Nebraska!-The Museum

One of the things the holiday time afforded was time for my hubby to get his pictures from our Nebraska trip downloaded.  So I don't overwhelm everyone with pictures (I have visions of readers scrolling down the post with a glazed look in their eyes), I will spread them out over the next few posts.

The main reason we went to Nebraska was to see the International Quilt Museum.  It was of an architectural interest to my husband since the building had won awards, and of course the quilts for me.  So here we go...

The building itself was very nice done.  The brick work hinted at quilts without being too literal. There was a lot of natural light in the common spaces and touches of quilt motifs without being overwhelming.

 

One of my favorite features was they way they used quilt motifs in neutral, subtle tones for their donor walls.

The main exhibit featured quilts using the hexagon, not my favorite but I can't help but be amazed at the number of tiny pieces that went into these quilts.

This was my favorite quilt from the second part of the exhibit which featured Nebraska quilters.  This was a more recent quilt, and unfortunately the lighting made capturing the outstanding use of color in this quilt impossible.  The actual colors were black, purple, charcoal for the dark fabric; and khaki to greenish khaki for the light fabrics.  It was stunning.

 Upstairs in the conference/classroom areas were some quilts from the local quilters.

Nice use of color

My kind of quilt--simple design, space for fun quilting

A postscript:  Since our Nebraska trip, my husband and I made another trip to see the new Texas Quilt Museum in La Grange, Texas.  Again, it was the building (two historic building joined and renovated) and the exhibit that interested us.  Featuring 62 mostly award-winning quilts made in the past 25 years by Texas quilters, the exhibit was wonderful.  The space was open, airy, and well lit.  Unfortunately they didn't allow pictures, so all I have is a token photo.  Still, I would highly recommend going to anyone interested in quilts.

Next post:  The Bridge

Gifts-Part 2

To finally catch up on our family celebrations, I received a couple of lovely gifts from my dear husband, and my eldest son and his wife for anniversary/birthday:

The necklace was from my husband to replace one just like it that I had lost over a year ago.  It was one of my favorites, so I am glad to be able to wear it again.  The earrings from my son and daughter-in-law pair so nicely with the necklace.  I love jewelry that relates but doesn't exactly match. 

In my next post I hope to share some pictures from our Nebraska trip back in the fall, and that should bring me up to date, I think.   

Gifts

The holidays didn't go quite as we planned since both my hubby and I came down with colds just a few days before Christmas.  Consequently we weren't able to join the family for the celebration, making for a very quiet Christmas, but thanks to technology we were able to join from afar.  

To catch up, here are some the special things I have given and received for Christmas.  

First, from my dear husband, a lens for my iPhone:

I hope this will improve the quality of some of the photos I post here.

For one of my daughters I made what I will call a tote cloth since its original name is trademarked.  It can be used to carry produce she gathers from her gardens or kindling for her wood stove.  On a nice day, it could even serve as a picnic cloth.

This is the cowl I made my other daughter, but I will need her to send me a couple of pictures with it on to really show it off. (hint, hint :-)  )

One of my sons had my name for Christmas, and his family gave me a nice hefty knife to add to my kitchen cutlery plus a gift card for iTunes (yeah!).  

And my parents gave me a couple of quilting books to help me with skill and inspiration.

Every once in a while our family tends to do the unexpected.  At our Sunday school class Christmas party I made a steal during the white elephant gift exchange.  Even my husband was wondering what I was going to do with these.

I told him that I planned to wear them to the farmers' market, though they may not be as practical for that as I had hoped.  They aren't as warm as I might like, but they are something easily washable.  As far as people noticing what they are, that may happen occasionally, but I have come to learn that people really don't pay that much attention to each other.  And those who do will probably laugh to themselves, or make a funny comment.  The packaging gave me a laugh...construction, cooking?

I hope I didn't leave anything out.  If I did, someone remind me and I will add it to another post.  Having a cold made the holidays a bit of a blur.  Happy New Year, everyone!

Wool Gathering 2

The latest washing and blocking event included a cowl and a couple of hats that had been long awaiting this process. 

The pattern of this first hat was supposed to swirl, but for some reason it didn't work out that way.  Even so, it turned out to be a fairly nice hat.  

This is one of my favorite hat patterns.  It is simple, but interesting to make.  The goal of this project was to use up some yarn I had left from another hat, so with the hope that the hat would turn out slouchy, I kept going on the pattern until the yarn was mostly used up.  I like the way this pattern looks on me, but will have to do a different color.  As much as I love this color orange, it isn't something I would wear.  

This cowl pattern actually called for a heavier yarn, but I wanted to see how it would do in a lighter weight.  I really like the texture of this pattern and the way the lighter yarn made it drape.  

Needing more room in my wooly garment box, I sent these projects plus some others with my daughter to give as gifts.  She lives in a much colder clime than I, so hopefully they will warm some heads and necks along with hearts.


  

Wool Gathering

I have finally gotten around to washing and blocking several of my projects which means I finally have pictures to show.  First up is a shawl pattern by a favorite designer of mine--Jared Flood.  The pattern is called Terra, and the yarn color I used is Black Cherry.  Therefore I present to you Cherry Terra:

The yarn is actually a darker red with a hint of black in it (the iPhone camera is not the best in capturing color).  The shawl is large, and just the thing to throw over my shoulders when I need a bit of extra warmth.  Going through my yarn stash, I found that I have enough yarn in several basic colors to make myself some more large shawls (happy me!), and have gotten one started since.  

Knitting and beads--what a lovely result!  The shawl I made to wear to my niece's wedding came off the needles about three days before her wedding--just enough time to get it washed and blocked.  The name of this shawl is Dusk, and the combination of the yarn color and beads had the effect I hoped for--stars just coming out in the evening:

One of my husband's sisters really like it and requested a shawl for herself.  Because I thought this pattern didn't really fit her style, I sent her a link for another pattern from my Ravelry queue.  She approved, and over the holidays I will take some yarn and beads from my stash that I think will work well.  That will be my next shawl project after my current one. Doesn't look like my needles will be idle any time soon.

Preventive Holiday Planning

I learned a new word this past week--frenemies.  That is a good description of my relationship to the holidays.  Not being one who works well with pressure and deadlines, I find the holidays full of opportunities to get frazzled.  Wanting to be on better terms with the season, I am working on various strategies to reduce the stress.  

This is the second year where I have worked on our Christmas cards throughout the year.  By November they are done, so I can focus on the Christmas letter and getting envelopes addressed.  So far so good.

While we have never been big Christmas decorators, we do have it down now to having both the putting up the decorations or taking them down in two or three hours.  This is our second year with our little tree.

The Christmas quilts are up.

 

The Nativity is displayed on the mantel.

A bit of lights are on the front porch and my shabby chic wreath is on the door.  

Well, maybe not chic, but I am just waiting for the right one to come along to replace it.  Waiting can be profitable as evidence by our newest Christmas addition--the swirl tree.

I had been keeping my eye out for a little metal ornament tree.  This one was featured in a Crate and Barrel catalog I got in the mail--just what I was hoping to find.

Thanks to my children's willingness to work with giving me gift ideas, my gift shopping going well--almost down to the wrapping and mailing stage now.  The biggest challenge will be the food, planning for safe foods for my hubby and me plus the traditional foods to be shared. 

So, while the holidays and I will probably never be just friends since it always means a disruption to my routine, we are learning to work together to make it a time I look forward to and enjoy.   

Confection

Every once in a while in my quiltmaking, I run across an opinionated quilt.  For example, a good number of year ago, I discovered the bold beauty of Amish quilts and decided to make Amish Baskets.

Amish quilts not only have striking colors, they have a lot of quilting, creating wonderful textures and patterns to balance out the solid fabrics.  When I was making this quilt, I was doing all of my quilting by hand.  In each of the squares between the baskets I did a traditional feathered wreath.

In the process of doing all these wreaths, I determined that the outer border was not going to be feathers.  As I began to work on designs, that is when the quilt spoke up.  The conversation went something like this:

Me:  Hmmm, what kind of design shall I do for this outer border?
Quilt:  Feathers
Me:  No, no!  No more feathers!  How about this one?
Quilt:  Feathers
Me:  What about no do you not understand?  How about this one?
Quilt:  Feathers
Me:  Please don't be stubborn.  I am tired of doing feathers.  This one?
Quilt:  Feathers
Me:  You really aren't going to let me do anything else, are you?
Quilt:  Nope.  It's feathers or nothing.
Me:  Sigh.  Okay, feathers it is.

The little found quilt didn't like the name I gave it.


Quilt:  Um, excuse me, could we please change my name?
Me:  What?  You don't like Baby's Breath?
Quilt:  It sounds kind of weird to me?
Me:  What do you mean?  It is a flower.
Quilt:  I know, but every time you say it, I just see a baby breathing.
Me:  Well, okay.  Hmmm, how about Sweetness?  Every time I look at you I think, "What a sweet little quilt!"
Quilt:  Awww, thank you!  I don't think that is quite it, though.
Me:  Let's see....  How about Confection?  You know...truffles, bonbons, and petit fours.  
Quilt:  I like it!  Thanks.
Me:  Your welcome.  


And here she is: