Christmas Preparations

How are your holiday preparations coming along? Is your Christmas shopping done? (Ours isn‘t) Got your tree up? (Nope) How about those exterior lights and flashy yard ornaments? (Never have, never will) Is your holiday menu planned? (Kind of) Are your Christmas cards in the mail? (Just)

No wonder my Santa has an anxious look on his face. He’s in panic mode!

Actually, our family is celebrating Christmas simply this year, with minimal decorating, minimal gift giving, minimal hassle, but maximum love! It just feels right.

As far as I’m concerned, this antique quilt is the only decoration we need to give the house a festive look. It dates from the mid 1800’s and is in pristine condition. You can still see faint pencil lines used to mark the quilting pattern, which in no way detracts from the tiny stitches, 12 to the inch.

The quilt maker chose solid colored fabrics in classic red and green for her seemingly simple star design. But look closer... 

The star blocks are quilted with parallel lines and a grid within each green square. Alternate muslin blocks are heavily quilted with a double clamshell design, showing the maker had amazing prowess with a needle.

I'd like to display this in our living room for Christmas. Does anyone have experience hanging a quilt from picture molding that's already attached to the wall?

Christmas blessings to you for the coming year.

Fun with Barb and...

Have you seen my friend, Barb Vedder's, new blog? Fun with Barb and Mary follows the exploits of two quilters who maintain their long-distance friendship after one of them moves from the East Coast to the Midwest.

Wait a minute... why does that sound so familiar? Barb and I are longtime quilt friends too and have had plenty of fun together. When her move from Chicago to the East Coast made us long-distance friends, believe me, our fun didn't stop!

Diane and Barb, 2002

Before she moved, Barb and I collaborated on a Churn Dash block swap based on a pattern from the Jan/Feb 2002 issue of Quilter’s Newsletter Magazine. Using Civil War reproductions and shirting prints, we made enough blocks for two large quilts with no two blocks alike.

The blocks finish at 5" and my quilt measures 64" x 85". Robyn Saunders of Batavia, Illinois machine quilted it for me.

 Link to Barb’s quilt HERE. 

The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt:

Number of visitors to the Quilt: +18,000,000

Number of names on the Quilt: more than 91,000 (representing only about 18% of all U.S. AIDS deaths)

Size: 1,293,300 square feet (6 city blocks)

Viewing time: To see the entire Quilt spending only one minute per panel - over 33 days

Total Weight: More than 54 tons

Last Full Display: The Mall in Washington, D.C. in 1996

Goal of the Quilt: to honor and remember those who've died of AIDS, to bring awareness to how massive the AIDS pandemic really is, and to bring support and healing to those affected by it.

These are the panels I made to honor my brother, Wayne Hanson and his partner, Don Melvin, who died of AIDS in the mid 1990's. Each individual panel measures 3 feet by 6 feet (roughly the size of a grave).

Eight panels are combined into 12 by 12 foot units that make up the massive quilt.

If you ever get an opportunity to view a portion of the NAMES Quilt in person, don't hesitate. You'll find it a powerfully moving experience.

As I count my blessings today,

know that you are among them.
Happy Thanksgiving!

Fondly, Diane

Indian Summer

Indian Summer has come at last. Two glorious days of warmth and sunshine lured my husband outside to complete his autumn yard clean up (and snap a couple quilt photos too).


If you grew up in the Chicago area, Indian Summer may have a special significance to you. As kids, we'd look forward to the official pronouncement of the season by the Chicago Tribune. When the air turned hazy with the smell of burning leaves, we’d start scouting the newspaper for Injun Summer, the classic story and cartoon by John T. McCutcheon.


This little quilt evokes Indian Summer with its autumn colors and harvest-inspired name. I call it "Spinach and Squash" because of the fabrics I used - the green and gold of early Pennsylvania German quilts.

It was pieced and quilted entirely by hand. Sounds tedious, I know, but it was easier for me to stitch a few triangles in the spare moments of my day than it would have been to make time to sit at the sewing machine. Besides, I find the slow process of hand sewing relaxing. 

The small half-square triangles finish at 1" and the large ones are 3".

Spinach and Squash Sawtooth

15" x 18"

 hand pieced, hand quilted
© Diane Burdin, 1990

Replicating Vintage Quilts

rep·li·cate: make an exact copy of; reproduce.

What originally drew me to quilt-making was the allure of antique quilts. It wasn't the fancy ones that caught my eye so much as the humble utility quilts, those made for hardwearing, everyday use. I loved their scrappy "make do" spirit, their worn spots, their patches, their soul.

Here’s a great example. It’s a copy of a vintage Variable Star quilt made by my friend, Mary Radke. The original was featured in an old issue of Country Living Magazine. 

Years before we met, Mary and I clipped the same photo from the magazine. Look closely and you'll see how Mary painstakingly reproduced the quilt, fabric by fabric and block for block. Amazing!

        

We can only guess why the quilter broke pattern as she stitched this quilt. Was she tired of piecing star after similar star? Did she run out of fabric and have to make do? Whatever her reason, it's the "renegade" blocks, the ones that "break rank" with the others, that make this quilt so interesting to look at!

So, how did I come to own this quilt? Mary made it as a sample for a quilt talk she used to give on the history of quilt making. When she decided to sell off pieces from her collection, I was lucky enough to buy a few of my favorites. I hand quilted this one with an all-over fan design, typical of old utility quilts.

Scrappy Stars

30” x 42”

Attitude Adjustment

This autumn has been so dreary! Twenty-two days of rain in October gave me sinus headaches and now, with the time change, SAD (seasonal affective disorder) has kicked in. These waning hours of sunlight really influence my moods. How about you?

My husband has noticed my increased irritability and tells me that the only peace he gets is while I’m sleeping! As much as I hate to admit it, he’s probably right. An attitude adjustment is in order.

Several years ago, when Sarah Ban Breathnach's books were all the rage, I made a half hearted attempt to keep a gratitude journal. The timing was all wrong and I only lasted about a week. But the exercise has merit. The act of focusing on simple, everyday blessings is a healthy practice. I’ve recommended it to others who suffer from depression. Now, it’s time for a dose of my own medicine.

I've got my gratitude journal ready. It was made by Wanda Hanson of Exuberant Color. The last time Wanda visited me, I cleared out her stock of journals by buying one for myself and several for friends. They make great gifts. Wanda has written a tutorial for making journal covers, if you'd like to give it a try yourself. 

I promise not to gripe and grumble too much through the dreary months ahead. As far as blogging goes, “no news” from me is probably news you wouldn’t want to hear anyway. Wishing you sunshine!