Quilts and Photos at Mom's

I went to the Chicago International Quilt Festival this Saturday with my Mom. It is so fantastic! Everyone should go! I took pictures, but I'll have to share them later.

First is a bit of a photo tour of crafty stuff at my Mom's house.

I made this quilt years ago, right after I first learned how to quilt. This was the first quilt that I used machine strip piecing instead of hand piecing. I think it was in Quilter's Newsletter Magazine. We were newly married and I was between teaching jobs, so we were really broke at the time. I think I Xeroxed the pattern out of the magazine at the local Library. The block was called "Trip to Chicago" and at the time we were traveling to Chicago a lot to see my family and our old friends.
Another time, Mom and I were on a weekend in the Indiana Amish country. The fabric stores there are unbelieveable. Mom indulges me a bit when we go shopping, so I promised to make her this quilt from a pattern she found at an Amish General Store.
Those are cut up hankies as the baskets. I had great fun picking out all the fabrics, but cutting into those magnificent hankies was really torture. This is a great use for them though. We can really enjoy them now instead of pulling them out of the hankie drawer. Again, It isn't really wonky, It's just my unprofessional photography....
Another stumbling block for me was quilting this one. Even though I embroider, I detest doing hand quilting, so I wanted to do it on the machine. I drew the design 3 times in those disappearing pens on the top, and 3 times the design faded before I got to it.... I think I eventually practiced it on muslin and finally did it freehand without any markings. It's not perfect, but the flaws that I see magnified, no one else notices...

Mom likes the hankies with the thread crochet edges best and she has pretty ones put out all over upstairs. Here's a pretty stack with some old photos. That's my Mom and Dad right after they moved to Chicago from Iowa. I'm the little girl with the dolly and the baby is my brother.

Maybe these old photos are only a kick for me, but here's my brother and I just before we left with our dates to the prom in 1985. Mom did that cute little crosstitch when we were kids. I think she did a good job of capturing my brother's untameable cowlick.


It so happens that this was over 20 years ago, but I am still good friends with my date to the prom. Another couple we went with got married to each other about 3 years ago and my prom date and I were Best Man and Matron of Honor.

I took more photos of Mom's collections.... I'll have to revisit them later!