Branching Out

I just started my own blog - Evanston Quilter - and want to invite everyone to check it out. I'll be posting pictures and stories of the many quilts I've done over the past 16 years.

Here's a picture of the first one.

I call it "The Grandmother's Quilt." Three generations of women in our family worked on it.

http://evanstonquilts.blogspot.com

See you there!
Box Mom - aka. Ladyquilter - aka. Donna

Another One!

As I promised Joanne I'm adding a couple more of my quilting projects. The first is a wall hanging we have hanging on the back porch along with art work from family, friends and goodies from our trips. The hanging says 'Shalom" this is Hebrew for hello, goodbye and peace. All applique work is by hand with a blanket stitch the rest of the quilt is pieced. I machine quilted this one. If you click onto the picture you can see, closeup, the handwork.


This next quilt is a labor of love. A baby quilt for Ted's nephew's new baby girl just born a few days ago. Her name is Violet Alexandria. I love her name, it sounds so old fashioned.
The quilt was made from Mary Engelbreit fabrics and so very girly. I didn't do all the blocks, for this one, myself. They came from a block swap I did with one of my on-line quilting groups.
The Sunbonnet Sue Chat. This one was also machine quilted.

Anyone interested in joining our group go to sunbonnetsuechat@yahoogroups.com

More Quilts Finished

As promised here are two more quilts I just completed. They are for my great-nephews,Cameron and his twin brother Max.

This is Cameron's Horses & Dogs, two of his favorite animals. Can't see it but the back is herds of horses running across green grass. Twin size.

Second quilt is Max's Dragons. Also about a twin size. Center block is hand painted batik I found on ebay. I had actually purchased this block some time ago, fell in love with it and figured I would do something eventually.

Can't see this one either but the back is red flames ans smaller gold dragons.


Won't give to the boys until Christmas. Just a few weeks. They have no idea they are getting new quilts. Just like the Harry Potter one I posted a while ago.

Didn't really have patterns for either quilt that's why the sizes are "about a twin."

Boxhouse Mom

Quilting

Joanne asked me to occasionally mention my quilting progress. I've just completed three of them, my favorite being the kitty quilt I did for Ted and the kitties. The blocks came from a swap I did with one of my online quilting groups, Quilters Who care. Works like a cookie exchange. I added a photo block with a picture taken of Bella and Seamus when they first came to live with us last year.

The quilt is big enough for two people to snuggle under and two cats to sit on top!

Moots (Box House Mom)

Historic Galena (Illinois), a Family Reunion, and the Barn Quilts of Iowa

Road Trip: Day One

It was a mutual love of travel that brought me and Ted together. We met through one of those online dating sites. Wanna see my profile pic from back then?

Heh heh. I know, I know. Devil horns, a four-foot clip on pony tail, and black mini skirt were just asking for weirdos to respond (even when it's obviously a Halloween costume). And they did, in droves. But amongst the kooks, I received a very sweet reply from a guy with an awful lot in common with me. And the rest, as they say, is history. You really can find True Love this way.

Anyway, our obsession with travel took us on vacations three, four times a year and we'd stay away weeks at a time. But for many reasons, including the fact that The Box House sucks up nearly every spare moment and dime we have, it's actually been several years since we've gone anywhere. And for two travel bugs, that can really leech away the spirit.

So we said the heck with this rut, and we took a mini trip to South Dakota, via a family reunion in Iowa. We're home now, but because one post cannot adequately convey everything we saw, I'll be stretching it out all this week.

The reunion was in Sioux City, Iowa, near where Ted's dad grew up. I went to college in Iowa, but somehow never made it out to the western part of the state much. We decided to take a route straight across the state along U.S. Route 20. According to Google Maps, it would take 20 minutes or so longer than the Interstate, but through several towns neither one of us had been through.

Because we were wildly trying to finish up with client work before we left, we didn't sleep at all before loading up the car and taking off. We're both pretty good about sleeping in the car, so figured we could catch some shuteye along the way. Besides, the tollroads around Chicago are pretty dead at 4:00 a.m. and we could zip along.

Our first stop to stretch our legs was in Galena, Illinois. As we pulled into town, it suddenly struck me how ridiculous it was that I'd never been here before. It's less than three hours from our house, with something like 85% of the buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places. For old house junkies like us, it was like a little slice of heaven. My jaw nearly dropped when Ted jostled me awake and I saw the great brick house of Ulysses S. Grant, civil war general and president of the United States.

Gorgeous! Although I may have been even more impressed by the gigantic hostas growing on the hill below the house. A whole mini forest of them! This is how I want our yard to look.

At eight in the morning, there really wasn't anything open, but we took a walk up and down the main drag anyway.

Here's another view that someone took for Wikipedia:

All in all, it's a very cool town. Too bad we weren't visiting during this conference, however:

UFOs and golf. Gotta love it.

It's about a nine-hour drive from Chicago to Sioux City; we tried to make as few stops as possible, but some things could not be skipped over:

Ted's a Calhoun, and we were heading to a Calhoun reunion, so this photo op in Calhoun County was necessary.

And this just cracked us up, a whole yard full of vintage washing machines like the one we're using as a planter.

But the most interesting bit of the drive was through Sac County, home of the Barn Quilts.

Can't believe I never heard of these before, with my mom being a quilter and all.

There's an extensive Web site, so if you're a quilt fan, it's worth a look. All the barn quilts are done up in bright colors and are on barns or corncribs that are at least 50 years old.

We pulled into Sioux City early enough that we thought we'd be able to take a nap before the festivities began--no such luck. There were already scores of Calhouns roaming the halls of the hotel, so we freshened up just a bit and headed downstairs for the first night of socializing. It was great to reconnect with folks we hadn't seen in a while, and I was lucky enough to chat with one of Ted's aunts and learn more about the family history. She had put together a book about the family, and I look forward to borrowing a copy from Ted's dad. I go goofy over family history stuff.

Finally got to go to bed at nine o'clock, perhaps the earliest I've voluntarily gone to bed in years! But by that point, we had been up for 36 hours or so.

Project Linus

As you know, I went to the Chicago Quilt Festival 2009 at the Rosemont Convention Center a few weeks ago. I forgot to mention Project Linus. It's a program where volunteer groups from all over the country provide loving, warm quilts and knit blankets to children in need. Children who have been traumatized by whatever means, seriously ill and in need of a warm hug and comfort. There are over 100 chapters all over the country that have made more than 3 million blankets/quilts to date.

There was a large booth at the quilt show set up by Project Linus where people could sit down and work on a block, or more, that would be stitched into quilts. The blocks were pre-cut and fabric crayons were available for participants to draw any picture or write words of comfort. Once these blocks were finished they were hung on the walls for all to see.



Additional information for Project Linus can be found at www.projectlinus.org or just Google Project Linus.

Like I mentioned, they accept knit blankets as well as quilts in baby size up to, I believe, a large lap or twin.

Box Mom