My Art In Situ

New furniture means new art.

Boundary Waters  and great lamp surrounded with memories from a wonderful life.
I always appreciate it when I receive photos of my art in it's surroundings.

Great Quilt, Perfectly Displayed - After, Closeup and Before

After hanging off center it was adjusted and is now centered to fill the space left when the mirrors were removed.

You can see the quilting in this closeup. I think the colors are more accurate also.

This is what the room originally looked like. I love to make simple changes to give our house a new look.

Granny Is Giving The Girls A Quilting Lesson

It's girls night out and they are visiting Granny to learn to quilt.
I hope she is teaching them well so they will finish some of my works in progress.

Happy Birthday To My MIddle Child Andy

Andy's goal in life is never to let anyone take a good picture of him.

For his 56th birthday this was his present.

No words necessary until the end.

The message at the end of the book read:
Happy 56th birthday Andy
To my "middle kid" who's goal in life is to never let anyone take a good picture of him.
Love, Your other mother

There were at least 40 photos in the book and you have only seen a few. 

The Light Between

I needed a quilt to fill the space above the bed after we took the mirrors down.
I checked my list and had this top which needed quilting and was in Wisconsin.
My friend Geri went to my house, packaged it up and it arrived here in Florida a short time ago.

I didn't waste any time getting it quilted and ready for the wall.
We were able to get it hung on the wall yesterday. You may notice it is "a little" off center. I made some miscalculations for measurements and didn't even realize it was off until I saw this photo.

I just couldn't wait to share it with you and when I get a better photo and when we get it centered I'll repost it.

I am really happy with it in this space. I never make my art for specific spaces but somehow I always have something to use when I need something. 

Gina's Creations

I was so in awe of her work I took a lot of pictures and I want to share a few more today.

This group of 3 jars with different surface designs make such a tasteful combination.

A very creative piece

Crazy patchwork fills in the cutouts on these wall plaques.

These are both decorative and functional.

Wonderful composition with lacing and design

An assortment of her creations in her clay studio.

Each time I look at the picture I took and remember the other things I saw in their lovely home I continue to be amazed and fortunate to have such a talented friend.

A Visit With My Friend Gina

Gina now lives a short drive from me so I visited her and her husband Ken today in their new lovely home they designed and had built.

What a wonderful setting for their home.

I also had the pleasure of meeting her husband Ken. He joined us for a delicious lunch she prepared.

She is a very accomplished artist in both clay and fiber. She also combines clay and fiber in a very masterful way.

Their home is very tastefully decorated with her work.

What a gorgeous tray to store her bananas on.

I was in awe of her art and how she displayed it all over their home and even outside.

This is just a small sampling of what I saw.

I Love Our House

As I look at new and used furniture on line etc I see some really lovely pieces for great prices.
Yet there is almost nothing in this house I would consider giving up.

Like this wall unit most every thing in this house has a story and some of the stories take a long time to tell!


Everything is either pieces we collected years ago, our old junk furniture we didn't throw away or family things which have sentimental value rather than monetary value.

Even small things like accessories make me think of where they came from years ago or over 10 years.

About the only things we have purchased recently are a few things people in our community were selling at give away prices.

Yet the house never looks static as I love to move things around, especially accessories.

I have also personalized it with quilts and other accessories I have made. There is at least one thing I created in each picture.

Some of these pictures are what the house looked like a few years ago and some are recent.

To me decorating is an ever evolving activity.
Our home is where we live, work and enjoy sharing it with friends.

I am not telling the stories with words on this post but just sharing some views over the years.

Greg With His Quilt And...........

I asked Greg to send a picture of him with the quilt. You can see how big it is as he is over 6 feet tall. I like the fact that he folded it back so you can see the beautiful red print on the back.

It you look at the quilt on the wall behind him it is one I made and he had in his first apartment in Portland Oregon and has always been on a wall wherever they lived. It is a unique color scheme that works everywhere and never needs to match the sofa!

You can see that wall quilt better here. The quilt on the chair is another log cabin quilt I made many years ago.

I made this afghan for them several years ago.

The quilt on the railing is Anniversary Puzzle.

It is so nice to see they are using things I made them.

Greg's College Quilt

When our son Greg started college in the mid 80's I made him a denim log cabin quilt. It weighed a ton and I thought he would never use it. Was I ever wrong.
He loved that quilt and continued to use it for years until the backing was falling apart and the batting was about the thickness of a piece of paper.
He asked me to fix it and I got as far as taking it apart and seeing that the seam allowances were raveling from being washed. I had only stitched in the ditch between the blocks.
So it sat for at least 10 years. It was just too heavy for me to handle anymore.

This is what it looks like today. I had my friend Eileen Mirr long arm quilt it. She brought it to me Monday, I sent it Tuesday and he received it today.

Notice the dark binding that sets it off so perfectly. It is the inside of the original binding.

This is a closeup of her spiral quilting she does such a fantastic job with. I loved it as soon as I saw it.

He was surprised to get it as I only told him a package was coming. He loves it.

I guess you could say "ANYTHING WORTH HAVING IS WORTH WAITING FOR!"

Some Of My Traditional Quilts

I call this quilt Amish Pathways. It is a one patch quilt design. It is a simple quilt I designed that could be pieced in almost no time. It relies on a great color combination. It is in a private collection. I designed the quilting pattern to give it texture and direction. It is hand quilted.

There is nothing more traditional than a log cabin quilt. As I made quilts I cut the leftovers into strips and made this when I had enough strips. It was a labor of lover and as I created it my thoughts went to the similarities and differences to myself and my grandmother.

The Double Wedding quilt is another one of the most popular traditional patterns. I used non traditional colors for this one, influenced by a rug that was made in Peru. Like the 2 previous quilts it also was hand quilted.

My Alphabet Blankie Upside Down

I recently shared a small part of this quilt on Facebook. When Judy Spahn said she didn't recognize the fabrics I found another photo which was not good.  I just found this picture which is much better than the other one.
But, it didn't take Drew to tell me it is upside down!

It is a scrap quilt. The 9 patch blocks each have either a letter of the alphabet or a number in the center. My name is at the top and where I live and the date are at the bottom.

It's the quilt I use to take a nap. There is no rhyme nor reason as to where photos are on my computer and sometimes it takes me hours to find a photo, and sometimes I just give up.

Quilts From Double Ombre Fabric

I designed a vest pattern and couldn't find anyone to dye the fabric for me so I dyed yards of it myself. I realized it would make great quilts and so these are some of the ones I created.

I didn't think anyone could use a quilt made from these colors. Imagine my surprise when it was perfect in my parlor!

I was able to come up with a easy way to cut and piece this optical illusion quilt

I did reverse shading with the pinks and grays on this strippy 9 patch quilt. The outer borders on this quilt allow you to see what the double ombre fabric looks like, although it is 45 inches wide, rather than a strip of this width.

I used the origami bow tie technique to make this quilt. I also did reverse shading of the colors. The borders also took advantage of the shading of the fabric.

Each length of fabric I dyed also had a mottled piece of the same color to use for binding.

Teaser From New Quilt

I am not able to take a full view photo of this quilt yet. It is finished. My 4th finished quilt for 2019. I hope this will pique your interest and you will be anxious to see the entire quilt soon.

There is so much wonderful texture in these 2 fabrics which are mandala snow dyed fabrics by Judi Yakab.

Robin Koehler Day On Today's Blog Post

Robin brought along her quilt to show me on Tuesday. She designed this as a series called Robin's Wreaths that was in 5 issues of the AQS magazine. It is so totally original and not like anything I have ever seen before.

I also am including this close up so you can see it more clearly. It is absolutely beautiful and her workmanship is amazing.  Her instructions that were included with it are some of the best I've ever seen. 

Here is a link to here blog: 

https://www.nestlingsbyrobin.com/index.html

She has some wonderful new workshops and lectures available for guilds, symposiums and conferences.
I got to see some of her samples in person and they are amazing. You can't really appreciate them from the photos. 

Take my word for it her name is something you'll be seeing a lot of.

Fantastic Fan Quilt Is Finished

I am so excited as my fan quilt is completed. Robin Koehler hand quilted it for me. She designed the quilting to perfectly complement each block and the borders. I hope you can click on the photo on your computer and see it enlarged to really appreciate the quilting. 

She delivered it to me yesterday and we had lunch and a wonderful visit.

I am so happy to have found her to hand quilt for me.

A Beautiful Night With My Florida Family

We couldn't have asked for more perfect weather this evening.

It has been a while since Andy' family has all been able to get here at once.

We started off with Andy's favorite Mexican dip.

Dinner was pizza and a green salad.
After dinner we played Vertellus with some entertaining answers.
Of course we had our choice of 5 different ice creams for dessert.
I sent them home with 4 boxes of things I was purging. 
They didn't even get a chance to look and see if they wanted what was in the boxes!
It's so nice to have family here for the season.

Ladies Who Lunch At B D Beans

It is hard to find time to get the girlfriends together as retirement is so much busier than when we were working! Pat Brodsko, Marilyn Kosmider and Lynn Maher. Sorry Lynn, I couldn’t get a clear view to take the picture.
Today was a beautiful day so we ate outside in the garden.
The food here is delicious and unique. The decor is the funkiest.

Remember I said the décor was funky. This is one corner of the ladies room, The décor of the entire restaurant is constantly changing to keep it up with anywhere from the 30's to the 50's!