Out with the Old and In with LITTLE RED

Had enough of all the old stuff I've been posting lately?  Me, too!  Let's get on with something new in our neighborhood.  That being a certain little girl who got a certain little outfit from her MeMo.

Quite a while back I spotted this Little Red Riding Hood outfit/costume.  It was cute.  I bought it.  It was way too big --- but not any more.



Over the weekend Miss E tried the costume on.

I told her a tamed-down version of the story in which nothing dreadful happens to the Grandmother, and the wolf runs away never to be seen again. No huntsman, that's for sure.

For the next couple of hours, we played out the story:  I was the sick Grandmother, she was "Little
Red" skipping (jumping, hopping, tip-toeing, crawling) through the forest with a basket full of goodies (fake foods including a lemon, pickles, a pancake, french fries, chocolate milk, eggs, bread, etc.) to feed Grandmother back into health.  Then I would I have bedtime song sung to lure me to sleep (her choice/my favorite was a repeated chorus from the benediction "The Lord Bless You and Keep You" ) and then a countdown to wake up.

Once up, the feeling-well Grandmother (requiring a stool upon which to sit as she's old and can't easily sit on the floor) would go for a picnic with Little Red spread out on the quilt I made for her birth.  And repeat. Repeat, repeat. 

There are merits to hot days when you are stuck inside!  But, please, be on the lookout for wayward wolves who aren't invited indoors!

No Call. Not Yet :(

What a lovely way to spend a bit of Saturday morning: at a quilt show at the Chicago Botanic Garden! Though I took a lot of pictures, the most notable picture is of the quilt below:

With a close-up view of the applique detail here:

This was the raffle quilt made by members of the IQI (Illinois Quilters Inc.) Guild

that I bought many raffle tickets to win...I am anxiously awaiting the phone call telling me I won, but it hasn't happened. Not yet!

I'd really, really like to win this quilt.

In the meantime, I'd like to show you some of my favorite pieces from the show. The one, above,

was made from the contents of a junk drawer and knitted. Read about the artist below.

Unfortunately, I don't think I can purchase this quilt at that price.

Or the next one, either. Here is a close-up of it.

See the candy wrappers?

This quilter must have some stash of candy wrappers behind her couch!

I loved reading about the story behind the making of this quilt. She was very clever to use

her own Girl Scout uniform, badges and sash in its construction.

I loved the name she chose for this quilt.

Once again, I am so impressed by the creativity of quilters. Well done, IQI gals!

Please, please, please call me soon...I'm right next to my phone and I promise to take very, very good care of the quilt you painstakingly created.

Sidetracked Looking for the Lucia Candle Crown

Because I had promised the use of my St. Lucia crown of candles, I had to deliver with that promise. Years ago, this crown was purchased in Sweden and tucked away in my sewing supplies/quilt closet. The truth of the matter was that it was buried in that closet. And that closet had taken on a life of its own with fabrics, zippers, buttons, old quilt squares, batting, stuffing and unfinished projects. Not a pretty picture, to be sure!

The first shelf I approached with burrowing hands revealed no crown, as did the second. I knew this meant only one thing: I had to empty all the shelves and this was going to be a big undertaking. No time to grab the camera for a before picture! However, hours and hours later, I decided this experience warranted an after picture. The closet is a bi-fold mirrored one in the sewing room and hard to capture in its closed-door state. Might I point out that the flower artwork in the background was painted by John when he was in elementary school?

Here is the opened door view of the reorganized contents.

And a closer-up view of the buttons in happy company with other notions.

The first burning question is now, "Deb, did you ever find the Lucia crown?" and the resounding answer is, "Yes!!" The seconding smoldering question is, "Deb, what on earth do you need a Lucia crown for in the middle of April?" The answer: because one of the district principals will help out our library Summer Reading Club promotion of the One World, Many Stories theme by wearing it on her/his head as a representative of the Swedish culture experience at our library this summer. Mission accomplished - with a clean closet as a result!

Making Winter Games While Watching Winter Games (Copycat Challenge #9)

I'm loving watching the Olympic Games on tv! Especially the figure skating (go, Mark and Amanda --- and Olivia!). But, there are hours of games and I find I go stir crazy if I'm watching tv and not doing a stitching project whilst doing so. Enter Project #9 in the Copycat Challenge and-blog-about-it-in-a-year experiment using the Blanket Statement book by Vicki Haninger. Seeing as these are the games, I thought I should make a game using the Catnip Mittens on pages 48-49. No cats are currently living in our house, by the way.

The mitten pattern was reduced to fit the size of the "game board" quilt square with a nine-patch inside the quilt block pattern. Ten mittens were stitched - five with a tree pattern and five with a heart pattern. Play the game just like tic-tac-toe! Trees are the x's and hearts are the o's...no pencils needed with a board ready to go with the square patches in the quilt block as the playing spaces! See? There's a diagonal "win" with the hearts.

Flip the quilt block square over, and flip the tree and heart mittens over and there's yet another game to play! This one is meant to be a button matching game. Yes, there are designs on the other side, but it won't matter too much to try to find the matches Concentration style. Easy peesy to roll up the little game board with 10 mittens inside and slip into this matching bag for storage. Too bad I'll have to wait a coupla years to play this with Ellie...Wes isn't much interested in playing these games when there's ski jumping and other winter sports going on in those televised games. Oh, and stay tuned for a lot of Blanket Statement action due to hours plunked in front of the tv set...

The Quilt We Made Together (But You Didn't Know It)

(This is the story about how the quilt came together and was presented to the expectant Mother at her shower this past weekend.)

There once was a mother who loved to quilt. She welcomed her daughter into the world in 1986 with open arms and a blue and yellow quilt. The little quilt squares were very simple, and were held together by stitched hearts representing all the love she had for this daughter. Time passed. The daughter was a happy girl with a love of life. She hadn’t wanted much to be taken away from her reading by learning to stitch like her mother. However, one June and July she took a sewing class in summer school and found out that stitching could be rather fun. Her mother was very excited and opened her scrap basket to share with her daughter! The daughter stitched together 25 2” little squares into a larger 5 X 5 square. She experimented with different patterns – a checkerboard pattern of alternating light and dark fabrics,

a mostly red and green swirl,

a square with bright colors that looked like jewels,

and a square of diagonal color stripes.

Four five-inch squares completed. And then she was done. No more stitching. Ever. Still more time passed and the daughter grew up into a lovely young woman who liked math. She went to college, married a wonderful man and became a math teacher herself. Meanwhile, the mother quilter tucked away those four precious squares her daughter had stitched all those years ago…with a secret plan of turning them into a quilt for her daughter when she became a mother herself. And finally, the time came when the news was happily revealed that indeed, a grand-daughter was on the way!

The four little 5 X 5 squares were turned into the centers of stars, for surely the heavens were rejoicing about the daughter becoming a mother herself. The future grandmother remembered a special dress her daughter wore as Christmas was celebrated in 1991 – the year a beloved father and grandfather went to heaven himself. She would use the color teal – like the dress worn at the family Christmas gathering as a special remembrance of a dear, dear man loved and missed by all. And the other strong colors in the quilt would be raspberry to represent the love this daughter had of picking raspberries on the Golden Lake road, and a brilliant yellow to represent the sunshine this daughter has brought to her mother these past 27 years. And, of course, the quilt would have to have lots of quilted hearts - 45 to be exact! Finally, the expectant grandmother needed to put her own touch on the borders of this quilt as she pondered exactly what name the granddaughter would choose to call her…would it be Grandma? Oma? Gram? YaYa? Mormor? G-Ma? Little one, my very own granddaughter, I can’t wait to meet you! The little square on the back of the quilt will have your chosen named stitched in a heart.. I love you so much already, dear one! And, that's the story of our quilt made together. Time is passing. And you are growing! Both of you!

Take Comfort Where You Can Get It!!

There are certain flower girls that just charm you to bits - you know? They look like little fairies with their silver slippers, sun-kissed blond hair with little curls, and gossamer dresses of white with sparkles. A wreath of rosebuds perches on the little head as if a magical bouquet of flowers had been placed there by the fairy queen herself. We had one such little one at John and Kari's wedding and her name is Laena. Cousin to John with eighteen years between them. And, yes, she picked out her dress and shoes herself!

Laena is the one I have written about in past posts who literally loved the quilt I made her to threads. She even named the little red and yellow quilt "Red-dy." Last summer the quilt looked like this:

Last November, like this (above)

But, Laena is a creative thinker --- she knew the overall shorts from the matching teddy bear would work well to act as a comforter when the quilt gave up. Guess what showed up at the wedding with her? Yep. The bear shorts. She's still being comforted. Thanks, Kate for forwarding this picture to me - truly priceless!

I love this little fairy girl!

Coming: equal time for the ring bearer!

Inspired by Mother Nature

As a quilter, it is impossible not to look at all the wild color combinations that Mother Nature throws out with each changing season. Fall is certainly no exception, and the colors can be riotous! Where else can you find dusty and brilliant blues, maroons and purples, lemon-lime and dark greens, neon oranges, vermillion reds and shades of beige, cinnamon and brown? Each year when we visit our cabin up north, I say, "I'm gonna have to make a quilt with these colors!" And then when back at home, the idea passes by with nary a pieced patch. So, two years back, I came home from the UP, got out the fabrics and began stitching up a storm until whirlwind wedding suddenly overtook our lives (and happily so). The project was put on hold and since the wedding season has passed, the project resumed. Here are the inspiration pictures followed by the actual project. Happy fall to all!

Aerial view: (Taken while standing on a chair looking down at the floor where the quilt is spread out. Yes, it was comical to try to hold the camera steady with my arms extended out while perched on a teeny little step stool...what was I thinking???)

Close-up view:

Now, if only I can finish another project so I can get going on quilting this one! It's intended as a gift for Wes, and he is a patient man, thank goodness! Fall is his favorite season.

"The Red Quilt"

Wes and I have just returned from a mini family reunion in the UP with two of Wes' siblings and their children. How I cherish these times seeing how much the kids have grown since our last meetings! Each of these kids has received, at birth, a quilt that I have made. This year one of the owners truly touched my heart - reminding me of the story The Velveteen Rabbit. Here is the tale of a much-loved quilt dubbed "The Red Quilt" by its owner, Laena. (Here are our young nieces and nephews...aren't they beautiful?) When we arrived at our cabin in the UP, three year old Laena greeted us with a hug...and a very ripped-up, tattered quilt; the backing hanging off in pieces! Her parents were in a quandry as to what to do with the thing...should Lora repair it? Her Dad suggested letting it go and "retiring" it. But, as it's maker AND the aunt of the owner, I HAD to fix it! This girl needs her quilt!!! Laena really loves this little red and yellow quilt and takes it with her everywhere she goes. When she hurts herself, she clutches the quilt for comfort. When she's tired, she cradles it in her arms while she sucks her thumb. When she eats, the quilt is nearby, and when she comes out of the lake after a swim, the quilt is what she wraps herself into to dry off. This is what Laena's quilt looked like on the dock as she took a little dip in the water. Really and truly, she and the quilt were rarely separated as she went here and there! Laena sat while I repaired her little quilt. The quilt is finished..roughly sewn but together as a whole once more. This little girl is a wonder to me and I am so happy to have her - and her cousins - in my life!