Another Year Older

                                      23 February 2017

Dear Barb,

My birthday quilt arrived and I wish you could see the ear to ear grin on my face. What a happy piece of patchwork to open on a gray February day.

Your little Log Cabin quilt is charming! Could anything be sweeter than pink and blue sitting side by side like this? 

As for sharing your last bit of bird toile for the back, it makes an elegant foil for those quirky conversation prints on the front of the quilt. Baseball players and baby faces -- What fun! 

    

Thank you for your beautiful birthday quilts, Barb. They always take the edge off turning another year older!

Scrappy Birthday

I'ii never forget a visit to my friend, Barb's, sewing room where she revealed the secret behind much of her design process. It was a drawer full of miscellaneous quilt blocks leftover from previous projects. Wouldn't it be fun, I thought, to arrange them like puzzle pieces into various quilt designs?

It turns out that's precisely what Barb did when she made this year's birthday quilt for me. All the elements were "pieces and parts" of other projects made to fit by adding on or trimming down as need be.

I’m guessing Barb started her layout with the vintage Shoo Fly block, then added Broken Dishes to continue the classic blue and brown color scheme. When her strip of Flying Geese was too long to fit, Barb simply lopped it off leaving a quirky little partial block behind.

Adding to the "make do" charm is a backing pieced from three strips of beautiful bird chintz fabric. It takes a keen eye to spot the seams. Can you find them? Barb also varied her binding strips just as a frugal seamstress might had she run out of her intended fabric.

Finally, a gentle tea bath gave the quilt its aged appearance. Don’t you love Barb's attention to detail?

Weeks before my birthday, I spotted a vintage blue bowl on Etsy. "That's just what I need," I told myself. "Wouldn't it look great filled with old buttons sitting atop a scrappy quilt?"

When just such a quilt arrived, I raced right back to Etsy and bought the bowl. Happy birthday to me!

By the way, here are photos of Barb's miscellaneous block drawers. Do you see the allure of designing this way?

Thank you for another great birthday quilt, Barb. You always manage to surprise and delight me! ❤️

Sweet Hearts

Happy Valentines Day!

At Times Like These

Hello everyone. Where were we when I last posted? Oh yeah, smack dab in the middle of the worst year ever! Twenty-sixteen brought an unrelenting onslaught of disasters--everything from wildfires, hurricanes and floods to mass shootings, civil unrest and unprecedented political farce. In the midst of it all, a sudden death in the family left me paralyzed with grief.

It's only been nine months, but I'm ready to start dealing with things instead of just wallowing in sadness. Creative endeavors have helped in the past (here and here), and to that end, we did a deep dive in my sewing room. 

ooking for something to pique my interest. Well, something finally did--an assortment of homespun plaids all cut and ready to sew. Kathie Holland, do you remember sending this kit to me years ago?

Blocks are pieced using Mary Ellen Hopkins' “connector corners” technique. Stars cleverly appear as the blocks are sewn together. Wanda Hanson assembled the quilt and added plaids of her own to make it a more functional table runner size.

Wanda chose a lovely striped backing and binding in my favorite colors. I like how her diagonal machine quilting echoes the linear theme.

Plaid Fancy

18" x 27"

Some of the comfort a quilt provides comes from the soul of its maker. This one's imbued with the love and kindness of compassionate friends, who in bringing it to life, restored a bit of my own!

Welcome Spring

Hello everyone! Today was perfect for a visit from my friend, Terri. The first thing she did after walking through the door.warm and sunny today -- just right for opening the windows to the  air. In fact, that was 

Sunshine settled on our faces as we basked in the warm breeze. No words necessary; our smiles say it all!

Over lunch, we talked nonstop barely getting a bite in edgewise for all the catching up we had to do.

Before leaving, Terri offered to do a little something around the house. I knew she meant cleaning, but dust can wait! Instead, I asked if she'd arrange a little tableau with the tulips she brought and a little quilt from my stash.

As you can see, it's nothing special -- just a few random nine patches swapped with friends. Even so, a humble quilt like this deserves its day in the sun. 

Thanks again, Terri. Your arrangement will keep me smiling all week!

 

A Spiritual Gift

"If you are a craftsman…only look at your tools, your needle, your thimble…your scales, your measures, and you will find this saying written on them… 'Use me toward your neighbor, as you would want him to act towards you with that which is his.'"   Martin Luther

As new members of our church, we were asked to assess our "spiritual gifts and passions" and consider applying then to various church ministries. As a longtime quilt maker, naturally I was drawn to liturgical art and spent several years crafting banners for worship.

Even though my "making" days are over, I can still make things happen from time to time. After a persistent calling to contribute one more banner to Rejoice, I finally decided to commission one! 

It's the work of my friend, Wanda Hanson, who's a prodigious quilt maker and genius when it comes to using color and design. She blends hundreds of fabrics from her extensive collection into extraordinary one-of-a-kind works of art. After seeing her latest colorwash quilts, I knew one would be perfect for the sanctuary at Rejoice!

The first time I approached Wanda about making a banner, she declined. But at some point, my calling became her calling too. Eventually, she embraced the project as a creative challenge and opportunity to inspire others through her God-given skills.

We chose the Creation Story as our theme, specifically "Let there be light." portion. visual impact Creative license Focusing on the emotional truth or style of a story instead of strict reality. Ours is a sort of Bible/Big Bang mashup which includes both scriptural and scientific rationale for the origin of the universe. 

Wanda sorted, cut, arranged, and sewed hundreds of luminous batiks, each a different color and print, to create “Let there be Light.” Here are just a few samples of the 356 3"x 6” pieces she used.

And here's Wanda with her fabulous creation!

Could there be a better backdrop for worship than this glorious riot of color?

Let There Be Light

69" x 93"  

2015

  

Visit Wanda's blog, Exuberant Color, to see more of her exquisite work!

Reality Check!

It’s been a long, lazy, uneventful summer. I’ve been sleeping a lot, reading too little, not writing at all, and taking way too much comfort in my complacency. 

I forgot that MS can pull the rug out from under me at a moment's notice which it did a couple weeks ago. I haven’t had a flare-up in years so didn’t recognize the symptoms (severe pain in hands, wrists, and arms) until my left hand (my only functional appendage) stopped working altogether. You can bet that got my attention!

Three days in the hospital on IV steroids has restored function to my left hand. I can scratch my nose now, give a feeble wave, feed myself finger foods, type o-n-e  l-e-t-t-e-r  a-t  a  t-i-m-e with a pointing device, use the TV remote, and even hold a cup of coffee if I’m lucky enough to get one. 

I've also been assigned a series of hand exercises to practice daily. Hopefully, they’ll make me strong enough to erase the word “complacency” from my vocabulary and live each day with more purpose and intention.

Take good care of yourselves, everyone. I promise there will be more quilty content ahead!