great grandma's quilts

i shared a few of the quilts i brought home from the states last summer, but i realized i hadn't shared them all. since i'm quilting away myself these days, i thought i'd share some more of the beautiful work done by my grandmother and great-grandmother. gorgeous, handmade, hand sewn quilts and quilt tops. once the house is in a better state, i hope to get a big quilt frame and hand quilt at least one of them myself, but until then, i just enjoy the photos of them and keep them tucked away, safe from moisture and mice.  at least i hope they're safe from mice, i fear i heard a telltale scratching in the wall the other day, but such is life on the farm.

mom's cat - millie - on a crazy quilt mom acquired at an auction.
it's not deemed a family heirloom (from our family at least), hence the status as cat bed.
currently, my cat is sleeping on it at my feet under my desk.

i think the blocks were done my great grandmother on this one.
but i suspect the green and white edging and quilting were done later.

hand quilted and beautiful!

an enormous amount of crochet - my grandmother made this one.
i remember her working on it and how beautiful her bedroom looked.

this one's quite worn and faded - but beautiful that it must have been used!

i remember using this one in my childhood. it could use a new binding.
tho' with my relationship to binding, i'm unlikely to replace it.

the most spectacular quilt top - a spider quilt - completely hand-sewn.
believe it or not, i let my sister have this one.
she can have it hand quilted in kalona by the amish ladies.

detail of the spiderweb quilt.

bright and cheery quilt top.
i believe it's a combination of old and new fabrics.
it's these mom remembers her grandmother making while she was bedridden.

another of the quilt tops - this one's in great shape, no holes anywhere.

detail of the hand sewing! so precise and beautiful

one last quilt top - also in beautiful condition.

i guess these quilts indicate that i come by my love of bright fabric and quilting honestly. i'm just the latest in a long line of quilters. i have mused a little bit about this previously, when my mom sent me one of the tops.

100 creative things in 2009

"one gets a sense of how beauty always has to inhabit a faultline between utility and ideology." - said a recent article on heather moore. i'm not sure how much ideology makes its way into the things i make, but i would like to think they combine utility and beauty. i vowed to finish 100 creative things (if i could count the stuff that's just started, i'd have been there a long time ago) in 2009 and i hereby give you the final four...

#97 - my latest baby quilt - up up and away - (going up on my etsy shop later today).

#98 - the first quilt block for a memory quilt for karoline, husband's oldest.

the balloon design i used on the baby quilt originated here.

i wanted her to remember the balloon ride she took in iowa in 2005.

and although the quilt's not finished, i'm counting it because the rest will be designed by her.

this was the gift she unwrapped on christmas.

#99 - the quilt block for mathilde, husband's middle child's memory quilt.

this one to remind her of all of the giant pieces of chocolate cake

 she ate on our trip to the philippines last year.

she'll design the rest herself, according to the memories she wants on her quilt.

#100 - a cuddle quilt for my nephew owen.

as you can see, i didn't get it sent.

i used the super cute crab fabric from ikea and backed it with a soft green

(and very stretchy hard-to-work-with blankie, also from ikea).

it's hand-quilted with yarn ties.

and that's it, 100 finished acts of creativity in 2009.

i may have to do it again in 2010!

stitched up: what does quilting mean?

last week, i happened to go to jude hill's big cartel site at exactly the right time to be able to, at long last, buy one of her beautiful spirit cloth creations. and it arrived already yesterday. it must have taken the first flight it could, because it seemed to get here very quickly. i think it knew how much i was looking forward to it.i've mentioned jude's spirit cloth blog and photostream before, because i have been drawn back to her work again and again for awhile now. i love the insight into her process that she shares on her blog - it's definitely magical.

as i sit here and write this, with the cloth here on my lap, i feel it radiating a quiet magic. i've had a half-written post on the topic of this quilting thing in my head for several days now, but it didn't really want to come out. now that the cloth is here, it seems the words are ready to come.

i joined jude's slow cloth group on facebook last week. there is a lively discussion going on there, but i'll admit that i ended up feeling very provoked by what was being said. especially by what was being said about contemporary quilters and quilting materials. there seemed to be a preference for old fabrics over new and hand stitching instead of sewing with a machine. a decided prejudice against what's marketed and an attitude towards quilt shows and popularizing quilt designers (tho' no one dared to name names) that i can only describe as haughty. i found myself feeling strangely angry about some of what i read (i must stress that it isn't everyone in the group or even everyone in the discussion - and jude is marvelous at redirecting the conversation onto a thoughtful and more productive track). but some of it seemed arrogant and elitist. there is actually one person who said they couldn't stand the rotary cutters many people use for cutting fabric. and another who was criticizing what people did with their quilts and how they hung them - as if they weren't their own to do with as they pleased. i was overwhelmed by a sense of irony that the conversation is taking place on facebook - the use of modern social networking to have a conversation about a return to traditional handmade quilting. hmmm....

one of the participants in the discussion, linked to this blog post about what quilting is today and what it once was (in this person's opinion). and i think the post sums up nicely the anti-commercial thread that's in evidence in the facebook group.  also ironic, because if you start to look at the blogs of the participants, you find that most have an etsy or big cartel site and some even sell through galleries, so they are, in fact, selling their work, even as they express disdain for those who do so. i'm not sure if i can make that fit together very well.

and while it would be wonderful if we could all sit in our cocoons and create to our hearts' content, the reality of the world in which we find ourselves is that we probably need to sell some of the things we make. selling not only supports our creative habits, but it also validates us if we're honest about it. and it brings us joy. i feel so happy and satisfied that my friend blanca wanted to give baby quilts that i made to some of the babies in her family for christmas. and while the financial side is nice, what's actually even nicer is that my friend liked my work enough to want to give it as a meaningful gift to someone she loves.

anyway, i guess i have this quilting thing and what it might all mean on my mind these days. on my mind as i contemplate cutting into sabin's baby's clothes to be able to make her a memory quilt of her life thus far. on my mind as i made blocks for christmas for husband's daughters to have memory quilts of their own--of our travels and our times spent together. on my mind as i contemplate the wonderful handmade quilt husband's mother made for him--a mixture of blocks he designed and traditional blocks. on my mind as i try to decide what to do with the beautiful, bright quilt top that my great grandmother made.

i'm finding it a bit surprising, the strong emotions i feel about this whole thing. there is something about stitching. something that feels connected and grounding. but i honestly have no objection to using new fabrics, just because they're popular. when i look at the quilt top that my great grandmother made, i see bright, cheerful fabrics that i'm sure were the popular ones of her era. so to use the new and beautiful fabrics i see out there seems to me to be quilting in her spirit, even if i do most of my sewing my machine and am quite attached to my rotary cutter.

i think one of the magical things about quilts is that they are very representative of their times. they are quite literally the very fabric of their time. and i don't see anything wrong with that. as i look through the book about swedish quilts that i found a few months ago, i see that the same was true then. so, i'm going to hang out in the slow cloth group and see what i can learn, because there are some real artists there, even if some of the group is a bit elitist and disdainful (despite a lot of talk about mentoring). i'm confident i can hold my own. and find my own stitching voice. but i do think that having an incredible piece like jude's story fragment beside me as i do it will help. thank you jude, for giving in a bit to the commercial side and sharing your beautiful work. i will take good care of it.

creative process or wherein she justifies an afternoon nap

i'm working on a quilt using heather moore's wonderful cut out & keep, the design she did for cloud 9. there really is a difference in the organic cottons - they're softer and just nicer to work with. if you follow my boards on pinterest, you know i have pinned a whole lot of beautiful quilts of late. i was looking for just the right thing to do with these wonderful fabrics and so i got loads of inspiration. and then i did something completely different.

it's the first time i've come up with my own design and i'm pleased with how it's turning out. it's a little bit planned and a little bit intuitive.  despite the drawing i did with the plus quilt i made of the other cloud 9 line - nature walk - i didn't draw this one out. i also stuck to making blocks, as it was an easier way to ensure i used each of the 8 fabric designs in equal measure. after doing some experimentation in free form piecing with some echino fabrics the other day, i also have concluded that there is a reason why quilters for centuries have made blocks.

as i had all of the blocks finished yesterday afternoon, i kind of hit a bit of a creative wall. i felt they blended together a bit too much once they were all laid out. the fabrics didn't get a chance to shine like i wanted them to. you can judge for yourself in the top photo. what's odd is what this creative block does to me. it makes me suddenly feel overwhelmingly tired. and i find that i need to lie down and close my eyes for a little bit. the creative block triggers some kind of whole system shut down and i simply have to have a little nap. what i want to know is whether anyone else recognizes this phenomenon. if i have a 15-20 minute nap, i'm refreshed and ready to work again. i'm wondering a little bit if this is normal or something i shouldn't be admitting out loud.

i'm still not completely sure how it's going to end up, but there will undoubtedly be some cream sashing in some form or other. another thing that really helps me as i'm laying out a quilt is photographing it and walking away. looking at the photos on the computer really helps. i can definitely see things onscreen that i somehow can't see when i'm looking at the actual quilt. one of the things i notice in looking at these, as that i was subtly influenced by our moroccan rug in my design (you can see it best in the top photo).

i love these fabrics and this definitely won't be the only quilt i make with this beautiful line.

a history in small squares

today the mailman brought me something wonderful...

it's a quilt top that my great grandmother anna hall barnhart made in the early 40s, or possibly even earlier. my mom remembers her grandmother bedridden at her daughter's house in sergeant bluff, iowa. mom remembers helping her sew quilt tops, tho' not necessarily this one in particular. mom also has a number of yoyo quilts that she made (and which i'm hoping to acquire at least one of, i'll admit).

this is a marvelous piece and although i haven't measured it yet it will easily fit our queen-sized bed when i finish it. i spent a long time today, just looking at it and imagining how to finish it into a quilt that we use and love and enjoy. it's completely hand sewn. i found myself in reverie, imagining the line of seamstresses i come from and the hands and sure stitches that created the beauty before me.

i imagine all of the stories that are woven into it, as it's surely made from scraps of clothes people had worn and cast aside. there are many different fabrics of different types and bright cheerful colors.

i spent some time just looking at it today and taking macro photos. there are many different fabrics used in it and i imagine that each of them has a story to tell. i can imagine stories for each of them and hope this will be a source of inspiration that takes me on a storytelling journey.

for something that's likely at least 70 years old, it's amazing that it only has a few holes in it from hungry mice or moths over the years.

otherwise, the fabrics are in wonderful shape. i think that i'll use some fabrics from dresses sabin wore as a baby and a toddler to repair it, so that we weave our own history into it. because that's what quilts are, aren't they? they're the history of a family in fiber form.

i wonder if great grandma annie ever imagined her quilt would find its way to denmark?

thank you, mom for sending this to me. i will treat it well and treasure it.

and if anyone can tell me how these might traditionally have been quilted, i'd love to know, as i'd like to do right by it when i quilt it.

2021 :: a second plague year, in pictures

january

it started off ok. a quiet new year's with friends, some baking - homemade sausage rolls, cardamon buns, quite a lot of working from home. we were able to hold a couple of croquis sundays before everything shut down in earnest. we bought a greenhouse on the blå avis and spent a saturday dismantling it and carting it home. and our child turned 20 halfway across the world! so we gave her valentino sneakers in neon pink. as one does.

february

working from home meant my coworkers were mostly lounging around on the bed or staring out the windows. i was jealous of them. we had actual snow and enough cold temperatures so that the lake actually froze and though we oddly didn't skate, we spent a whole weekend down there, enjoying being on the ice, grilling sausages and loving that there was some actual winter. a week later, temperatures were mild, so we dug the foundation for the new greenhouse. i started a 100 days of payne's grey project, but quickly fell behind and abandoned it in a kind of malaise brought on by the monotony of working from home with shitty internet.

march

i bought a bright pink sweater and some ceramics from a local artist to cheer myself up. there were signs of spring. working from home continued and it was nice to live in the countryside to alleviate feeling so confined. making good food and baking were definitely things i chose to do to cope. we finally put the windows in upstairs on the front of the house. i bought an unusual color palette in linen for making a quilt. and check out how badly husband needed a haircut - we fervently hoped for the hairdressers to open again soon!

april

a white papa kitty, who was surprisingly friendly, showed up, signaling the advent of spring in earnest. we found a second greenhouse for only 500kr and moved it home on a trailer via the back roads, rather than totally taking it apart. a lot of april went to working on the greenhouses. i'm not sure i ever got dressed in proper clothes - i may have spent the entire month in sweatpants and a hoodie.

may

things tentatively began to open up and we were able to go back to the office a couple of days a week. i realized that i preferred working at home because the coffee here is much better than the swill that passes for coffee at work. the greenhouses were completed and we planted a few things. weaving at the museum started up again as well, which was very welcome. i attended an embroidery course at the museum in kolding. we hung our spring exhibition, but didn't hold an opening, as larger gatherings still weren't allowed. billy, the prodigal cat, made his annual return (he definitely has another family somewhere) for the summer. the swans built a nest at our end of the lake, but alas, i don't think they ever hatched out any babies. 

june

summer days came - we had a department outing on a colleague's boat, which was on the most perfect sunny day. flowers bloomed, the garden took off and we had our annual sankt hans bonfire. husband ran a 4:18:4 mini triathlon and seems to have been bit by the triathlon bug. i prepared the warp for my crazy striped tea towels and husband worked on the siding on the west side of the house. 

july

i finished the rainbow quilt i had made in early 2020, just in time to give it as a gift to friend's daughter who was graduating. we enjoyed the garden bounty that was the reward of all that hard work on the greenhouses in the spring. i made a second quilt, using the funky linen color palette - planning it as a picnic quilt for my work in the exhibition. we spent all the time we could enjoying the garden. i only took a week off, saving my holiday for a hoped-for november trip to the us.

august

life was essentially back to normal. we were in the office again full time, though we all took days working from home here and there because we had grown accustomed to it. the garden continued to give generously, both veggies and flowers. husband decided to extend the house a couple more meters since he had a new plan for where the stairs should be. an old bloggy friend came to town and explored copenhagen in the rain. husband's eldest ran the copenhagen ironman, which was an absolutely amazing feat of which i am still in awe. i finished the quilt and at our exhibition opening (which was really the closing), i set up a picnic, complete with snacks and cocktails that everyone attending could sample. it was a good month and didn't at all seem like it was in the midst of a plague year.

september

i resolved to grab all the chances i could for creativity, starting with a lovely weekend down in højer with my creative group. it was absolute bliss and i even got a pair of green sandgren sandals in a little shop run by a lovely woman who i believe made up prices for each customer individually. i made an artwork of a focaccia with all kinds of goodness from the garden to take along for sharing and we made quite a lot of linoleum prints while we were there. then, a few days later, i went to fanø for a very enjoyable day with my weaving group. then, our team had a much-needed trip to copenhagen together and went a long ways towards repairing the damage wrought by too many months of working from home and a boss who had gone down with stress. the coffee continued to be much better at home and the garden generously provided flowers for all the vases in the house.

october

i attended a gourmet knitting day where i met some lovely and talented knitters and thoroughly enjoyed the company of women. we saw the latest james bond in a posh theatre with reclining seats - the first film we'd seen in the theatre in several years. a hard frost came and stopped my dahlias in their tracks. i brought the mango plant inside, along with all the avocados that i'd been growing as well. my first sweet potato crop was a bit tiny, but it was fun to try growing them. i'm not sure our climate is warm enough for them. i finished four tea of my crazy striped linen tea towels, in time to take them as gifts to the us. just before we left, i found two kittens i didn't know about in the greenhouse. they were absolutely adorable and we quickly found a new home for them.

november

finally, that longed-for vacation came and we headed for arizona and some sunshine and warmer temperatures. it was a great trip! we went to a sorority gala, the asu-usc football game, we climbed south mountain and we saw the grand canyon and visited sedona. it was so much fun seeing husband see the grand canyon for the first time. back at home, we went to husband's aunt's 90th birthday and i played with shibori in the dye pot twice! once with real indigo. i decided to take a new job in the new year and we put in the windows on the other end of the house. it was yuzu time and i got all that i could and made loads of delicious things with their fragrant goodness.

december

december started with the discovery of a charming little gin bar at halmtorvet and two visits to jah izakaya with colleagues. i find the food there so inspiring and delicious! we did a small belated thanksgiving gathering. husband made me a christmas calendar, giving me a new holey stone every day - he had collected them last summer as he spread stones from a big bag we had ordered in front of the house. when he was doing it, i asked him if he had found any with holes and he laughed at me. but he was secretly saving them to do the christmas calendar. he's a keeper. mid-month, the child came home and that was wonderful. we've been making her favorite foods and taking care of all the things she needed to do - like going to the doctor and getting a pfizer booster to go with her johnson & johnson vaccination. we had a wonderful white christmas with snow on the ground and the most sparkling, beautiful frosty walk. we should have celebrated husband's eldest's 30th birthday on new year's eve, but she got covid and we all had to isolate until we could test negative (we have all tested negative multiple times now). it wasn't the end to the year we expected, but maybe it was fitting anyway. 

* * *

i wasn't going to do a full month-by-month mosaic post, but i found myself perusing the ones from previous years and decided that it's nice to have them to look back upon. so, as always, this one's for me. and what's nice is that as i looked back over the photos and wrote the words here, i realized it may have been a second plague year, but it wasn't really all that bad. 

sewing our way to happiness.

since i most often complain about the service (or lack thereof) in denmark, i thought that today i would present another side of the story. because i recently had a truly excellent service experience and it involved danes.

last week, i decided it was time to buy a new sewing machine. i'd been limping along with an old husqvarna that i bought at a flea market back in 1999 for 250DKK (about $30 at that time). it was ok as long as you were just sewing simple straight seams and it served me well (mostly because i didn't use it that often) for nearly 10 years. i've been sewing more of late, making pillows and quilts and things. and i'd come to a bit of a standstill on some of those projects because the old machine simply didn't handle the layers of a quilt very well. the tension got all messed up and it bunched the layers as it fed them through.

so i googled sewing machine stores and found a number of them within driving distance. several of them appeared to be owned by ancient folks who i wasn't sure would be particularly open to the foreign girl who spoke danish but didn't really know any of that sewing machine terminology. or at least that was my perception. i also found one that looked like it was pretty big and had a wide selection. i had in mind that i wanted a used machine again, just a newer one than the one i had. i figured a large store would have a larger selection of traded-in used machines. so headed off for the storkøbenhavns symaskine center (greater copenhagen sewing machine center). it was strangely placed in a really industrial area, but i found it after driving by a couple of times and went in, tho' i suddenly wondered if it was a sewing machine factory rather than a store.

right away, a man around my age came and asked me if i wanted help. i was a little surprised it was a man, because i had a perception of sewing as a woman thing. but, i told him that i was a beginning quilter and that i was looking for a used machine and he showed me a couple of the ones he had. they weren't really that much better or newer than the one i already had and he could see on my face that i was a bit disappointed. he said, "i wish i could show you a new machine." and because the room was filled with row upon row of new machines, i caved in.

sewing machines these days are pretty amazing. they can do a lot of complex stitches. they have slots for cards where you can insert elaborate embroidery patterns and set them going on their own while you walk away. in other words, they are really smart. and rather of overwhelming. i've been sewing since i was a kid and would characterize myself as a pretty good seamstress, but i wasn't sure i needed a machine that complex. he seemed to get that immediately and led me to the pfaff row, where he showed me the 2134. i was a bit dazzled by the 100 stitches and the alphabet it could do and how easy it was to make a buttonhole. it had a zipper foot. as well as several others (the purposes of which are still a mystery to me). it was smart enough to tell me which foot i need for the stitch i've selected. and if i wanted to do all of the fancy embroidery stuff later, i could buy the attachment for the machine and be able to do it. he knew the machine well and very smoothly showed me all it could do, making it look super easy. and then he gave me what he presented as a really good price on it, as well as including a service agreement that means free servicing for five years! so, i agreed to buy it.

i was anxious to get home and get started, but then i learned to my dismay that they didn't have any in stock. he said they expected to receive them the next day, but i wasn't going to have the car the next day because husband had to take it to a meeting over on another island. then, he immediately offered to send the machine to me as soon as they got them in the next day, so i'd have it by thursday, the same as if i picked it up myself only without me having to drive all that way. and, he didn't even charge me for this service.

i had mentioned to him that i had trouble finding bobbins for my old machine, so he gave me a dozen or more bobbins for the machine as well, also for free. it did make me wonder whether the price he'd given me was really so good, but then i got home and did a bit of after-the-fact research and found out that it was an excellent price, even with all that VAT. and it was delivered, as promised, on thursday morning. service that really made a difference for me and which other danish businesses could definitely take a lesson from.

and i've already quilted together my quilt-in-a-day (which turned out to be quilt top in a day, but which i didn't finish due to the limitations of the old machine) and on the weekend, husband's oldest daughter, k, and i made this pretty, sunny little lap quilt:

and we even did the binding! tho', she has to do the final hand sewing the next time she's here. and as for me, i'm off to do the binding on my quilt, so more pix once it's done.  sabin's home sick today, so perhaps she'll help or sew something herself and we'll thereby get the next generation sewing as well.

call me crazy

i was just reading what possessed me and i decided that my goal for the weekend is to get randomly called crazy lady in public, like P. did. i'm so envious. these are the things i aspire to.

i started actively working on it yesterday, albeit quietly, to myself, mostly in my own head. it happened when i was standing in the grocery store and i found myself putting a small can of fois gras in my basket, followed by an ordinary loaf of toast bread. with all kinds of conflicting hormones coursing through my body at the moment, i was simply unable to exercise any impulse control whatsoever. at least it was only a $14 can of fois gras and not those fabulous purple furry bumper boots they have down in the shoe store for $360. and say what you will about fois gras, it is the food of the gods. i don't care how they treat those mean old nasty geese, i say bring it on. preferably with a nice fig jam on the side. heavenly. and because i didn't eat it all yesterday, i get to have it for lunch today too. lucky wannabe crazy lady.

* * *

my interview yesterday went very well, at least from my perspective. the job would be interesting (tho' i fear the pay is a bit low) and it's a company i know because i worked with them on projects in my previous job. i've always been impressed with how the people who work there seem to get along in a very real, genuine way and have a good creative atmosphere. that would be way cool. they were interviewing others, of course and will let me know next week whether i have a second interview. i'm pretty sure i will. oh, and did i mention that i actually did the whole interview in danish? pretty cool.  the only drawback would be little or no travel. that might make me very sad in the long run.

* * *

in other evidence of craziness, i made an impulse stop in ikea yesterday on the way home from the interview. one just shouldn't do that. ikea is something one must psyche up for. you have to be mentally prepared when you go there. and you should also be hungry, because of the relentless (and vaguely evil) allure of the meatballs. it was so crowded in the cafeteria that i actually resisted the call yesterday. which was good because then i wouldn't have had room for the afternoon fois gras snack. 

typically, i took the entire tour, because i am utterly unable to resist the cultural pressure to follow those damn arrows. since we're finishing the writing house, that was ok, because there ARE a lot of good decorating ideas in ikea. but why couldn't i just skip to downstairs and get the boxes and fabric that i came for? seriously, i wasted like 45 minutes. why don't i value my own time more than that? and then i bought 12 meters of these cute fabrics:

i wonder what to do with them now...KIDDING. actually, i'm going to make a moderny (as in not grandma-agtig) quilt out of them. ever since i got heather's wonderful patchwork , i've been wanting to do a modern take on a quilt. so i'm going to make a top out of the three fabrics above and then back it with a big fleece which i also bought in ikea, sort of a fast-track quilt for use in the writing house. do you think if i leave the damn computer i can get it finished today? i might be able to if you dare me to try. i'm motivated by a challenge and not very self-motivated. so what do you say? can the crazy lady make a quilt in a day?

UPDATED:  see how far i've gotten?  

and although it's awfully cold out there, i used my writing house to lay out the strips! it's even farther than it looks above because it's all pinned together now. i just have to sew it all up. but first, a bath, because i got really cold out there! that fleece that's beside it will be the backing...it matches better than it looks like it does in this pic, i promise.

and by the way, here's what color it's going to be in the writing house when it's done...a gorgeous, rich, vibrant turquoise (it doesn't look as good in the pic as it does in reality):