by the photo when I saw it at the bookstore and almost bought it, but felt silly buying a card for myself. A few days later, my husband gave me the card. He had seen it and knew it was something I would like, so he bought it for me. I guess after 25 years you learn each other's taste pretty well, but it was nonetheless a delightful surprise.

Adventures

We had a great time visiting my in-laws in New York! Even the air travel was easy. It was also exciting to see the quilt I gave my mother-in-law hanging over the back of her couch and looking like it was made to be there (which it was), although I neglected to take a photo. You'll just have to trust me when I say it looks great in her living room! I felt like I was rediscovering an old friend when I saw it.

My husband and brother-in-law were very obliging and took me to The Quilting Bug in Massapequa. What a stunning assortment of batiks! The shop owner entertained the guys by showing them the longarm ("It's like driving!") while I checked out the fabrics. I couldn't resist these two.
I also picked up some blacks and whites for my strip quilt. I just got a little of each, except for the one on the left, which I like a lot. The one on the far right has a little red in it for sparkle.
And what would traveling be without travel photos? This is hardly the Eiffel Tower, but it was the most interesting thing in the Indianapolis airport. Indeed, I've never seen another like it. Would you buy an iPod from a vending machine?

Hello, New York!

No photos, sorry! I ran out of time. I'm off first thing in the morning to visit my husband's family in New York. I haven't seen them in over 2 years, but now that I'm retired, I am able to go there. :)

We had a worknight tonight and completed TWO string quilts! Fantastic!

I'll be in touch when I get back early next week. Hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Vermilion

I had the Pacific Northwest Quilters Association show entirely to myself today. Their traveling Spice of Life quilts are at the Vermilion County Museum in Danville, Illinois, about 30 miles from my house. When I arrived the receptionist told me to go on upstairs while she phoned the staff to turn the lights on. It's not often you get to take your time with 50 beautifully displayed quilts.

I'll get back to the show in a moment, but first I want to ask you about vermilion. Do you know what color that is? Did you know it was a color? When I crossed the Vermilion County line today, it suddenly occurred to me that vermilion is a color. I haven't heard anything called vermilion in years. In my mind I could see the color well -- greenish, with a yellow undertone. Was I ever wrong! I guess the word verdant or the French word vert confused me, because according to Wikipedia, vermilion is an orange-red pigment also known as China red. I could avoid embarrassment is if this were one of those infamous Wikipedia errors, but somehow that seems unlikely. I am red faced. You can color me vermilion.

And now back to the show. For your amusement -- these are really fun -- here are three quilts that made me smile. The first is Ladies and Gentlemen! by Pat Rosenthal. It shows a variety of outhouses and other types of toilet facilities -- definitely worth a click on the photo to enlarge it and read all the comments and look at everything more closely.

The next one is Moo-desto Cows by Cathie I. Hoover. She wrote on the label that she's from Moo-desto, California, but some of you may know it under the more modest name of Modesto.
I got such a kick out of To Each His Own by Georgia French. What a family unit -- Charlie Chaplin, Mona Lisa, and Mickey Mouse!

Sunshine

NOTE: I've replaced the original photo with this PhotoShopped version. After reading this post, my friend Bunny emailed me that her husband Joe also has a hobby, and it's photography. So I sent them the photo and he was able to work some magic and get a much better image. Thank you!! Here's the orignal post with the improved image:
This is a terribly overexposed photo, but I don't know enough about photography to get rid of the excess light and still capture the crucial image. We came home about 5 o'clock yesterday afternoon and for a split second I thought the tree in our front yard was on fire. Both edges of the trunk were glowing, radiating, shining, shimmering with a blazing red-orange light. It really did look like fire, it was that bright. I've never seen anything like it.

The tree is a paper bark maple, and the bark is always peeling off the tree. The sun was hitting the trunk at just the right angle and the hanging pieces of bark were glowing red orange. You can see that the hanging bark in front, where the sun doesn't hit it, is just dull brown. Amazing! I took lots of photos, but all of them have too much sunlight. Still, I think you can see the effect in this closeup. A few minutes later the fire was gone, but what a blaze of glory for a moment.

I've been working on another small word quilt while I wait for the background fabric to arrive for my Stroop quilt. My niece Laurel commented that a small wall quilt with a child's name in Tonya's wonky letters would make a great baby gift. Good idea! A former grad student where I used to work recently had a baby girl she named Sruti, and I thought this would be perfect to send her.
I was playing here. I've decided to change out the 'u' and 't' for small letters rather than capitals, hope to do that tomorrow, and then to dot the 'i' with a heart, which so far is all I've done for the 'i', but I may want the heart bigger). Now that I can make these pretty quickly, it's not a problem to see whether something works and toss it in the parts pile if it doesn't.

My husband has a hobby, too, though he doesn't indulge it as often as I do my quilting. He bakes bread. Good bread. Great bread. He uses a baker's stone in the oven and spritzes the dough with water for the first ten minutes to get a crispy crust. The smell drove us crazy while this 7-grain loaf was baking, and we had heavenly warm bread just after I snapped this photo.
Nature does wonders during the spring, but sometimes nothing can compete with good oven-spring!

Flat white squares

I've been busy with 3 swaps, a new word quilt, and a worknight, but it's such a time-consuming process to download photos on my old system that I just haven't gotten around to it. But I've been thinking about this quilt recently and thought some of you might share your good ideas with me.
Jocelyn, my older daughter, made this quilt in December 2005. We had spent that Thanksgiving in New York with my husband's family and did lots of touristy things (the Lower East Side Tenement Museum was my favorite -- an amazing glimpse into immigrant life more than a hundred years ago) and of course spent time in art museums. At the MOMA we saw Colors for a Large Wall by Ellsworth Kelly. (Handy that it's an ecard, isn't it?) Jocelyn came home for Christmas and decided to translate the painting into a quilt, her first quilt. It's an amazing replica -- we had almost all those colors in the Project Linus stash, and she made the quilt to donate. It's still waiting to be quilted and that's my question: How would you quilt this? I think any design would detract from its impact -- and of course would be untrue to the original painting. Just stitch in the ditch to hold the quilt together? How would an overall meander seem? I was thinking maybe straight lines on the diagonals to form diamonds of 'invisible' thread?

I think the quilt is child friendly (we plan to donate to Project Linus), despite the white. I've been wondering why I find it so compelling a design. It never would have occurred to me to put all that white together, but I like it. Why???

And I realized I haven't been posting photos from the Chicago Quilt Show. My friend Jane, who unfortunately missed the show, came for lunch on Friday and looked at all the photos. It got me reinspired. Since I'm talking about white, take a look at this.
The quilt is Siberian Moonlight Sonata by Patricia Gould. The photo is a close-up, but only a small amount has been cut off. It was stunning, one of my favorite quilts in the whole show! The photo below again loaded sideways, sorry. You can click the photo to enlarge it and make it easier to read.

Quilts from Dixie Community

My father's parents were from a tiny place called Dixie Community. It may not exist by that name anymore, since I couldn't locate it on Google maps, but it was not too far from Hattiesburg, Mississippi. I visited in 1966, when my military father was reassigned from Panama to Atlanta. Since our boat back to the States docked in nearby New Orleans, my dad took us to meet his family, most of whom he hadn't seen for 30 years and none of whom I had ever met (except for my grandma). They had us stay with cousin Inez because she had both electricity and indoor plumbing. Although I had seen poverty in Panama, that visit with my 'kinfolk' was my first experience of how hard life could be in the United States.

The women in Dixie Community made quilts, and I have two of them. Most of the quilts were utility quilts, like this one.

I grew up with this quilt. We wrapped it around furniture to protect the wood when we moved, and I remember sleeping under it occasionally, too. It's very heavy and very warm. Even though I lived with this quilt, I never really looked at it until I became a quilter myself. It's made from old clothing, I think mostly men's clothing. The back is solid black and folded over to the front to form the binding. You can see the large clamshell quilting on the front, but it's also tied and no quilting is visible on the back. I think the black fabric is just a replacement backing over one that must have worn out. This 'new' backing, which was very shoddily attached, is coming apart at the corners where I can catch a peek of a thick, cream-colored binding underneath. I have been thinking of removing enough stitches to expose some of the original back, although I'm a little nervous about messing around with it. (Don't know why -- the quilt is certainly not valuable.)

The other quilt I have was given to me by my father's family as a wedding present.
My aunts said my grandmother had made it as a girl with help from her mother, but I wonder whether they have the story right. My grandmother died around 1990 at the age of 106, which means she would have made the quilt in the 19th century. I don't know anything about dating quilts, but those fabrics look considerably more modern to me. The quilt is machine pieced and hand quilted.
I can't quite figure out how the edge was made. There is no separate binding. The darker lavender on the most outside border of the front is whip stitched down right on the very edge of the quilt. I can't tell whether the back is folded over to the front to be the next border in from the edge or whether that is a separate piece of fabric. Is this an old style of making quilts? Does anyone know? I am thinking of having this quilt appraised, not so much to learn its value, but to get a better idea as to when and how it was made.

Even though my grandmother quilted, I never saw her do it. I wish I could have.

Tagged by the Diva of Quilts

I was tagged by Laura, the Diva of Quilts, to tell 7 things about myself. Last fall it took me awhile to come up with 8 things, but I finally did, so I'll just refer you back to those if you are interested. (Update -- I actually completed that walk!!) If you haven't seen Laura's blog, go take a look. Her spools of thread quilt in her heading is awesome, and she makes basket quilts that are really fun.

I always enjoy reading everyone's bits of information, but I don't know who out there has been tagged and who hasn't. If you haven't been tagged yet, please consider yourself tagged by me and let me know so I can read what you wrote and let others know!

Feeling bright

After several dismal attempts to find a photo that 1) I liked and 2) would fit across the title, I suddenly had the bright idea that I could 'keep' my rainbow strings blocks by making a skinny row for my heading. It looks a little darker than I had expected, but I'm happy with it. (And if you caught the bright pun of feeling smart and my colorful blocks, then you are a person after my own heart.)

Most of my quilting time yesterday and today was spent doing a paper piecing project for my guild's raffle quilt. I have discovered that I am not particularly fond of paper piecing. When I am at my machine, I want to see the fabric, not the paper, go under the needle.

But I also am making some really fun mix-n-match (or mix-n-don't-match!) blocks for a swap I'm in with Donna at Quilt Pixie, Helen at Nap Art, and blogless Helen. They are so fun! It's a marvelous antidote to too much paper piecing. These are still in progress.

And today, as part of the annual Boneyard Arts Festival, I saw a demonstration of Mayan weaving, a technique that endures from pre-Columbian days. Magda Silvia Sotz Mux of Chiq'a'l, Guatemala, demonstrated her weaving techniques.
She wove the blouse (called a po't) she is wearing. It was spectacular, but I was unable to get a good angle for a photo. I took this view of the entire weaving apparatus by looking down from a staircase:
There is a waistband she wears that attaches to the loom, which is attached about 8 feet high at the other end. Here are a couple examples of her weaving. The designs are not necessarily traditional, and they don't have particular significance. The women always weave whatever strikes their fancy. I like that. This top was made in another Guatemalan village, where the women always use blue or purple as their main color. I love the color, but I wouldn't want the constraint of having to use it.
I am completely fascinated by traditional arts. I moved frequently and lived in many places growing up, and I sometimes wonder whether it isn't the sense of permanence, of having a time and place that something fits, that attracts me. Plus, of course, it's gorgeous!