I made another quilt.  It’s been a long time.  I did all the embroidery and piecing by hand.  I took it to a long arm quilter-Lily Nut Quest quilting- and Karen did a great something.  

   

I haven’t been doing anything artistic lately.  My health has been bad and sewing is too hard, everything seems hard.  I am uninspired.  On Christmas, a friend of Karen’s was here for Christmas dinner.  She admired my paintings and my quilts (Karen always gets the quilts out and shows them off).  She asked me if I was doing anything new.  I told her no.  Then she encouraged me to do something.  Here’s my project.

 

Through the Red Trees

At 36" X 24", this is the biggest canvas I have done.  It sat on my dining room table, started but unfinished and untouched for over a week before I screwed up my courage and painted through my feelings of inadequacy and fear.  I went to West Bend's Museum of Wisconsin Art where I stared at the truly huge "The Flagellants" by Carl Von Marr.  At 14' X 23' it gave me perspective.  

Autumn Tracks

I always find myself drawn to pathways that disappear in the distance, around a curve or behind a hill.  For several years I have been gathering photos and memories of railroad tracks disappearing around a bend and finally I decided to try to capture it.  I love the Autumn skies full of clouds and wind, the Autumn colors in the trees and grasses and the mystery of what's around the bend.  I did this piece for the 24 Hour Show at the Grafton Arts Mill, which is tonight, January 27, 2018 from 6:30-9:00pm.

On Kari's Canvas

A while back Kari came to spend a day with me and we worked on some paintings.  Kari started one but decided she didn't like it.  I said, just paint over it, let it dry and then start again.  No.  She was set on starting over.  You see she wanted the white canvas to show around her painting.   So I had her paint over her canvas and set it aside to dry while she painted a new one.  She laid that paint on thick, swirled her brush through it and painted a smiley face in the middle.  That painted over canvas has been sitting there ever since, calling to me, saying "Don't waste me!"  Today, Kari was here again and again we sat down to paint, Kari with a clean canvas. I knew better than to ask her to use that canvas but I picked up that neglected painted over canvas and painted this.  I love the texture from her swirling and I love the dark blue paint peeking through the sky.  I love the misty fog coming in from the lake and up the side of the hill into the trees.  Soft colors, blurry edges, indistinct impressions of vegetation, water and sky. 

Memories

The first thing I remember is meeting my baby brother, Mike.  He was born in June 1957

Quilts for Grown Ups

The first time I tried to quilt was when I mother gave me an old quilt top that my Grandmother Scott had made back in the 30's probably.  It had a white background with hand appliqued vines and flowers in pink and green.  My mother, Karen Johnson had told my daughter, Tiffany that she could have it when it was finished.  The top was stained, the fabric was not in great shape and in my ignorance, I just started working on it.  I hand washed it, I tried stain removers, I re-stitched the applique as best I could.  I went to a quilt store and found fabric that seemed to match, bought some batting and proceeded to stitch it together.  Then I labeled it with the history of the maker, the re-maker and the recipient.  Tiffany was pleased.  She keeps it in the hope chest she got from my mother who got it from my grandmother.  And so the story goes with quilts.  They bind us together with our past and our future. 

When I finished Grandma Scott's quilt, I thought, well that's that.  I will never quilt another one.  And then my grandchildren started to arrive and I made baby quilts.

 

In between all the baby quilts, I did some quilts for myself.  The one below was finished sometime in 2009.  I didn't keep track of dates when I was making them.  In fact, I don't think this one is signed either.

This quilt was the first one I did for myself.  The embroidery patters are from a book with Pennsylvania Dutch motifs.  It is a whole cloth lap size quilt, machine quilted.  I loved the colors which perfectly match the fabric that I used on the back. I bought that fabric first.

This fabric was purchased at the Quilting Connection on Main Street in Ames, IA

This quilt took me a really long time, years.  All hand embroidered, hand pieced, and hand quilted.  It is made for a queen sized bed.  My mother loved this one and made me bring it to Iowa to show her friends at water aerobics.  Close ups of the angels are in past posts on this blog.

This is the most recent quilt I finished.  It is lap sized, all hand embroidered, pieced and quilted and one that is my favorite.  I hated to give it to Karen!  This one started a long time ago when I made tea towels for all my friends for Christmas.  Karen got the owls and per my instructions, we used them!  So quite a few years down the road they had started to show some wear and tear.  One had been burned so half of it was missing, several had holes and some had stains.  It was time to retire them, but it was hard to let go.  Then I had the idea to cut out squares with the embroidery and make them into a quilt.  Now these cute little owls will have a second chance to give pleasure and be useful!

My son was feeling left out and asked me to make a quilt for him.  I am still working on that one.  It has a baseball theme and I used that fabric you can print pictures on.  I will be sure to post a picture when it is done. 

Quilts

    I turned into a quilter because I became a grandma.  I had been embroidering ever since my Grandma Scott taught me how, so the embroidery on these quilts is the fun, relaxing part for me.  I had no idea how to make a quilt.  I have learned a few things since then about quilting but I always start with the embroidery. 

My first Baby Quilt for my Grandson in 2005.  I did the had embroidery but I had no idea how to quilt anything so my friend Deb Halmo took me to the quilt shop to pick out fabrics and then put it together and quilted all the borders and sashes.  She left the quilting around the embroidery to me. 

This pink quilt was made from my Granddaughter, Kari.  It is a whole cloth quilt.

This quilt, another whole cloth quilt was for Grandma's Hope Chest-So far no little boys have arrived to claim it.

This one was a made from a kit.  Again, no piecing.

For my friend LaShawn's grandson, Randal.  This one was pieced.

The second baby quilt I made.  Another whole cloth quilt for Grandma's hope chest.  I did not know what I was doing so it is really not properly quilted.  I used an embroidery stitch to quilt-lots of work.

This one was made for my niece's little boy, Gaius!  At the time I made it we did not know Gaius' name or that he was a boy!