Note from the author: We are having the 39th Annual Nordic Fest in Decorah this weekend. Go to http://www.nordicfest.com/2005.asp and see for yourself. I am working at the Information Tent from 8:00a-noon tomorrow morning, so I'm posting tomorrow's entry tonight (Friday), lest it get lost in the weekend festivities.
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I haven't forgotten my promise to log back in with a few words about our Second Annual Traditional Summer Trip to Somewhere (“Ties That Bind”, June 2005). If you remember, in June of this year my sister Lora and I accompanied our dad, The Barn, to his grandparent's farm in South Dakota. I only had one angle on how to relate this report to quilting, and also thought I'd throw in the story that had Lora and me laughing our heads off the Sunday morning of the trip. We were getting ready to meet Al and Signe Anderson for the 8:30 service at First Lutheran in Brookings, South Dakota. This glove-fit our plans to leave before lunch and head back to Iowa, and we were all relaxed and happy after our Saturday journey. The more laid back we get, the funnier everything seems to be.
Saturday was relaxing because we started out spending the day in the middle of nowhere, and ended up in the late 1920's and the 1930's. That Friday on the way north, up I29 from Sioux Falls, we stopped briefly to check in with Al and Signe. My dad's parents, The Rev. and Mrs. L.O. Onerheim, and their daughter Margarette moved to Brookings as a result of Grandpa's last call to First Lutheran Church there, and they are buried in The Lutheran Cemetery. The Barn knows people from among their friends in Brookings, and Art and Signe were quite special to Aunt Margarette. We had hotel reservations in Brookings the next evening, but the Friday night lay over was to be in Watertown. In making our travel arrangements, The Barn had called Triple A to see about a place in Langford, South Dakota, our destination. The nice Triple A lady couldn't find anything in Langford, so she asked him for the name of another town nearby. He said, “Pierpont”.
“What's that near?”
“Roslyn.” He knew he had her.
“What's that near?”
“Grenville. Andover and Bristol are in the same neighborhood.”
“Listen, will you be anywhere near Aberdeen?”
“If we get to Aberdeen, we've gone too far.”
“Watertown? Would Watertown work?”
“If that's the closest we can get, that will be fine.” Twinkles in eyes don't transmit over the phone lines.
I think people with any connection at all to South Dakota love to yank chains. Having a working knowledge of prairie geography gives them a leg up on folks who couldn't point to South Dakota on a map. I do pretty well with eastern Iowa, but there's no match for The Barn when it comes to southwest Minnesota and most of the Dakotas. He and I had a hearty chuckle over his conversation with the Triple A lady. Chances are, he and Lora did, too.
Al Anderson hepped us to a good place to eat not far from our inn, and once we got settled in Watertown, we bellied up to the all-you-can-eat-buffet he recommended. We had a fine view of the Terry Redlin Art Center there, right off the Interstate. Terry grew up around Watertown, and his son designed the building as Terry's GIFT to South Dakota. They refer to it that way on their website: Terry's GIFT. An imposing structure, you can read more about it at www.redlinart.com. It's a lot of building, and you don't see its kind very often in the Midwest, especially rising from the prairie. The photo on the website doesn't do justice to the scale of the real thing. Those flagpoles are deceiving – they are not the usual flagpole-size you'd find, say, in a town square. These are monstrous flagpoles, as large as a navy pier. You don't see a lot of navy piers in South Dakota, either, so it really is a unique GIFT from Terry Redlin to the folks of South Dakota. As an added incentive, admission to the gallery is likewise FREE!
We sacked out early for the big day. As a child, I always found it confusing when The Barn would talk about working on the farm. I knew he was a PK, and that it was The Peg who grew up on a farm. She never talked about doing farm work, but The Barn was always relating his experiences with baling, getting the cattle home, and so forth. As it turns out, he used to spend summers at his grandparent's farm in Langford. Oh-hhh. Okay... Now I get it.
The Barn had a cousin, Bertil. He always talked about Bertil, and we had the chance to meet him in the '60's, when we were in Pennsylvania on a family vacation. He still lived with his mother, Aunt Marie. The Barn corrected my spelling of Aunt Marie's name. Her name was pronounced “Mary”, but was spelled “Marie”. Norwegians. Uffda.
When we decided this would be our summer trip together, The Barn wrote to Bertil asking for a good set of directions to the Snorteland farm in rural Langford. Bertil carefully wrote them out, and laid the letter on the kitchen table to mail back to his cousin in Iowa. Then, he died. His sister Thelma discovered him after she had been unable to reach him for several days. She noticed the letter on the table, and mailed it to my dad. The Barn got it sometime after he knew Bertil had passed on, and needless to say, it gave him a jolt. I love being in a family like this – loyal, and mindful of seeing our responsibilities through. We may have to mature into this, but eventually we all do.
Unfortunately, The Barn forgot to bring the letter. Glitch. Oh, well, on the trip up from Watertown, he was remarkable in his memory of the road, and of the landmarks he retained after the many sojourns of his youth.
“We're coming up to the 'Beer Lakes'. That's what we always called them, because they had foam around the edges.” Sure enough, the Beer Lakes lapped the shore with the predicted white froth.
“Can you imagine riding from Madison out here, eight people in a Model T? Most of these roads were dirt, but some were gravel. It took us all day, a trip that takes a few hours now.” We were speeding along at a good clip, which makes the contemporary traveler more dependent on maps, and less so on things like the Beer Lakes.
This is slough country, just like is found around Madison. The expanse of cropland would be broken by patches of wetland, and farmers are accustomed to working this terrain. These were the vistas that drove us into Langford. Once there, we toured the town. The Barn could remember quite a few places in a town which had clearly changed in the last 20 years, let alone the forty since his most recent significant visit.
He knew which road to take out of town, so even without Bertil's instructions, we were confident in our onward trek. These farm roads are much different than Iowa gravels. They ribbon forth in stretches beyond the eye, and are narrow enough to assume a certain degree of navigating should you meet a neighbor coming from the other direction. As in other Midwestern rural areas, there was evidence of acreage being bought up and consolidated, and old farmhouses abandoned. This is the flip side of the congested reality of American cities, and one wonders if those who live there have any appreciation for the welcoming hugeness of our country.
The Barn headed us out of Langford in the right direction. We were jovial, and looking forward to a first-hand account of our immigrant roots. Great Grandpa Ole Michael Snorteland settled here when he came from Norway, building a two-room house. In typical immigrant fashion, as he began to prosper he didn't build a bigger house, he added on to the one he had. Another room, a room or two upstairs -- whatever fitted the need. To make it all the more interesting, architects didn't take up residence in places like Langford, South Dakota. At the Snorteland place, there are two separate upstairs-es, accessible by two different staircases. Norwegian immigrants were fascinating people.
As we traveled away from Langford, we drove up and down the graveled one-laner. Upon each ridge, we could see the distance to the next rise, and the process seemed without end. After several miles, we crested a hill and before us lay the access to our goal -- underwater. Recent rains had swollen the slough, making the road impassable. We were choked in disappointment. Speechless at our misfortune, we slowly maneuvered our car back into the direction of Langford, no small feat on that narrow road with the deep ditches.
I sat in the backseat. Lora was driving, and she and The Barn were trying to cheer each other up. Our feelings were complicated, and it even seemed like we let Bertil down. It was a sad end to such high hopes.
“There's no way we could have known that road would be underwater. It's common in slough country.”
“At least we tried. I'm just lucky to travel the road my great-grandparent's must have been on, though, Dad. I feel like I belong here.”
I wanted to throw in my own two-cents of distraction-slash-cheering-up.
“Look at that pretty little church off in the distance. I didn't even notice it on the way out.”
“Yah, yah. That's the Swedish Church, and it's... Wait...” We were nearing a rare intersection. Lora slowed the car a bit to let The Barn get his bearings.
“Lora, stop here.” Pause. “Turn left.”
Obediently, Lora complied. I didn't know why we were turning left. He seemed interested in the Swedish Church, and it was off to the right. Lora snail's-paced it down this next road about 500 feet.
“Go really slow... Now, stop.”
Huh? Go slow – stop? There wasn't anything there but an old farm lane that disappeared into some bushes. It looked like the outbuildings were being used, but I couldn't see a house or anything. If one was there, it was most likely empty.
“Pull in here.” Okay, Barney. Whatever.
Mesmerized, and not really speaking in full sentences, The Barn said he wanted to get out and look through the bushes. There was a path through them, so Lora went along to accommodate his urge. I sat in the car, scoping out what had once been a large and active farmyard. It was a bit overgrown now, but you could tell there was activity in the remnants of its former life.
Both Lora and The Barn were beside themselves as they emerged from their scouting trip. “This is it! The house is through those bushes, and the place where we laid Grandpas' coffin after he died is right here! The orchard where my parents were married is just over there.” The Barn gestured animatedly, a thirteen-year-old Norwegian lad in an 88-year-old sheath.
“We knocked on the door, but no one answered. I would have liked to have you see the inside of the house, but we can at least look around out here. Let's go to the orchard, this way.
As I was exiting the car, a man came through the bushes. “I'm sorry we didn't get to the door quickly enough. I was helping my mother.”
Introductions were made, and he turned out to be David Hoines. His ninety-something mother Anna was inside. It was Anna and her husband who bought the place from my dad's family in the 1940's. They had farmed it and raised their family there, so this became David's homeplace, too. He had since bought it from his mom, and they lived there together so he could see to her needs, making it possible for her to stay in her home.
David invited us inside. “Bertil and I played checkers on this staircase all the time. We had our baths in a tub right here in the kitchen, and, Kari, that furniture in your library sat right here in this parlor.” I had somehow luckily inherited the Snorteland good furniture. My dad wasn't allowed to sit on that furniture when it graced this home. It had been purchased to spruce the place up when his parents were married in the orchard in 1906. Memories flooded the room, and David and Anna added their recollections, as well.
Anna remembered quite a bit about the Snortelands who lived there, and how everyone was impressed with their orchard. She was happy to have acquired it when they bought the place, but subsequently some kind of blight had destroyed all but a one apple tree of the many fruits that once stood. David said one of the Snorteland cousins, Myron, had scratched his name into the wood of the barn, and he grew up seeing that name there. He scooted ahead of our outdoor tour to find it for us.
Anna looked about for a picture she had of Grandma Onerheim as a young school teacher, posing with her students right around the turn of the century. Her name then was Marte Elene Snorteland. After her orchard wedding, she was thereafter referred to as Mrs. L.O. Onerheim, which must have been customary of the time and culture. I have met several people of my dad's generation who now live in Decorah, and they knew my grandparents. Many of them referred to her that way, and those very familiar with her called her Martha. Anna didn't have any luck finding the school picture, and we parted having made a good friend in our common pasts.
As promised, David found Myron's nail-etched signature, which would outlive him by a shot. It was on the barn my dad had helped shingle in the late 1920's. The short hike to the orchard wasn't as disappointing as one might think. Its mildly remote position from the farmyard and the house indicated it was a shaded and cool retreat from the bustle of a busy farm, and a splendid setting for nuptials. It was bittersweet to say our goodbyes to David. He pointed The Barn towards the place down the road where he could find to the cow path. We stopped there long enough for us to snap Dad's picture, as though he were bringing the cows home.
From there, we visited the Falness and Skudesnes Lutheran Churches. The Snortelands are buried in the Falness cemetery, with a few shirttail kinfolk in the Skudesnes cemetery. Skudesnes was the area of Norway from which our family, and many area families, hailed. At the Falness Church, David surprised us once again. Anna had found the picture she was looking for, and wanted us to have it. To keep. Lora, the twenty-five-year, first-grade teaching veteran was humbled by the gesture. The 8x10 photo was in mint condition, and it was decided that she would keep it. This generosity on the part of Anna and David Hoines will be long-remembered.
It was a really good day.
We were done. We came and saw what we'd been planning to do for our Second Annual Traditional Summer Trip to Somewhere. We were content, relaxed, and headed back to Brookings. Lora and I knew better now who we are.
I called Lora this week to ask her if she remembered what we were laughing about that Sunday morning in Brookings. Like me, she remembered we were laughing beyond the ability to breathe effectively, but neither of us can remember what was so dang funny. Clearly, it wasn't important. Instead, it was an indicator of how content we were, how easy it was to have fun, and how lucky we felt to spend this time with each other and The Barn.
Oh, yeah. Signe Anderson showed us a quilt she and some of the other women of First Lutheran had done up for the auction. It was lovely. They should get big bucks for it.
See? I can squeeze a quilt story out of a trip to South Dakota. I hope you enjoyed it. And if I ever think of what was so side-splitting, I'll get back to you.
Copyright © July 2005 Kari E.O. Burns
Eldorado Store
I could not believe what she was saying. My quilting buddy Susan was suggesting I enter a national quilting challenge. Though I had only been quilting for about a year, she thought I was getting good results and improving all the time, and was therefore trying to talk me into taking the plunge.
At the time we were having this discussion, I was attempting to spread out into printed fabric. Finding it hard to disengage from my favored solids, I had been studying fabric collections in the quilt shops. I didn't want to get stuck in a rut of my own making, so I allowed myself to be impressionable as I explored.
“You are as good a quilter as anybody else. I'd enter myself if I had the time. I like Lynette Jensen's Thimbleberries® fabric, and Mike carries the whole line. Let's just go look at what he has.” Hmmm. I recognized that Susan was using what appeared to be the incremental approach.
Mike Woodson had once been in the retail world, working for the Dayton-Hudson Corporation. He must have come by it naturally, because his family owned the general store and post office in Eldorado, Iowa. On a visit home, Mike learned they were going to close the store because his grandmother, who wanted to sell it and retire, couldn't find a buyer. He had many fond childhood memories of the store, buying penny candy, and visiting with people who had stopped in to shop, or to pick up their mail. Not wanting the place to close for good, Mike packed up and came home to run The Eldorado Store. That's El-doh-RAY-doh, by the way. Not El-doh-RAH-doh.
Mike and his grandma became good companions, and in her retirement she would make quilts. Once, when she was under the weather, she sat at the machine and stitched while Mike would cut and press for her. He starting getting into it. On the way to a quilt shop one day, Grandma commented to Mike that it was too bad they had to drive so far to buy fabric. That's how the idea for the quilt section of the store was hatched. Now shoppers could get a box of Jell-O® for a potluck salad, pick up their mail, and buy fabric, all in one trip. Life was good.
Susan and I chatted animatedly on the way to Eldorado. Quilters are always animated on the way to buy fabric. On the way back, we are frequently more subdued, plotting how we are going to justify new yardage if challenged at home. Sometimes we even daze ourselves at the apparent lack of self-control. Many a scheme has been hatched on those trips home that involved keeping fabric hidden for months, in the trunk of the car or under the bed. When discovered, the guilty threadhead would remark, “Oh, tha-at? Why, I've had that for ages.
I mentioned to Susan that Mike would be the worst husband for a quilter, because he'd overheard all of these tricks from his women patrons, and could easily debunk them. Of course, Susan's take on the situation was that Mike would be the perfect spouse, since he already has all the fabric.
Eldorado is so picturesque that without witnessing it firsthand, it defies belief. Nestled in the valley of the Turkey River, there are around fifty houses in town, though the unpaved streets are marked by big-city signs. St. Peter Lutheran Church stands boldly, it's uppermost portions viewed white among a bed of treetops. The sight of its steeple and roof is a treasured reward for northeast Iowans, as we round the curve at Goeken Park and descend the “Eldorado Hill”, five miles north of West Union on Highway 150. There is no sign to beckon quilters – you just have to know to turn east at the Eldorado sign, go all the way to the end of the street, turn left, and drive a block or so north to the store. Don't worry. You can't get lost.
Once there, parking isn't a problem, but shoppers are required to ascend an incline from the street, and a few steps up into the old general store. There is a double-doored airlock, a godsend during bitter northeast Iowa winters. You always have to figure out which side of the double door to open, and likewise, which way the heavy plate glass and wooden door to the store will open – in or out. By then, my nostrils are flaring, and I'm not in the mood to experiment. Pull/push, whichever works. No wonder I never remember. My eyes are fixed on the prize.
“Here they ah-ahre!” Susan swooned melodically. “Oh, these new ones are nice.”
“Uh-huh. The colors are subdued; pleasant, even.”
“These would be great for the Thimbleberries® Pieces of the Past challenge. Why don't you at least send away for the guidelines? Maybe you won't even like the challenge, but you can't know until you see it.”
“Uh-huh.”
“If it doesn't interest you, what have you lost? If you think you want to do it, though, you'd better request the guidelines soon. The entry deadline is coming right up.”
“Oh.”
The muted colors of the patterned fabric did look old-fashioned. Pieces of the Past. I could do something with this. Maybe.
Susan went about making her purchases, chatting with Mike about quilting in general, and discussing the fact that he had made the personal acquaintance of Miss Lynette Jensen, herself, creator of Thimbleberries®. My little newbie-self was agog over such a happenstance. This was before I fully appreciated how talented a merchant Mike is, and how connected members of the quilting world are with one another. I felt all homey and good about Thimbleberries® by the time I left the Eldorado Store. The bell rang on Round One.
Round Two.
“Did you get the challenge guidelines?” I had dialed Susan's number when the manila envelope arrived.
“Yes. There are several appliqué blocks. I love appliqué, you know."
“I know you do. And...?”
“Well, I can use plain muslin, bleached or unbleached, so I'm treating that as a solid. Let's go back to Mike's and take another look at the fabric.”
“I'm already there.” Within a matter of minutes, we were making a second animated trip to The Eldorado Store and Mike's collection of Thimbleberries®. I had taken a good look at the challenge blocks, thinking about how they fit into my past... my family's past... pieces of our past.
I was down for the count by the end of Round Two. I didn't even hear the bell. I was already taking some of the challenge blocks, sorting through the bolts of Thimbleberries®, and boarding the bandwagon of my first national challenge.
Among the appliqué blocks were cherries, Rose of Sharon, and a Grandmother's Fan. Garden? Did my grandparents garden? I hadn't heard either The Barn or the Peg talk about choring in the family garden, and The Peg was known for her purple thumb. The Barn's parents were married in an orchard in South Dakota, on my great-grandparent-Snorteland's farm. A cherry orchard seemed fitting.
These garden blocks were to be fabric, not rooted in soil. The Peg spoke expansively about her own mother's sewing skills. I never knew her – she died when my mother was only nineteen. She had sown seeds of interest in all things fabric in her daughter, who in turn scattered them through my days.
When Grandmother Dorotha Beal Ott was only four years and eleven months old, her picture was taken as she gazed into a mirror. The mirror reflected her tiny-featured face, and her long, naturally curly hair was turned towards the camera. When I was the exact same age, my mother saw me when she looked at that photograph of her mother, and had my picture taken in the same pose. I had always been told I look like my mother, and she in turn thought I resembled her mother. Those companion photographs were imprinted into my mind from a very young age, and when The Dot was four years and eleven months old, her photo was taken to match. Only my mother's missing image broke this chain.
The Peg was seventy-three-years-old when the book she wrote about growing up on an Iowa farm during the 1920's and '30's was accepted for publication. The Iowa State University Press added it to their Iowa Heritage Series. She fittingly named it Threads of Memory, and in the epilogue my mother wrote that she “put down my needle and took up my pen” to write it. On the cover was the childhood photo of her mother, gazing into the mirror.
On a visit to see us in Decorah, I took my mother to the photography studio and had her picture taken. She sat in a chair, holding the book she wrote with her mother's mirror-picture on the cover. Her chair was positioned so that she faced a mirror, and the gap had been closed. Now all four generations of look-alikes were joined in black and white by that pose.
Dorotha planted a fabric garden, and her descendants reap its bounty. Beyond Dorotha, beyond The Peg, beyond me. Our entry in the Thimbleberries® Pieces of the Past national quilt challenge would be a garden-themed quilt called “Dorotha's Bounty”.
Ta-daaaaa.
With the histrionics were out of the way, I needed to design the dang quilt and get the dad-blame thing made up.
I collected the cherry blocks together for an “orchard”, and decorated a “path” around them with my Grandmother's Fan blocks. The Rose of Sharon brightened the outside of this pieced section in four places, and I added a rail fence. The white muslin rails were stitched with a “picket” on one end, to signify the fence that encompassed the fabric garden. For the border, I chose a series of garden path blocks, and I left a few plain unbleached muslin spaces for quilting-stitched packets of seeds and sprouting weeds.
Time was closing in on me. I had taken longer than I should have to join the challenge. I discussed my dilemma with Mary Ann Keppler at her shop in rural St. Olaf, Iowa, and she agreed to use her long arm machine to stitch part of my quilt, and leave a few places untouched for my needle. She patiently guided her machine to make my requested “cobblestones” on the Grandmother's-Fan-come-garden-path blocks. She cross-hatched some of the background, and stitched around the border where it would have taken me too long.
When it was my turn, I put my own little stitches into the plain muslin squares. I began a tradition when stitching on that quilt, a story that I will save for another time. I designed a label to draw directly onto the muslin backing. Considering the harvest of Dorotha's Bounty, I sketched some imaginary wild flowers into a remembered blue and white vase.
The vase represented a pair of blue and white vases that were a piece of Beal family lore. I learned about these vases years earlier on a trip to the Northeast. Family in Dover Foxcroft, Maine, displayed the vases on the mantelpiece in the living room of their enormous Victorian house. That day my mother related to us that those vases had been held on the lap of the Beal ancestor, carried from the civilized East to the wilds of the Midwest by a pioneering family member, and returned the same way as a gift many years later. I retrieved one from my memory to put on the label.
But one stem, it's bloom in contrast to the coneflower and the gerber daisy, held a spool of thread where the flower could have been. It bends slightly forward. Into a mirror. And it reflected back another treasured memory. Of Dorotha, of The Peg, of me, and The Dot, joining us in fabric through “Dorotha's Bounty”.
End of Round Three.
Susan's husband Chip has a photography studio here, and she talked him into taking the slides I needed to send into the challenge. I mailed them, hoping for the best, but I'd come to love my grandmother-y quilt. I had arranged to have my mom and both her brothers use the quilt for awhile. When I got it back, I wanted it to be used by Dorotha's children. It became moot to me how it would do in the national Thimbleberries® challenge.
Good thing, too. It totally flopped.
I stopped by The Eldorado Store a few weeks ago. I had been lost to other pursuits for a few years, and I saw that things had changed there again. The post office is under a different roof, still attached to the main store. The general store itself seems to have been given over completely to the quilt shop, and a sign on the door says, “Open Saturdays and by Appointment”. Mike has been teaching business at the community college, and life has evolved into this new arrangement. I called and asked him about this modification, and we chatted for awhile. I look forward to meeting him again in Eldorado.
“Dorotha's Bounty” is planted on the bed in The Dot's room. It's technically the guest room, but you know how that goes. I continue to make many quilts with solids, and I've never used only one fabric collection in any one quilt again. It's good Susan talked me into doing a national quilt challenge, though – so I could find the pieces of my past.
And the winner is -- Kari Burns!
Smack down.
Copyright © July 2005 Kari E.O. Burns
At the time we were having this discussion, I was attempting to spread out into printed fabric. Finding it hard to disengage from my favored solids, I had been studying fabric collections in the quilt shops. I didn't want to get stuck in a rut of my own making, so I allowed myself to be impressionable as I explored.
“You are as good a quilter as anybody else. I'd enter myself if I had the time. I like Lynette Jensen's Thimbleberries® fabric, and Mike carries the whole line. Let's just go look at what he has.” Hmmm. I recognized that Susan was using what appeared to be the incremental approach.
Mike Woodson had once been in the retail world, working for the Dayton-Hudson Corporation. He must have come by it naturally, because his family owned the general store and post office in Eldorado, Iowa. On a visit home, Mike learned they were going to close the store because his grandmother, who wanted to sell it and retire, couldn't find a buyer. He had many fond childhood memories of the store, buying penny candy, and visiting with people who had stopped in to shop, or to pick up their mail. Not wanting the place to close for good, Mike packed up and came home to run The Eldorado Store. That's El-doh-RAY-doh, by the way. Not El-doh-RAH-doh.
Mike and his grandma became good companions, and in her retirement she would make quilts. Once, when she was under the weather, she sat at the machine and stitched while Mike would cut and press for her. He starting getting into it. On the way to a quilt shop one day, Grandma commented to Mike that it was too bad they had to drive so far to buy fabric. That's how the idea for the quilt section of the store was hatched. Now shoppers could get a box of Jell-O® for a potluck salad, pick up their mail, and buy fabric, all in one trip. Life was good.
Susan and I chatted animatedly on the way to Eldorado. Quilters are always animated on the way to buy fabric. On the way back, we are frequently more subdued, plotting how we are going to justify new yardage if challenged at home. Sometimes we even daze ourselves at the apparent lack of self-control. Many a scheme has been hatched on those trips home that involved keeping fabric hidden for months, in the trunk of the car or under the bed. When discovered, the guilty threadhead would remark, “Oh, tha-at? Why, I've had that for ages.
I mentioned to Susan that Mike would be the worst husband for a quilter, because he'd overheard all of these tricks from his women patrons, and could easily debunk them. Of course, Susan's take on the situation was that Mike would be the perfect spouse, since he already has all the fabric.
Eldorado is so picturesque that without witnessing it firsthand, it defies belief. Nestled in the valley of the Turkey River, there are around fifty houses in town, though the unpaved streets are marked by big-city signs. St. Peter Lutheran Church stands boldly, it's uppermost portions viewed white among a bed of treetops. The sight of its steeple and roof is a treasured reward for northeast Iowans, as we round the curve at Goeken Park and descend the “Eldorado Hill”, five miles north of West Union on Highway 150. There is no sign to beckon quilters – you just have to know to turn east at the Eldorado sign, go all the way to the end of the street, turn left, and drive a block or so north to the store. Don't worry. You can't get lost.
Once there, parking isn't a problem, but shoppers are required to ascend an incline from the street, and a few steps up into the old general store. There is a double-doored airlock, a godsend during bitter northeast Iowa winters. You always have to figure out which side of the double door to open, and likewise, which way the heavy plate glass and wooden door to the store will open – in or out. By then, my nostrils are flaring, and I'm not in the mood to experiment. Pull/push, whichever works. No wonder I never remember. My eyes are fixed on the prize.
“Here they ah-ahre!” Susan swooned melodically. “Oh, these new ones are nice.”
“Uh-huh. The colors are subdued; pleasant, even.”
“These would be great for the Thimbleberries® Pieces of the Past challenge. Why don't you at least send away for the guidelines? Maybe you won't even like the challenge, but you can't know until you see it.”
“Uh-huh.”
“If it doesn't interest you, what have you lost? If you think you want to do it, though, you'd better request the guidelines soon. The entry deadline is coming right up.”
“Oh.”
The muted colors of the patterned fabric did look old-fashioned. Pieces of the Past. I could do something with this. Maybe.
Susan went about making her purchases, chatting with Mike about quilting in general, and discussing the fact that he had made the personal acquaintance of Miss Lynette Jensen, herself, creator of Thimbleberries®. My little newbie-self was agog over such a happenstance. This was before I fully appreciated how talented a merchant Mike is, and how connected members of the quilting world are with one another. I felt all homey and good about Thimbleberries® by the time I left the Eldorado Store. The bell rang on Round One.
Round Two.
“Did you get the challenge guidelines?” I had dialed Susan's number when the manila envelope arrived.
“Yes. There are several appliqué blocks. I love appliqué, you know."
“I know you do. And...?”
“Well, I can use plain muslin, bleached or unbleached, so I'm treating that as a solid. Let's go back to Mike's and take another look at the fabric.”
“I'm already there.” Within a matter of minutes, we were making a second animated trip to The Eldorado Store and Mike's collection of Thimbleberries®. I had taken a good look at the challenge blocks, thinking about how they fit into my past... my family's past... pieces of our past.
I was down for the count by the end of Round Two. I didn't even hear the bell. I was already taking some of the challenge blocks, sorting through the bolts of Thimbleberries®, and boarding the bandwagon of my first national challenge.
Among the appliqué blocks were cherries, Rose of Sharon, and a Grandmother's Fan. Garden? Did my grandparents garden? I hadn't heard either The Barn or the Peg talk about choring in the family garden, and The Peg was known for her purple thumb. The Barn's parents were married in an orchard in South Dakota, on my great-grandparent-Snorteland's farm. A cherry orchard seemed fitting.
These garden blocks were to be fabric, not rooted in soil. The Peg spoke expansively about her own mother's sewing skills. I never knew her – she died when my mother was only nineteen. She had sown seeds of interest in all things fabric in her daughter, who in turn scattered them through my days.
When Grandmother Dorotha Beal Ott was only four years and eleven months old, her picture was taken as she gazed into a mirror. The mirror reflected her tiny-featured face, and her long, naturally curly hair was turned towards the camera. When I was the exact same age, my mother saw me when she looked at that photograph of her mother, and had my picture taken in the same pose. I had always been told I look like my mother, and she in turn thought I resembled her mother. Those companion photographs were imprinted into my mind from a very young age, and when The Dot was four years and eleven months old, her photo was taken to match. Only my mother's missing image broke this chain.
The Peg was seventy-three-years-old when the book she wrote about growing up on an Iowa farm during the 1920's and '30's was accepted for publication. The Iowa State University Press added it to their Iowa Heritage Series. She fittingly named it Threads of Memory, and in the epilogue my mother wrote that she “put down my needle and took up my pen” to write it. On the cover was the childhood photo of her mother, gazing into the mirror.
On a visit to see us in Decorah, I took my mother to the photography studio and had her picture taken. She sat in a chair, holding the book she wrote with her mother's mirror-picture on the cover. Her chair was positioned so that she faced a mirror, and the gap had been closed. Now all four generations of look-alikes were joined in black and white by that pose.
Dorotha planted a fabric garden, and her descendants reap its bounty. Beyond Dorotha, beyond The Peg, beyond me. Our entry in the Thimbleberries® Pieces of the Past national quilt challenge would be a garden-themed quilt called “Dorotha's Bounty”.
Ta-daaaaa.
With the histrionics were out of the way, I needed to design the dang quilt and get the dad-blame thing made up.
I collected the cherry blocks together for an “orchard”, and decorated a “path” around them with my Grandmother's Fan blocks. The Rose of Sharon brightened the outside of this pieced section in four places, and I added a rail fence. The white muslin rails were stitched with a “picket” on one end, to signify the fence that encompassed the fabric garden. For the border, I chose a series of garden path blocks, and I left a few plain unbleached muslin spaces for quilting-stitched packets of seeds and sprouting weeds.
Time was closing in on me. I had taken longer than I should have to join the challenge. I discussed my dilemma with Mary Ann Keppler at her shop in rural St. Olaf, Iowa, and she agreed to use her long arm machine to stitch part of my quilt, and leave a few places untouched for my needle. She patiently guided her machine to make my requested “cobblestones” on the Grandmother's-Fan-come-garden-path blocks. She cross-hatched some of the background, and stitched around the border where it would have taken me too long.
When it was my turn, I put my own little stitches into the plain muslin squares. I began a tradition when stitching on that quilt, a story that I will save for another time. I designed a label to draw directly onto the muslin backing. Considering the harvest of Dorotha's Bounty, I sketched some imaginary wild flowers into a remembered blue and white vase.
The vase represented a pair of blue and white vases that were a piece of Beal family lore. I learned about these vases years earlier on a trip to the Northeast. Family in Dover Foxcroft, Maine, displayed the vases on the mantelpiece in the living room of their enormous Victorian house. That day my mother related to us that those vases had been held on the lap of the Beal ancestor, carried from the civilized East to the wilds of the Midwest by a pioneering family member, and returned the same way as a gift many years later. I retrieved one from my memory to put on the label.
But one stem, it's bloom in contrast to the coneflower and the gerber daisy, held a spool of thread where the flower could have been. It bends slightly forward. Into a mirror. And it reflected back another treasured memory. Of Dorotha, of The Peg, of me, and The Dot, joining us in fabric through “Dorotha's Bounty”.
End of Round Three.
Susan's husband Chip has a photography studio here, and she talked him into taking the slides I needed to send into the challenge. I mailed them, hoping for the best, but I'd come to love my grandmother-y quilt. I had arranged to have my mom and both her brothers use the quilt for awhile. When I got it back, I wanted it to be used by Dorotha's children. It became moot to me how it would do in the national Thimbleberries® challenge.
Good thing, too. It totally flopped.
I stopped by The Eldorado Store a few weeks ago. I had been lost to other pursuits for a few years, and I saw that things had changed there again. The post office is under a different roof, still attached to the main store. The general store itself seems to have been given over completely to the quilt shop, and a sign on the door says, “Open Saturdays and by Appointment”. Mike has been teaching business at the community college, and life has evolved into this new arrangement. I called and asked him about this modification, and we chatted for awhile. I look forward to meeting him again in Eldorado.
“Dorotha's Bounty” is planted on the bed in The Dot's room. It's technically the guest room, but you know how that goes. I continue to make many quilts with solids, and I've never used only one fabric collection in any one quilt again. It's good Susan talked me into doing a national quilt challenge, though – so I could find the pieces of my past.
And the winner is -- Kari Burns!
Smack down.
Copyright © July 2005 Kari E.O. Burns
Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall
It is a well-known fact that quilters like to spend time on Greyhound buses. Age is not an indicator here – really young lint-chicks like bus trips as much as the more seasoned rider. It's not the funky bus songs that draw us, either. It's the opportunity to spend a day with other quilters, work on hand projects, and stop at predetermined quilt shops for fabric. Multiply the enthusiasm by fifty, and that's a lot of lint to inhale in one small, enclosed space.
We've tackled this subject before, in “In Defense of Quilting as Excitement, Part 2: Paducah or Bust”. As you recall, that incident just about brought Hubba to his knees: he didn't consider the thought of me on a Greyhound very sexy. Brother. Stereotyper.
The Piecemakers, a quilt guild headquartered in Spring Grove, Minnesota, owned the day on July 11, 2005. We were in the thick of Midwestern quilting culture; on a bus, for the entire day, and cutting loose. Oh, bay-bee.
We began to gather at about 7:30. That's a.m. In the morning. No problem. Early birds were reminded to make a pit stop and have along a few snacks, a bottle of water, etc. because we weren't stopping again until lunchtime. Yee-haw! Quilt shops, here we come! We left Spring Grove with the first-to-board at 8:00 a.m. Sharp. Barb Solum was our hostess and planner for the day. I have always loved Barb – now, sit down, Barb, and let's get this bus moving!
We stopped at the next burg, Caledonia, Minnesota, and picked up a few more threadies in the parking lot of the Kwik Trip. They were identifiable by the pool of drool around them, which reflected the sun, low in the eastern sky. I think I heard someone admonish the bus driver to just open the door and slow down – they could run alongside and jump on. Yee-haw! Quilt shops, here we come!
One last boarding stop was made in Hokah, Minnesota. We only picked up two threadheads there, and rest assured that had we failed to stop for them, we could have expected national headlines. Hurricane Dennis would have looked like an interloper. Door opens, in b-o-u-n-c-e the last two, and it's Yee-haw! Quilt shops, here we come!
I brought along my cathedral window quilt project. I always bring it. Goal date for completion of my cathedral window quilt? May, 2038, but I'm thinking of moving that back a few months. Some quilters were knitting, some were embroidering, and several were reviewing patterns and discussing the fabric choices they had in their mind's eyes. Some were periodically breathing into paper bags.
We were headed for Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, home to (count 'em) three quilt shops. AND we were making one more thread stop in Waunakee, Wisconsin, before heading home. Could you please hand me that paper bag?
Our first stop was Diana's, the tea room and confectionery in Sun Prairie that Barb had lined up for lunch. Oh, yeah. They had cake. Nothing like getting a good cake buzz on before fabric shopping. As we waited to disembark at Diana's, Barb got on the loud speaker and gave us the proximity of the three shops in Sun Prairie. You could have heard a pin drop.
As soon as we were done with lunch, several of us hoofed it to Itchin' to Stitch, only a few blocks from Diana's. There is nothing like the sight of fifty or so quilters of all ages, sizes, attire, and desire as they swoop in on their prey. I'd never been to Itchin' to Stitch before, but I'd heard about it. Let's put it this way -- the Itchin' to Stitch people had seen our kind before. Someone met us at the door with a whistle.
Bl-weeeet!
“Ten-hut! Here are the rules! We don't sell fat quarters here. If you want a fat quarter, find a buddy a split a half yard yourselves. Line up to cut your yardage here, and then form a second line to pay over there. The bathroom is at the back of the store. If someone's in it, you have to wait to use it. Batiks are on your left, and the books are near the front window. Okay, people. Shop! Fall out!”
Bl-weeeet!
I found the bathroom rule particularly troubling. Not the rule, but the occurrence that required them to make the rule. I can't allow my mind to dwell on it for long.
When we were done there, the next stop was JJ Stitches, a few more blocks away than most of the group wanted to walk. Not me! Bus? What bus? I was too jerked up on cake and airborne lint to sit on a bus. I grabbed my buddy Maxine and we simulatneouly walked off some of our energy and beat a path to JJ's. Bus? Too slow.
JJ Stitches has a whole room devoted to 20's and 30's repros, and one reserved for penny rug inspirations. I actually needed to come up for air, so after a quick tour of the store, I ducked out to an antique shop as an aperitif. Of course, quilt trip radar led me to a little Featherweight, deep in the bowels of the basement of the shop. There was only the machine, the cord, and the foot control. No case, no instructions, not even a ratty old spool of thread. Nothing. $350. Hubba?? Did I get a deal on mine in Paducah, or what?
Then it hit me. Paducah. A bus. Hubba. Something seemed odd. Hubba... Hubba? I reviewed the conversation we had in the wee hours of this very day.
I had totally forgotten to tell him about the bus trip. That's the consequence of our life's pace these days, and details get sorta smudgy. Details like, I'll be gone for thirteen and a half hours. I'll be in another state, with strangers, spending down the cash flow.
I had fallen awake at about four o'clock that morning, and remembered I was going on a bus trip with the Piecemakers. Strangely, Hubba had come to at about the same time. Noticing he was awake, I said, “Hey. I just remembered I have this bus trip to Sun Prairie today. I forgot to tell you.”
“Oh. Okay. I'll figure out something for lunch. When do you think you'll be back?”
“Don't remember. But it'll be after supper, because I know they talked about stopping someplace to eat on the way back.”
“'Uhkay. When are you leaving?”
“Seven. Can you give me a ride to the Curves parking lot so I don't have to leave my car there all day? Mary Beth, Darlene, and I are riding up to Spring Grove together to catch the bus.”
“Sure. Now let me sleep for a couple more hours.”
“Thanks. Love you, Hubba.”
“Love you, too, Sweetie.”
That's what is was! Hubba's reaction! He didn't say a thing. Not a single wisecrack. I said the word “bus”, and everything. Zip. Not one eye-rolling – make that, not one instance of eye-rolling. If he had rolled just one eye, I would have devoted an entire post to the topic.
He was calm and accepting. He acted like this was normal. I found his lack of response disquieting..
The thought of this stayed with me throughout the next two shops. Prairie Quiltworks, another shop in downtown Sun Prairie, is a quilt shop on one side, and a yarn shop on the other. Quilting Passion, meet Knitting Passion.
Knitting Passion: “She's mine!”
Quilting Passion: “No, she isn't! She's mine!”
Knitting Passion: “Ha! Did you see her buy those patterns for felting purses? I've won her back! Bwa-ha-ha-haw!”
Quilting Passion: “Nooooo! I'm mel-ting...mel-ting...”
Beading Passion: “I'm waiting in the quilt shop in Waunakee. You guys are toast.”
The Hubba thoughts even broke through a mind occupied with fiber-blather. Something just seemed unsettling to me. It was like adjusting to the offspring being grown and gone. Or dealing with the loss when the Yorkies were adopted out, and then passed on. But Hubba? Hubba, are you changing, too?
We boarded the coach for the next leg of our journey. The din inside was party-atmosphere bright. Bags of fabric and books with patterns and techniques were flying back and forth. Someone thought to pass the hat to tip our bus driver, which was timely since the mood was high and over-tipping was more likely. And there I was, forlornly looking out the window as the cars and time passed by, both too quickly. Hubba, where are you?
Our last shop of the day was Mill House Quilts in Waunakee, Wisconsin. As promised, Beading Passion got a lick in on Knitting Passion, siding with Quilting Passion to win the day. Incorporating beads into functional quilts has me chomping.
Troubled as I was, I decided to live in the present. I sat with a new friend, Helen Williams, and had a great time getting to know her. Somehow she's managed to get through life up to this point without me, and we plotted how to get together again in the future. Her quilt guild is called The Mabel Q.T. They meet in the basement of the telephone office in Mabel, Minnesota, the first Monday of every month for Q.T., or Quilt Therapy. Sounds reasonable to me. I think I'll join 'em. Therapy...
It worked. Once my mind was relaxed, I had a better handle on what was happening at home. Hubba is becoming a quilt husband. How boring. I suppose now he's going to sit and uh-huh as I “drone on and on about quilting”. Sigh. That's what he used to say, back in the good old days. I expect he'll meet my quilt students at the door and say, “You kids have a good time today. I know how much quilting means to you.” This goes beyond being a good sport about it, like he once was. He's teetering on the edge, but with any luck he hasn't gone over it yet.
Don't worry. I'll have a talk with him and do what I can to break through his denial. It's not too late. The condition still young enough for effective intervention. I won't let him become a quilt husband. Not my Hubba.
Reversing the quilt-husband stereotype? Yee-haw! Tattoo parlor, here we come!
Copyright © July 2005 Kari E.O. Burns
We've tackled this subject before, in “In Defense of Quilting as Excitement, Part 2: Paducah or Bust”. As you recall, that incident just about brought Hubba to his knees: he didn't consider the thought of me on a Greyhound very sexy. Brother. Stereotyper.
The Piecemakers, a quilt guild headquartered in Spring Grove, Minnesota, owned the day on July 11, 2005. We were in the thick of Midwestern quilting culture; on a bus, for the entire day, and cutting loose. Oh, bay-bee.
We began to gather at about 7:30. That's a.m. In the morning. No problem. Early birds were reminded to make a pit stop and have along a few snacks, a bottle of water, etc. because we weren't stopping again until lunchtime. Yee-haw! Quilt shops, here we come! We left Spring Grove with the first-to-board at 8:00 a.m. Sharp. Barb Solum was our hostess and planner for the day. I have always loved Barb – now, sit down, Barb, and let's get this bus moving!
We stopped at the next burg, Caledonia, Minnesota, and picked up a few more threadies in the parking lot of the Kwik Trip. They were identifiable by the pool of drool around them, which reflected the sun, low in the eastern sky. I think I heard someone admonish the bus driver to just open the door and slow down – they could run alongside and jump on. Yee-haw! Quilt shops, here we come!
One last boarding stop was made in Hokah, Minnesota. We only picked up two threadheads there, and rest assured that had we failed to stop for them, we could have expected national headlines. Hurricane Dennis would have looked like an interloper. Door opens, in b-o-u-n-c-e the last two, and it's Yee-haw! Quilt shops, here we come!
I brought along my cathedral window quilt project. I always bring it. Goal date for completion of my cathedral window quilt? May, 2038, but I'm thinking of moving that back a few months. Some quilters were knitting, some were embroidering, and several were reviewing patterns and discussing the fabric choices they had in their mind's eyes. Some were periodically breathing into paper bags.
We were headed for Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, home to (count 'em) three quilt shops. AND we were making one more thread stop in Waunakee, Wisconsin, before heading home. Could you please hand me that paper bag?
Our first stop was Diana's, the tea room and confectionery in Sun Prairie that Barb had lined up for lunch. Oh, yeah. They had cake. Nothing like getting a good cake buzz on before fabric shopping. As we waited to disembark at Diana's, Barb got on the loud speaker and gave us the proximity of the three shops in Sun Prairie. You could have heard a pin drop.
As soon as we were done with lunch, several of us hoofed it to Itchin' to Stitch, only a few blocks from Diana's. There is nothing like the sight of fifty or so quilters of all ages, sizes, attire, and desire as they swoop in on their prey. I'd never been to Itchin' to Stitch before, but I'd heard about it. Let's put it this way -- the Itchin' to Stitch people had seen our kind before. Someone met us at the door with a whistle.
Bl-weeeet!
“Ten-hut! Here are the rules! We don't sell fat quarters here. If you want a fat quarter, find a buddy a split a half yard yourselves. Line up to cut your yardage here, and then form a second line to pay over there. The bathroom is at the back of the store. If someone's in it, you have to wait to use it. Batiks are on your left, and the books are near the front window. Okay, people. Shop! Fall out!”
Bl-weeeet!
I found the bathroom rule particularly troubling. Not the rule, but the occurrence that required them to make the rule. I can't allow my mind to dwell on it for long.
When we were done there, the next stop was JJ Stitches, a few more blocks away than most of the group wanted to walk. Not me! Bus? What bus? I was too jerked up on cake and airborne lint to sit on a bus. I grabbed my buddy Maxine and we simulatneouly walked off some of our energy and beat a path to JJ's. Bus? Too slow.
JJ Stitches has a whole room devoted to 20's and 30's repros, and one reserved for penny rug inspirations. I actually needed to come up for air, so after a quick tour of the store, I ducked out to an antique shop as an aperitif. Of course, quilt trip radar led me to a little Featherweight, deep in the bowels of the basement of the shop. There was only the machine, the cord, and the foot control. No case, no instructions, not even a ratty old spool of thread. Nothing. $350. Hubba?? Did I get a deal on mine in Paducah, or what?
Then it hit me. Paducah. A bus. Hubba. Something seemed odd. Hubba... Hubba? I reviewed the conversation we had in the wee hours of this very day.
I had totally forgotten to tell him about the bus trip. That's the consequence of our life's pace these days, and details get sorta smudgy. Details like, I'll be gone for thirteen and a half hours. I'll be in another state, with strangers, spending down the cash flow.
I had fallen awake at about four o'clock that morning, and remembered I was going on a bus trip with the Piecemakers. Strangely, Hubba had come to at about the same time. Noticing he was awake, I said, “Hey. I just remembered I have this bus trip to Sun Prairie today. I forgot to tell you.”
“Oh. Okay. I'll figure out something for lunch. When do you think you'll be back?”
“Don't remember. But it'll be after supper, because I know they talked about stopping someplace to eat on the way back.”
“'Uhkay. When are you leaving?”
“Seven. Can you give me a ride to the Curves parking lot so I don't have to leave my car there all day? Mary Beth, Darlene, and I are riding up to Spring Grove together to catch the bus.”
“Sure. Now let me sleep for a couple more hours.”
“Thanks. Love you, Hubba.”
“Love you, too, Sweetie.”
That's what is was! Hubba's reaction! He didn't say a thing. Not a single wisecrack. I said the word “bus”, and everything. Zip. Not one eye-rolling – make that, not one instance of eye-rolling. If he had rolled just one eye, I would have devoted an entire post to the topic.
He was calm and accepting. He acted like this was normal. I found his lack of response disquieting..
The thought of this stayed with me throughout the next two shops. Prairie Quiltworks, another shop in downtown Sun Prairie, is a quilt shop on one side, and a yarn shop on the other. Quilting Passion, meet Knitting Passion.
Knitting Passion: “She's mine!”
Quilting Passion: “No, she isn't! She's mine!”
Knitting Passion: “Ha! Did you see her buy those patterns for felting purses? I've won her back! Bwa-ha-ha-haw!”
Quilting Passion: “Nooooo! I'm mel-ting...mel-ting...”
Beading Passion: “I'm waiting in the quilt shop in Waunakee. You guys are toast.”
The Hubba thoughts even broke through a mind occupied with fiber-blather. Something just seemed unsettling to me. It was like adjusting to the offspring being grown and gone. Or dealing with the loss when the Yorkies were adopted out, and then passed on. But Hubba? Hubba, are you changing, too?
We boarded the coach for the next leg of our journey. The din inside was party-atmosphere bright. Bags of fabric and books with patterns and techniques were flying back and forth. Someone thought to pass the hat to tip our bus driver, which was timely since the mood was high and over-tipping was more likely. And there I was, forlornly looking out the window as the cars and time passed by, both too quickly. Hubba, where are you?
Our last shop of the day was Mill House Quilts in Waunakee, Wisconsin. As promised, Beading Passion got a lick in on Knitting Passion, siding with Quilting Passion to win the day. Incorporating beads into functional quilts has me chomping.
Troubled as I was, I decided to live in the present. I sat with a new friend, Helen Williams, and had a great time getting to know her. Somehow she's managed to get through life up to this point without me, and we plotted how to get together again in the future. Her quilt guild is called The Mabel Q.T. They meet in the basement of the telephone office in Mabel, Minnesota, the first Monday of every month for Q.T., or Quilt Therapy. Sounds reasonable to me. I think I'll join 'em. Therapy...
It worked. Once my mind was relaxed, I had a better handle on what was happening at home. Hubba is becoming a quilt husband. How boring. I suppose now he's going to sit and uh-huh as I “drone on and on about quilting”. Sigh. That's what he used to say, back in the good old days. I expect he'll meet my quilt students at the door and say, “You kids have a good time today. I know how much quilting means to you.” This goes beyond being a good sport about it, like he once was. He's teetering on the edge, but with any luck he hasn't gone over it yet.
Don't worry. I'll have a talk with him and do what I can to break through his denial. It's not too late. The condition still young enough for effective intervention. I won't let him become a quilt husband. Not my Hubba.
Reversing the quilt-husband stereotype? Yee-haw! Tattoo parlor, here we come!
Copyright © July 2005 Kari E.O. Burns
How I Became The Best Quiltmaker in the World
I'm not one to beat around the bush. My motto: Get to the point and state what's on your mind. Well, that's what I say in my head. In real life, I'm a little less casual about being antisocial-blunt. Most of the time.
I didn't start quilting until the offspring were older. I tried sewing garments when the kids were itty-bitty, but it was too much to expect them to keep away from sharp objects. I didn't have a set-up where I could shut the door on my creating and attend to my mothering. The fabric I had purchased in 1980 for a quilt was left untouched. I didn't know a thing about quilting then, but the desire to learn had been brewing. Funny thing about those fabrics -- I bought all solids. Bright ones.
My time away from the machine was spent on other forms of needlecraft. I had learned to knit as a nine-year-old Girl Scout, and after many adolescent years of split stitches and uneven tension, I let that simmer until I picked it up again in college. In my typical overeager fashion, the first thing I made was a sweater in a reindeer-and-snowflake motif. It wasn't the greatest on the reverse side, but it looked pretty decent when worn right-side out. During the surge of births at the twenty-something stage-of-life, I designed and knit all sorts of babywear and afghans. As I recall, I flinched as I read a thank-you-for-the-blanket from one uninformed recipient. I could usually gauge who would appreciate a handmade gift as well as I could gauge my stitch size, and didn't squander my productions on the unappreciative.
Counted cross stitch was making the rounds in the '80's. That appealed to my sense of detail and order. I never made any big counted cross stitch pieces, but dabbled in plenty of fingertip towels and bell pulls. I taught myself Klostersom, a Norwegian needlepoint, and Blackwork. My neighbor and friend Esther Miller is a master rug hooker, and she taught me how to hook. The desire to be a really good hooker is on a low boil, just beneath the surface. I have been trying to resist both that and Hardanger stitchery, a heavy Norwegian lace fabric technique made from stitching and cutting cloth. I haven't time for more passion in my life, and I feel the potential with both of those.
I did some weaving, too. Loved it. Of course. Thankfully that comes with the need for a large loom, which effectively quelled my desire to get crazy about it. Spinning, however... I have done crewel, needlepoint, embroidery, candlewicking, crocheting, trapunto, and the list goes on. I taught knitting in the public school and in my home, and inadvertently launched interest for some of these passtimes in friends who were curious about what I was doing.
When I started quilting, I found it much easier to put on the blinders when other needlecraft would pass my way. By my third quilt, I was getting pretty good. In fact, I was really good! I was certain this was obvious to others. Outwardly, I was perfunctory about it, but inside I was ecstatic that I could perform so well as a novice.
I joined the Northeast Iowa Quilt Guild. I have mentioned this group before, and they are truly amazing. They are incorporated as a non-profit, and their mission statement reads:
“The guild will be non-profit with the purpose of encouraging and promoting high standards in the practice and knowledge of quilting, conducting educational programs and providing for the interchange of information.”
In truth, they step beyond the confines of that mission statement. They welcome new quilters with eagerness and warmth, and openly applaud the work of each member. The process of critiquing and instruction is intoxicating for the newbie. I was soaking-in their expertise and rookie-reveling in their praise.
I was thirsty. I wanted more. For some unknown reason, I wasn't getting this praise and interest at home from the fam. I found that confusing.
T-man had a little friend who spent quite a bit of time at our house. Blake Livingood; we called him Blakey. He was like having another child, but one who was very polite, obedient, and respectful of his parents. “Tad, why don't you call Blakey and see if he can come over?” Those were cherished times. He and T are friends for life, surviving the natural separation in middle and high school, when Tad went out for basketball and Blake went out for wrestling. I miss little Blakey like I miss my own little children. Offspring adulthood has its own rewards, but my memory sparkles with the gems of their childhoods.
One day, while I was quilting, Blakey observed what I was doing and actually asked me some questions about how to make a quilt. Have I emphasized firmly enough how much I loved that kid? Not only did he ask, he listened while I answered, touched the quilt, and before he and Tad ran off to play in the woods, he told me he thought it was a very nice quilt. This happened on more than one occasion. It may have only been twice, but Blake became my favorite child. He appreciated the skill my own family had taken for granted. He was my link to the cooing of the Northeast Iowa Quilt Guild that I needed at home. Eventually, I had a favor to ask of him.
“Blakey?”
“Yeah?”
“When you come over, would you always ask me about my quilting, please?”
Bashful and charming smile, a bit askance, yet attentive and abiding. “Yeah. Okay.”
“And, since you can see that I'm the best quiltmaker in the world, would you please mention that after I show you want I'm working on?”
Laugh. Oops! Aborted laugh. He could see how needy I was. “Uh-huh. Okay.”
“Thank you, Blakey.”
“It's okay, Kari.”
Sometimes you have to ask for what you need. It's as simple as knowing the right person to ask.
From then on, the door would slam and the boys would run through the house. Maybe they'd stop in the kitchen for a drink, or rush downstairs for Leggos or the computer. My Golden Boy never forgot.
“Hi, Blakey!”
“Hi, Kari! You're the best quiltmaker in the world!”
Thanks, Blakey. I love you, too!”
Now I'm a better judge of my own skills, and I don't look as far afield for acceptance of my designs -- I know if I like them or not. I'm not so hungry for praise, but am grateful for those who understand what I'm doing. There is one comment I still love to hear, even though it's rare these days. Blake, as an adult, remembers to ask me about my quilting, and he always remembers to say, “Kari, you are the best quiltmaker in the world!”
Copyright © July 2005 Kari E.O. Burns
I didn't start quilting until the offspring were older. I tried sewing garments when the kids were itty-bitty, but it was too much to expect them to keep away from sharp objects. I didn't have a set-up where I could shut the door on my creating and attend to my mothering. The fabric I had purchased in 1980 for a quilt was left untouched. I didn't know a thing about quilting then, but the desire to learn had been brewing. Funny thing about those fabrics -- I bought all solids. Bright ones.
My time away from the machine was spent on other forms of needlecraft. I had learned to knit as a nine-year-old Girl Scout, and after many adolescent years of split stitches and uneven tension, I let that simmer until I picked it up again in college. In my typical overeager fashion, the first thing I made was a sweater in a reindeer-and-snowflake motif. It wasn't the greatest on the reverse side, but it looked pretty decent when worn right-side out. During the surge of births at the twenty-something stage-of-life, I designed and knit all sorts of babywear and afghans. As I recall, I flinched as I read a thank-you-for-the-blanket from one uninformed recipient. I could usually gauge who would appreciate a handmade gift as well as I could gauge my stitch size, and didn't squander my productions on the unappreciative.
Counted cross stitch was making the rounds in the '80's. That appealed to my sense of detail and order. I never made any big counted cross stitch pieces, but dabbled in plenty of fingertip towels and bell pulls. I taught myself Klostersom, a Norwegian needlepoint, and Blackwork. My neighbor and friend Esther Miller is a master rug hooker, and she taught me how to hook. The desire to be a really good hooker is on a low boil, just beneath the surface. I have been trying to resist both that and Hardanger stitchery, a heavy Norwegian lace fabric technique made from stitching and cutting cloth. I haven't time for more passion in my life, and I feel the potential with both of those.
I did some weaving, too. Loved it. Of course. Thankfully that comes with the need for a large loom, which effectively quelled my desire to get crazy about it. Spinning, however... I have done crewel, needlepoint, embroidery, candlewicking, crocheting, trapunto, and the list goes on. I taught knitting in the public school and in my home, and inadvertently launched interest for some of these passtimes in friends who were curious about what I was doing.
When I started quilting, I found it much easier to put on the blinders when other needlecraft would pass my way. By my third quilt, I was getting pretty good. In fact, I was really good! I was certain this was obvious to others. Outwardly, I was perfunctory about it, but inside I was ecstatic that I could perform so well as a novice.
I joined the Northeast Iowa Quilt Guild. I have mentioned this group before, and they are truly amazing. They are incorporated as a non-profit, and their mission statement reads:
“The guild will be non-profit with the purpose of encouraging and promoting high standards in the practice and knowledge of quilting, conducting educational programs and providing for the interchange of information.”
In truth, they step beyond the confines of that mission statement. They welcome new quilters with eagerness and warmth, and openly applaud the work of each member. The process of critiquing and instruction is intoxicating for the newbie. I was soaking-in their expertise and rookie-reveling in their praise.
I was thirsty. I wanted more. For some unknown reason, I wasn't getting this praise and interest at home from the fam. I found that confusing.
T-man had a little friend who spent quite a bit of time at our house. Blake Livingood; we called him Blakey. He was like having another child, but one who was very polite, obedient, and respectful of his parents. “Tad, why don't you call Blakey and see if he can come over?” Those were cherished times. He and T are friends for life, surviving the natural separation in middle and high school, when Tad went out for basketball and Blake went out for wrestling. I miss little Blakey like I miss my own little children. Offspring adulthood has its own rewards, but my memory sparkles with the gems of their childhoods.
One day, while I was quilting, Blakey observed what I was doing and actually asked me some questions about how to make a quilt. Have I emphasized firmly enough how much I loved that kid? Not only did he ask, he listened while I answered, touched the quilt, and before he and Tad ran off to play in the woods, he told me he thought it was a very nice quilt. This happened on more than one occasion. It may have only been twice, but Blake became my favorite child. He appreciated the skill my own family had taken for granted. He was my link to the cooing of the Northeast Iowa Quilt Guild that I needed at home. Eventually, I had a favor to ask of him.
“Blakey?”
“Yeah?”
“When you come over, would you always ask me about my quilting, please?”
Bashful and charming smile, a bit askance, yet attentive and abiding. “Yeah. Okay.”
“And, since you can see that I'm the best quiltmaker in the world, would you please mention that after I show you want I'm working on?”
Laugh. Oops! Aborted laugh. He could see how needy I was. “Uh-huh. Okay.”
“Thank you, Blakey.”
“It's okay, Kari.”
Sometimes you have to ask for what you need. It's as simple as knowing the right person to ask.
From then on, the door would slam and the boys would run through the house. Maybe they'd stop in the kitchen for a drink, or rush downstairs for Leggos or the computer. My Golden Boy never forgot.
“Hi, Blakey!”
“Hi, Kari! You're the best quiltmaker in the world!”
Thanks, Blakey. I love you, too!”
Now I'm a better judge of my own skills, and I don't look as far afield for acceptance of my designs -- I know if I like them or not. I'm not so hungry for praise, but am grateful for those who understand what I'm doing. There is one comment I still love to hear, even though it's rare these days. Blake, as an adult, remembers to ask me about my quilting, and he always remembers to say, “Kari, you are the best quiltmaker in the world!”
Copyright © July 2005 Kari E.O. Burns
Karen and I Plan to Die on Tuesday
So my spelling is a little off – this is my way of taking a really boring-sounding activity and giving it a little panache. Karen Fitton and I had planned to dye fabric on Tuesday. Nyuk, nyuk. There are those of you who are thready enough to see through my deliberate spelling ruse, and knew what I meant to begin with. I am training myself to say “dye fabric” instead of just “dye”.
When Karen and I decided to start dyeing together, we would plan our dye dates and get all gleeful about dyeing. It never occurred to either of us that when this was overheard at Magpie Coffeehouse, concern for public safety became imminent. Little did they know that if they sent the white coats, we'd most likely divest them of their attire, throw those coats in a vat, and stir them with a stick. Only the presence of polyester would save them from being re-named “the men in the blue wisteria coats”.
This is the summer of color love. We are experimenting and playing, and dreaming of other ways to create quilts – nurturing various cottons into a palette of usable yardages. Karen is the art quilter who wants her quilts to be perform a sort of functional service. I'm the functional quilter, who wants to add art to the quilts we use. I love what she comes up with, but want to spend my time making something dimensional and snuggly. She appreciates my parameters, but is drawn to more sculptural and multi-media presentations. It is a good match for both of us. We call ourselves “free range quilters”, and now we are working with our “free range fibers”.
So far we've been playing with dye recipes and low immersion dyeing. Karen, the biology major, is an egghead about measuring and mixing, and writing down recipes in rubber-gloved penmanship. I tell myself right now that I'm only interested in having scads of one-of-a-kind colors, the result of random mixing. Good thing I have Karen. I produced one really luscious neutral a few weeks ago that I want more of, but my plan afforded me one fat quarter and no recipe.
I hope we try vat dyeing next week. Not only is it a less labor-intensive way to accumulate yardage, it will give us the time to explore gradations, and the tinting and shading of color families. I can see a blue day, a purple day, a neutral day, and so forth. I gear up in learning mode almost as much as I do in design mode. The only problem with the whole subject, as far as I can tell, is that it makes really, really boring fodder for my Saturday posts. So, to zip it up a little this week, I'll tell you briefly about my adventures with The Dot.
She called Tuesday morning to check on my shoulder's availability. She wanted to know if she could use it to lean on and grow through her new status as "evicted tenant". The approach she used was interesting.
“Mom, I'm in big trouble. Really Big Trouble.”
I'm thinking, drug muling? Vehicular homicide? Pregnancy? I come from the tail end of the era when unwed pregnancy was called “being in trouble”, so that's why that one ran through my mind.
“Ohmygosh. What happened?” I didn't want to hear the answer, simultaneously wanting her to get to the point faster.
“I got evicted.”
Oh, that. I was pretty sure I could deal with that one. “Why?”
“Cats.”
“Uh, cats?”
“We aren't supposed to have them here, and I was keeping them for someone. I thought it would be okay, since everyone else in this building has cats. The eviction notice said I have three days to get out, and when I called them, they said they're going to sue me for another year's rent. I just want to talk to you so I'll feel better.”
“Well, Bobo, (we've called her Bobo since she was four, when one-year-old Tad pronounced her name that way) you're talking to the wrong parent. I'd suggest you go to the one with the law degree. He can give you the skinny on what to do in this situation, which will probably make you feel better than anything I have to say.”
After a chat with Hubba, she called me back with the news that she no longer needed my shoulder, but was wondering if she could borrow my back for a day or so -- she was thick with moving plans. Hubba had the legals well-in-hand, and The Dot had already lined up a living situation to see her through July, plenty of time to go about finding a new place for herself and her stuff come August 1st. Remarkably, everything seemed manageable, considering the suddenness of the predicament.
Tad met us at her apartment on Thursday, and it only took a few hours to sort her stuff into piles of boxes designated for various destinations. I had to marvel at her common sense when it comes to accumulating lots of junk. She is returning to the student life, as she plans to study film in graduate school, and is excellent at keeping her possessions to a minimum. It only took a few trips to the storage bin to clear her things out of the apartment. I could write a whole post about how great Tad was, joking and funning. He was unfazed when it came to lifting boxes into the van at the apartment, and out of the van at the storage bin. We were sorry to see him leave for his paying job late in the afternoon.
By then, The Dot was ready to run a couple of errands to return borrowed items, and had enlisted the help of a few muscled buddies to augment her own brute strength. They quickly emptied the place of her furniture. By nine o'clock that evening, we were done moving, it was the end of the month, and the future looked a lot brighter than the past few days would have predicted.
Karen and I plan to dye on Tuesday, and maybe Thursday, of next week. This time I'll pay better attention to Karen's rubber-gloved and masked work in the luh-BORE-uh-tory. After dealing with the picayune crisis of this week, it sounds invitingly boring to me. And, in the end we have fabric! Why did I ever doubt myself?
Copyright © July 2005 Kari E.O. Burns
When Karen and I decided to start dyeing together, we would plan our dye dates and get all gleeful about dyeing. It never occurred to either of us that when this was overheard at Magpie Coffeehouse, concern for public safety became imminent. Little did they know that if they sent the white coats, we'd most likely divest them of their attire, throw those coats in a vat, and stir them with a stick. Only the presence of polyester would save them from being re-named “the men in the blue wisteria coats”.
This is the summer of color love. We are experimenting and playing, and dreaming of other ways to create quilts – nurturing various cottons into a palette of usable yardages. Karen is the art quilter who wants her quilts to be perform a sort of functional service. I'm the functional quilter, who wants to add art to the quilts we use. I love what she comes up with, but want to spend my time making something dimensional and snuggly. She appreciates my parameters, but is drawn to more sculptural and multi-media presentations. It is a good match for both of us. We call ourselves “free range quilters”, and now we are working with our “free range fibers”.
So far we've been playing with dye recipes and low immersion dyeing. Karen, the biology major, is an egghead about measuring and mixing, and writing down recipes in rubber-gloved penmanship. I tell myself right now that I'm only interested in having scads of one-of-a-kind colors, the result of random mixing. Good thing I have Karen. I produced one really luscious neutral a few weeks ago that I want more of, but my plan afforded me one fat quarter and no recipe.
I hope we try vat dyeing next week. Not only is it a less labor-intensive way to accumulate yardage, it will give us the time to explore gradations, and the tinting and shading of color families. I can see a blue day, a purple day, a neutral day, and so forth. I gear up in learning mode almost as much as I do in design mode. The only problem with the whole subject, as far as I can tell, is that it makes really, really boring fodder for my Saturday posts. So, to zip it up a little this week, I'll tell you briefly about my adventures with The Dot.
She called Tuesday morning to check on my shoulder's availability. She wanted to know if she could use it to lean on and grow through her new status as "evicted tenant". The approach she used was interesting.
“Mom, I'm in big trouble. Really Big Trouble.”
I'm thinking, drug muling? Vehicular homicide? Pregnancy? I come from the tail end of the era when unwed pregnancy was called “being in trouble”, so that's why that one ran through my mind.
“Ohmygosh. What happened?” I didn't want to hear the answer, simultaneously wanting her to get to the point faster.
“I got evicted.”
Oh, that. I was pretty sure I could deal with that one. “Why?”
“Cats.”
“Uh, cats?”
“We aren't supposed to have them here, and I was keeping them for someone. I thought it would be okay, since everyone else in this building has cats. The eviction notice said I have three days to get out, and when I called them, they said they're going to sue me for another year's rent. I just want to talk to you so I'll feel better.”
“Well, Bobo, (we've called her Bobo since she was four, when one-year-old Tad pronounced her name that way) you're talking to the wrong parent. I'd suggest you go to the one with the law degree. He can give you the skinny on what to do in this situation, which will probably make you feel better than anything I have to say.”
After a chat with Hubba, she called me back with the news that she no longer needed my shoulder, but was wondering if she could borrow my back for a day or so -- she was thick with moving plans. Hubba had the legals well-in-hand, and The Dot had already lined up a living situation to see her through July, plenty of time to go about finding a new place for herself and her stuff come August 1st. Remarkably, everything seemed manageable, considering the suddenness of the predicament.
Tad met us at her apartment on Thursday, and it only took a few hours to sort her stuff into piles of boxes designated for various destinations. I had to marvel at her common sense when it comes to accumulating lots of junk. She is returning to the student life, as she plans to study film in graduate school, and is excellent at keeping her possessions to a minimum. It only took a few trips to the storage bin to clear her things out of the apartment. I could write a whole post about how great Tad was, joking and funning. He was unfazed when it came to lifting boxes into the van at the apartment, and out of the van at the storage bin. We were sorry to see him leave for his paying job late in the afternoon.
By then, The Dot was ready to run a couple of errands to return borrowed items, and had enlisted the help of a few muscled buddies to augment her own brute strength. They quickly emptied the place of her furniture. By nine o'clock that evening, we were done moving, it was the end of the month, and the future looked a lot brighter than the past few days would have predicted.
Karen and I plan to dye on Tuesday, and maybe Thursday, of next week. This time I'll pay better attention to Karen's rubber-gloved and masked work in the luh-BORE-uh-tory. After dealing with the picayune crisis of this week, it sounds invitingly boring to me. And, in the end we have fabric! Why did I ever doubt myself?
Copyright © July 2005 Kari E.O. Burns
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