Nature's beauty

Just a quick post today showing purple and yellow again, this time from nature instead of a quilt. My daughter is here from NC. She came in Friday for a class reunion and she leaves today. Our weather has been in the high 80's and is unbelievable for October.

Hoffman Challenge

Do you remember the zebra print they chose for the Hoffman Challenge in 1988 or 89? I loved the print and bought it in every color. I used polyester batting and not very much quilting back then so this is a little wobbly looking. I named it Jungle Heartbeat and it is a bargello style quilt. It didn't win any prize but it was in one of the travelling exhibits for a year.

The olden days

When I got married my dad's sister, Aunt Mary gave me these dish towels as a wedding present. Aunt Mary made quilts and made all of her girls clothes but I only saw her about a dozen times in my life. Although I loved her handiwork I didn't have any direct contact with her because she lived too far away. When we got our Christmas box from her family, I wasn't looking for the Christmas presents, I was looking for the hand me down clothing from one of her twins that she always sent along in this package. The twins were fraternal twins and one had dark hair like me and the other had dark blonde like my other 2 cousins that lived closer to me. When I was in 5th grade they built a large school for all the kids in 5 districts and there were all of 50 of kids in the new school. Since we had all come from one room schoolhouses this was a really big adventure. At the previous school there were only 3 girls, me and my 2 friends, one 2 years younger than me and one 3 years younger. We had this picture taken of us at the new school in 1951. I am the one in the middle.

Where the quilts live

Elsie asked me in the comments one day, what do I do with all of my quilts. I bought this nice cupboard last year to finally have some of the quilts where I can see them instead of them being in a dark closet. In here are baby quilts and bed quilts, and a few lap quilts. These are the ones I don't mind having fold marks in.
There are still a bunch in here that I haven't shown to you yet. More posts in my future! 4 quilts are on beds. This is the guest bed with one quilt folded across the foot of the bed.
I have 9 quilts hanging on walls, a pile of newly finished ones on a bench, and the rest are folded as little as possible and are in a hall closet. I have given away a lot of quilts, some on the spur of the moment when someone admires it. I usually don't remember what I gave to who in this case, all I remember is that I gave them away. I have sold many quilts over the 49 years I have been making them. I would like to sell some more and have contemplated starting a second blog for this purpose.

A big thank you to all who responded yesterday to my question. I have posted 114 times in 92 days so far. I have the urge to post more than once a day and have to hold myself back. This isn't because I have nothing else to do, it is because I have so much I would like to share. I appreciate all of your insight into my query.

Noise in the neighborhood and a question

If you look closely you will see a truck through the trees. My backyard neighbors had a couple trees taken down and some limbs trimmed. We have a little mini forest in the space between our 2 houses. We have both lived here for 35 years and have watched the space fill in as squirrels planted the walnuts. There are also a couple maples and many redbuds. Here is the brave soul who will go up in the cherry picker with his chainsaw.
My question is: Are you more likely to check a blog that posts every day? Do you like seeing something every day vs. every other day?

Added at 11:38 a.m. I like to post every day, it is not a chore, it is fun. I'm just wondering if I am posting too often.

Some things are meant to happen

Back in 1994 Melody Johnson was going to give her first crazy piecing class and invited me so there would be a familiar face in the crowd. She gave each of us a pack of squares of her hand dyed fabric. Since I already had a lot of scraps ready for crazy piecing I got right into it. Half of the blocks have her hand dyed fabrics in the center, the other half have the tiny cutaways pieced together for centers.
When I finished this quilt I called it "Wanda's Quilt" so no one else could have it. The deadline was approaching for the MAQS contest for New Quilts from an Old Favorite and the theme that year was log cabin. Ann Fahl and Melody both encouraged me to enter it but I was doubtful that it would be considered a log cabin. Ann sent me a copy of the entry blank with 2 days to spare. I already had slides so I decided to go for it. However when looking for the slides I couldn't find a detail shot. The deadline was a day a way so I mailed it with only the full view slide.
Three days later there was a message on my answering machine from a gentleman from the Museum telling me that maybe I didn't know it but I had only sent one slide. I called him and could not lie, told him I couldn't find the detail shot. He told me I had 5 more days to get the other slide to them. I pulled out a tote bag that night to pack for a class. I picked it up by the bottom for some reason, and out fell the detail slide without the plastic mount. I called my photographer son and he brought over a mount and the little tool to set it. I mailed the slide the next day, and the next call said I was one of the 18 finalists in this world wide contest. I renamed the quilt "Exuberance" and wrote my article for the book, and the rest is history.

Early crazy piecing

Around 1974 I bought a Viking sewing machine. It had a feather stitch that almost looked like hand stitching. I started making crazy pieced blocks with Holly Hobbie centers and made this quilt. From there I went to making pillows and selling them to an antique shop in a Chicago suburb. Holly Hobbie was very popular at that time and I coordinated different colors for the pillows rather than the multicolor in this quilt. About half of the fabrics in these blocks were scraps from making my daughter's clothing.
The rick rack gives it a good old '70's touch.