70 and Still Wearing Jeans


The world’s greatest husband had a birthday.  To celebrate this milestone, I completed a project for him that I had started several years ago.  Yes, it was a project in progress for a while.

I had collected some novelty fabrics and made 9” Ohio Star blocks.  The working title for this project was Things Jim Likes.  Construction stalled when there were some categories that had to be included but were difficult to find.  Fabric with cameras, birds, maps, were some of the most elusive.  I put everything in a box and put it on a shelf until I could collect more fabrics.  By everything, I mean a diagram of the quilt I had designed in EQ7, notes to myself about the possible sashing and setting triangle fabrics, and a list of themes I had and wanted to add.

When I would find fabrics that were appropriate, I added them to the box, and time marched on.

 

 

 

 

As this birthday approached, I decided that this would be his “three score and ten” gift .  Yes, he walked in the sewing room several times while the blocks were on the design wall.  And, no, he didn’t realize what was there.  I worked as quickly as I could with them on the wall, and I lied a bit (ok, a lot) about what I was doing upstairs in the weeks before Christmas.  (His birthday is December 26 – the design wall photo was taken Sept 23.)

Once assembled, I knew I couldn’t hide it long enough to quilt it myself.  And, it’s big and would take me a long time.  So Dewey Godwin became my partner in secrecy and did the quilting in record time.  Knowing the theme and seeing the trains, Dewey incorporated a railroad track into the border.  Perfect!

While I was working on this, Jim was playing Amanda by Waylon Jennings with a line  “finally made 40 and still wearing jeans.”  There’s where the title came from.  Not 40, but still wearing jeans.

 

 

My partner, my assistant, my musician, my photographer, my soulmate now has a new quilt of his own.  And, just in time for the coldest weather in a very long time.  It works at nap time in front of the tv.

 

 

Some of the things represented are cameras, lighthouses, scientific instruments, football, windmills, Christmas lights, birds, travel, the great outdoors, banjos, guitars, railroads, geology, the US Army, and even  sharks (those represent the years he taught Oceanography and dissected sharks in his lab, gaining notoriety for the smelliest classroom at school).

The patchwork back is made of fabrics whose motifs wouldn’t fit in the star design, but fit the theme.

 

 

 

 

For email subscribers, here is a photo of the whole quilt.  It measures 65″ x 80″ .  For more detail, go to the website and click on any photo to enlarge.

Soup and Cornbread

Today was a snow day, a sew day, followed by a cold, cold night.  Our supper was one we have frequently in this weather – vegetable soup and bread.  Sometimes the bread is a crusty loaf we can dip in olive oil, sometimes it’s soft yeast rolls with butter.  This night it was a southern favorite, cornbread.

 

Cornbread baked in my mother’s  cast iron skillet.  That skillet holds more memories than grease molecules.  My mother baked cornbread in it every single weekday of my memory.  No matter what the menu, no matter how hot the kitchen would be in the summertime, the oven and pan were preheated to 400?.  Meanwhile, a simple mixture of self-rising cornmeal, egg, and whole milk was stirred together.  When the pan was hot, bacon drippings were poured in, then the batter, then it cooked until done.

The round pone was always inverted on a plate, cut into eight wedges, and set on the corner of the table next to Daddy’s plate.  I don’t recall Mama ever eating any, but Daddy ate it at lunchtime, and again sometimes at supper.  Sometimes his supper was simply a wedge of cornbread (room temperature, never reheated) and a glass of milk.

Aunt Nellie, my mother’s maternal aunt, preferred hoecakes; thin cornmeal cakes cooked on top of the stove. From her comments, I inferred that Mama’s recipe was one from Daddy’s family and that she adopted it for our meals.

We ate plenty of leftovers at our house, but never leftover cornbread.  Even if only one wedge was eaten at lunchtime, the remainder was discarded and a new pone cooked the next day.  I don’t know why.

In my adult life, I’ve tried many cornbread recipes, many pans, and many other options.  The alternatives are all good; we enjoy jalapeño cheddar cornbread occasionally, hoecakes are served at our favorite local restaurant, and once I discovered Tasha Tudor’s cornbread recipe, that complex sweet concoction sometimes finds its way to our table.  Tasha advised that hot cornbread is better with a bit of butter and honey or blackberry jam on it.  I agree!

I’ve baked cornbread in square pans, long pans, muffin pans; some glass, some stainless steel, some cast iron.  But nothing gives the crust like Mama’s old cast iron skillet.  But the cornbread will stick to that pan if I use any lubricant other than bacon grease.  So I’ve learned to cook bacon for breakfast if I’m planning to cook cornbread later in the day.

A nice rubdown afterwards with a paper towel is the only cleaning my skillet gets.  No water, no soap.  A childhood memory more than 50 years ago is of Mama and Aunt Nellie building a fire outside and “burning off” their cast iron cookware.  Then they seasoned them with grease of some kind and put them in the oven.  This skillet was one of those.

Mama’s Cornbread Recipe was: 1 cup self-rising cornmeal, 1 egg, 2/3 cup whole milk.  Mix ingredients.  Preheat oven to 400? with iron skillet inside.  Pour 1 tablespoon bacon drippings into pan, swirl around bottom and sides of pan, then pour in batter.  Bake 20 minutes. (All quantities are my approximations, she didn’t measure anything.)

As for the vegetable soup recipe, it varies depending on what’s on hand.  Tonight’s version started with a leftover rump roast, potatoes, carrots, onions, portobello mushrooms, corn, some frozen butterbeans, diced tomatoes.  Cooked slowly, tasted, seasoned, simmered some more…

Bonnie’s Baskets

A dear friend whose new favorite color is purple needed a quilt.  She didn’t know she needed a quilt, but I did.  Rather, I knew I needed to make Bonnie a quilt.

You see, Bonnie is having a rough time health-wise.  She’s going for chemo treatments every couple of weeks, and in between those she’s having to rest more than she likes to let her body heal.

I don’t live close enough to go with Bonnie to her treatments or to help with cooking and housework.  Nor am I close enough for frequent hugs of support.  But, as most people know, a quilt is an endless supply of hugs from the maker to the recipient.

I like all traditional quilt blocks (well, ok, most traditional quilt blocks).  Four-patches, nine-patches, stars, waves, crowns, all have their appeal.  But my go-to quilt block is the basket.  I was once part of a mini-group that called ourselves the Basket Cases. The name was probably more appropriate for me than for the others – but you get the idea.  We all loved making basket blocks.

So for Bonnie’s quilt, I put together a few purple baskets, one overflowing with flowers and leaves and such.  The assembly was quite improvisational, simply baskets on white with white open spaces.

I have a reputation for quilting pieces that are bulletproof because I do like dense quilting.  But in this case, I stitched a meandering vine rather sparsely, leaving space for the quilt and batting to breathe, making it more cuddly to wrap oneself in.

The label is a remnant of a vintage doily with a basket embroidered by someone’s loving hand.

 

 

As I worked, my whole being was thinking of Bonnie and her treatments.  “Every stitch a prayer” kept echoing in my mind.  And there are many, many stitches.

Now Bonnie knows that I love her and am mentally traveling with her through her treatments.  And I know that she knows.

Christmas Quilts

I love to stitch with the colors of the season.  I know professional artists have to work ahead of the season, getting seasonal prints, cards, books ready during the summer for Christmas, working on Easter themes during snowstorms.  Not me.

I love to sew on pumpkin colored fabrics in the fall, pastels in the Spring, and give me some red and green to stitch while the tree is up.

Right now, I’m stitching on a project called Mistletoe and Holly (that’s the name given to it by the designers, Barb Adams and Alma Allen – and my working title now.  But as the stitching goes on and the design evolves within my life, that name is subject to change).  This is a design I’ve loved for years.

Here is a photo of their finished product. This Christmas season finds me stitching on lots of bindings, finishing some projects for gifts, some for our guild’s upcoming quilt show.  But I had to start a red and green project or the season wouldn’t feel right to me.

Earlier in December, I stitched this wool appliqué piece from a block-of-the-month from Maggie Bonanomi.  I believe this project will be in her book coming out in 2018.

 

 

My quilt ladder shows evidence of my fascination with red and green.  In the center is Five Seasons in Bonaire folded with the Christmas season showing.  The top and bottom are Tree Farm of Lorane and Small Tree Farm. These are two sizes of a quilt I designed and made for my daughter’s family a few years ago.  Friends saw it, loved the simple technique, and patterns were born.

Pomegranates and Poinsettias is in the dining room, Miss Lily’s Baskets are in a basket, and a red and green Irish Chain I made for a challenge one year (but did not enter it, I liked another project better for the competition) are around, too.  Detailed descriptions of these projects in earlier posts are here and here.

 

Above the playhouse hutch, a Santa marches through the woods (based on a design by Jan Patek).  Just as I finished this piece a couple of years ago (needed something seasonal to fit the space), I found the wooden Santa you see on the top shelf marching along in an antique store.  Serendipity!  Oh,  we do know how to spell Noel in our house, but when I bought these blocks in the 1980’s, Jim said to the clerk, “Do you think I should be worried?  I don’t know anyone named Leon.  Why do you think my wife is buying this?”  Her laughter still rings in our ears.  So as a tribute to that memory, we sometimes display the blocks that way.  I forgot to move them when I took the photo.

If history repeats itself, the Mistletoe and Holly thing will be part of next year’s display.  I have another couple of ideas in my brain, too.  But the ideas sometimes flow faster than these fingers can stitch, so only time will tell how much gets done.

A Step Back Christmas


Even the outhouse was decorated for Christmas.

It was a cold bleak morning as we set out on a time travel adventure.  We headed to a settlement called Step Back – a Victorian village –  was open to the public to celebrate Christmas old style.

On 200 acres, a man with a vision has created a historic settlement.  Roger Pierce has a general store, a schoolhouse, a church, and many farm sheds and buildings.  Often the acreage is quiet, sometimes populated by school groups or scouts who have made plans to visit for a day.  But yesterday was its annual opening to the public for Christmas.

Family members, friends, and local community members dressed in period clothing were on hand to educate and entertain.  There was a corn sheller operating, grinding corn using energy from the waterwheel.  A schoolmarm was on hand to answer questions and lead children in the construction of paper chains to decorate the tree.  In the church, live piano music provided the perfect backdrop of Christmas carols and hymns.

Oh, and there were women, who for this day, donned their Victorian best dresses to pose as floozies.  They layered the clothing to ward off the cold, fortified themselves with a bit of antifreeze (medicinal, they said).  As they raised a toast, I heard “May we be floozed the rest of our lives!”

While walking about, we ran into old friends and made new friends.  In a picturesque setting, we were enchanted with simple decorations of the past.  As the day progressed, the sun came out from behind the clouds, and more people came out, too.

 

The people of this community recognize this treasure and come to show their appreciation.  The owner was a local businessman with a love of history.  After he retired, he began to create this haven.  In some cases, he found old buildings and dismantled them and rebuilt them on his property.  Other buildings are made from trees growing on his property.  Likewise, the furniture and contents of the buildings are assembled from a wide range of sources.  All of it comes together in a bucolic settlement which serves to trigger memories in older folks and educate the young.

Mr. Pierce charges no admission at Christmas or any other time.  Those who choose to make a donation know that it will be used to buy toys for children whose Christmas would be less abundant without it.

 

And, did I say that “Mayor Pierce”  wears overalls?  Well, of course he does.  Yesterday, many of the men working there, and some of the visitors, were wearing overalls.  Yes, I got lots of photos.  Yes, there will be some art quilts depicting this place!

 

Lace Day

Yesterday was Lace Day.  It’s not on your calendar as an official holiday, but I’m proclaiming it.

 

 

 

 

Sometimes when I’m out shopping buttons call to me, other times it’s tattered linens who beg to be cut up and sewn back together.  Yesterday it was lace.  Everywhere I looked I saw lace.

There was white tatting, crocheted edging in white, black, and beige.  Technically, these may not be lace, but they are lacy and perform the function of lace in some of my projects.  All in today’s hunt were bargains.  Most were handmade.

If it’s stained, I will dye it.  If it’s not stained, I may dye it.  But I love giving a home to someone’s pieces with a memory.  I keep it out of the landfill and get to add more history to a  photo on cloth, or just a collage of vintage remnants.

I love walking through antique malls.  I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating.  It soothes my soul to see old things.  Memories surface at the sight of roller skates like I once owned, a towel in a stripe like my Mother had, even a can that held a ham.  The can may still hold a ham.  I didn’t want to know.  But when have I thought of those Sunday menus?  Ham from a can and orange macaroni and cheese from a box.  My Mother grew up wringing the chicken’s neck for lunch, so she embraced all the convenience foods available to her once they moved to town.

Inspiration comes in many forms.  The color palette here suggests a touch of black with some neutrals and that green.  Wow – that green.  If you subscribe to Julia Cameron’s advice in The Artist’s Way, to take your artist self on a date each week, this is the kind of thing she’s talking about.

I didn’t buy all you see in the photos.  Displays in the antique malls are inspiring, even if I don’t always make a purchase.  The way the pieces are displayed in a drawer, or old suitcase, or in a basket make me smile.

 

I bought some home with me.  Here is the pile of treasures.  I love the vintage bias tape and seam binding in the original package.  100% cotton, unstained.  At 25? each, I didn’t buy them all, but I did add to my supply.  And even the basket came home with me.  I love the double-handled  baskets for storing and carrying projects in progress.  The Longabergers are so sturdy.  I never bought them when people were having parties; I missed that boat.  But when I find them for a song (this one was $14), I grab them!

I don’t know what these finds will become.  But I know they will find their way to a project filled with memories.  Memories that include the fun time shopping for them and memories unknown to me but stored in the fibers of these pieces with a past.

The Farm House

My husband is a magician.  Not only can he see beauty though the lens of his camera, but in post processing, he can emphasize whatever he wants.  Recently, he’s put the emphasis on my quilts.  I love what he can do, don’t you?

Yesterday found us riding backroads with quilts and cameras in the car.  We ended up at The Farm House.  An old sharecropper’s cabin with numerous additions, good food, and decor to please any southern girl; it’s one of our favorite destinations.

We had a nice lunch in the dining room with a fire burning in the open fireplace.  Outside, guineas were roaming around, a scarecrow was standing guard, and piles of pumpkins adding color.  The menu included candied sweet potatoes, turnip greens, and corn muffins – more evidence that this is a place to please any county soul.

Surrounded by old quilts, old baskets, old ironstone, I feel like I’m visiting relatives from my childhood.  Since much of it is for sale, visitors can take elements of the past home.

 

 

I personally brought a wreath with a crow inside, and a pair of earrings made from feathers from the wandering guineas.

 

 

 

The owner gave us permission to take all the photos we wanted; her goal is to share this place with all who will love it.  Quilts posed on farm implements, beside pumpkins, in the garden, and on the porch.

 

 

My talented husband worked his magic in post processing.  Some samples are here, more (with details of these quilts) will follow in upcoming posts.

Let’s Strip

Some of my best friends are strippers.  One member of our organization moved away and became a hooker, but stripping seems to remain a favorite activity.

My quilt guild’s annual challenge quilts were presented this week.  This year’s challenge title was “Let’s Strip.”  So, strip we did.

The rules were simple.  Make a “strippy quilt”, any size, any color (no orange required this year), any technique.  That was open to interpretation by the maker.  Refer to antique English quilts, Amish bar quilts, recent jelly roll collections from manufacturers – or any other type of quilt in which you assemble the units in strips.

Members mingle and socialize while examining all the entries before casting their vote.  In addition to choosing their favorite quilt for ribbon awards, members study the quilts for evidence of personalities in the work.  One of the most coveted prizes of the day is the one awarded to the winner of “Guess the Maker”, the person who is able to identify more quilt makers than anyone else.

In the photos, you see Queen Tess moderating.  She periodically announces how much time is remaining for judging and reminds us again to follow directions we tend to ignore.  Here, she is standing in front of Marie’s entry, One Golden Autumn Day.  As winners are announced, they reveal the story behind their entry, then all other members do the same.

This year’s third place ribbon went to Joyce, for Maui Sunrise.

 

 

 

Second place went to Mary, one of our most prolific members.  Mary always does amazing work and has fun doing it.  This fun piece, Chicken Buffet, was no different.  Evidently, the block with the toilet paper was really an interesting one to make!

 

And, lucky me!  My entry, Autumn Elegance, won the blue ribbon!   My piece measures 29” x 47” and began as a jelly roll (a collection of strips 2 1/2” wide by 40” long) from Cherrywood hand-dyed fabrics.  I added batik leaves, and then quilted it densely using a variety of motifs.

Carol’s entry had to have a name change.  Carol began with strips of flying geese she bought at one of our guild auctions (we clean out our closets and bring things we no longer need and buy and sell from each other).  Thinking they were brought by Betty, she had titled the quilt Miss Betty’s Geese.  Learning that in fact Tess had made and discarded the strips, the quilt title is now Tess’s Geese.

Members aren’t limited to one entry.  Marie finished her large quilt early, then had scraps lying around and made a table runner that complied with the guildelines, too.  (it’s the red and black one with tiny squares in one row).

Susan made her challenge quilt  (behind Tess in this photo) using our friend Candace’s pattern called Sonja’s Windows  (available here).  Susan shared another quilt (the one she and Tess are holding) from the same pattern, not assembled in rows, too.   In addition, Susan made a strippy red and black quilt for the contest.

DeAnn, who is busy building a new house, created a pattern with a story in each panel.  Times in the Garden depicts scenes from each house DeAnn has owned. so this wall hanging is filled with memories she will take with her. to her new home.

Hilda’s title, Study in Black and White, Oops, (seen in the background of a group photo) conveys the message that quilts have a mind of their own sometime.  That red fabric just jumped in!  Janet likes black and white, too.  Her Silhouette came from a pattern she found in McCall’s quilting magazine.

Linda’s Sunrise, Gladys’ Kaleidoscope Pinwheels, and Angie’s Happy Scrappy, added to the inspirational display.

 

Carolyn’s Rework Nursery Rhymes depicts familiar scenes rendered in hand appliqué and framed with red calico.

 

Sharon and her grandchildren love to make bubbles, so Sharon made a bubble quilt using some unique materials to depict transparency.

Oh, if you are still wondering about the member I mentioned who left our group, she still keeps in touch.  And she shares photos of the beautiful rugs she’s hooked from strips of woven wool.  So, I guess that makes her a stripper, too.

Our meeting day was a rainy, dreary day, not the best for photography.  I’ve included some views of my quilt in the great outdoors with sun shining on it.

Click on any image to enlarge.

 

 

Kaffe visits FDR

Look – it’s a president with one of my quilts!  Not the current president, but a president with ties to Georgia. The statue is in Franklin D. Roosevelt State Park, at Dowdell’s Knob, near Pine Mountain.  We had this quilt along with us and I thought he might be a bit chilly.

Following the photographic lead of Kaffe Kassett and Bruce Lundstrom, I decided to take a quilt on a day trip.  This bright fall day seemed a good time to bring Kaffe’s Walk Through the Woods.  Kaffe Fassett is a California-born artist who has lived in England for the last 50 years or so designing knitting and needlepoint designs.  Known for his bold use of color, Kaffe has added patchwork to his textile repertoire, designing vibrant quilting fabrics and using them in simple patterns.  His books on quilting are fabulous photographic journals.  He takes a collection of quilts to exotic locations and stages photos with extraordinary scenes.  Bruce Lundstrom is the photographer mentioned in my latest post here.

Kaffe’s Walk Through the Woods is made from one of Kaffe’s patterns that I began while taking a class from him in 2009.  The pattern is Diagonal Madness and is the result of cutting lots and lots of squares in two sizes and arranging them on a design wall to create patterns in horizontal, vertical, and diagonal rows.

My quilting sister Tess and I shared a work table that day and boldly chose to ignore directions. Here is  Tess beside her rows of squares.

 

 

 

 

I thought my work was destined for the trash bin until Kaffe himself gave his critique and elaborated on the smokey, ethereal quality of my color choices.  He remarked that he felt like he was walking through the woods with the leaves shimmering on the trees.  So I had a title and reason to finish it – if Kaffe himself liked it, it was a keeper!   But not right away, of course.

The pieces stayed rolled up in the flannel design “wall” we had used for quite a while.  In 2012, I stitched the pieces together and had one of my longarm quilting friends, Kathy Darley, work her magic on the quilting.  Just look at her feathers in the closeup – Wow! Click on this, or any other photo, to enlarge and examine details.

On this fall day, FDR enjoyed the quilt, too.  At least one park visitor took a photo of a crazy lady warming a statue.  I’d love to hear the stories the lady with the camera had to tell friends about our encounter.

The finished quilt measures 56” x 76”.

You can google Kaffe Fassett and “images” and spend the day being mesmerized and inspired by color.  This link takes you to a page focusing on his patchwork, fabrics, and books: http://www.gloriouscolor.com.  More info including videos are here.

Mary Ellen’s Quilt Tours

This quilt, Mrs. Chillingsworth, is so named by my friend Mary Ellen, in honor of the resident ghost in their home in Minnesota.  Mary Ellen is a gifted and prolific quilter whose friendship I cherish.  This piece was made using a pattern called Sidelights and a panel Mary Ellen found at Missouri Star Quilt Company.

Mary Ellen and her photographer husband Bruce, took Mrs. Chillingsworth on a seasonal outing recently and shared photos.  This photo journey is the 48th installment in what Mary Ellen intended to be 52 Quilts-A Journal/Journey of the Stars and Stripes and Other Quilts. I say intended because Mary Ellen says they’re having so much fun, they probably won’t stop at 52.  And, she has plenty more quilts on hand, and is still sewing.

The photo journey with quilts began sometime in 2016 and Mary Ellen has posted groups of photos on Facebook featuring quilts in picturesque settings including roadside vistas, historic sites, and remote areas of natural beauty.  On occasion, they’ve secured permission to pose a quilt on a priceless antique chair for its photo op.

Since the first few installments, I’ve begged for a published version; a history book, travelogue, and quilt reference, all in one!  There’s no commitment yet from the pair, but at Christmastime last year, their children showed them what fun it would be to have a bound copy of their adventures.  Their son and daughter collected the posts and photos and had the first 29 episodes published and bound for them.  Nice, huh?

Mary Ellen had a shop in Battle Lake MN, Sweetapple, where she sold gifts, pottery, primitives, and furniture made by Bruce.  In the same building was B’s Quilt Shop.  The two complemented each other, merged, and the obsession with quiltmaking began.

Mary Ellen does all her piecing on her 1957 Singer Featherweight and all the quilting on a longarm machine.  Some of the quilts in the photos were made as samples; for her shop or for others’.  In each post, she’s shared the name of the pattern used, so when the book comes out, you’ll get lots more details.

In addition to driving around looking for photographic spots, Bruce and Mary Ellen still make and distribute portable pressing tables. Theirs were feathered in Fons and Porters magazine in 2009, on Simply Quilts, and in various magazines.  Now (theoretically retired) they mostly distribute wholesale to shops in their area, but will fill orders from all over.  I have contact info if you need it.  My table is in the foreground of this photo when I was sewing in the breakfast room one cold day last winter.

I know the photos make you hungry for more details of their adventures.  You can see their spirit of adventure and Mary Ellen’s excellent workmanship in the photos here.  In spite of the intriguing locales, no injuries have been sustained in the photo shoots, though Bruce and Mary Ellen do admit to some exhaustion from the hikes.  I love the scenery in all seasons, but anxiously await seeing a quilt at Bruce’s ice fishing hut.

Here are a few more photos.  As always, you can click on a photo to enlarge it.
When their book comes out, I’ll be sure to share the news here!