Hello Charlie!

Just got back from the Big Apple to greet my grandson who decided the world was ready for him.

He is healthy and strong and his parents are taking wonderful care of him. 

He is the most beautiful baby, ever born.

 Quilting has been on hold - I've had much better things to do.

Happy Quilting, Penny, Evelyn and Pearl

A Quilter's Legacy

We are under a winter storm watch and expecting a significant blizzard starting, tonight.  They are predicting that it could rival our 2009 Christmas Eve blizzard but more than likely it won't be quite that bad.  During the 2009 Christmas Eve blizzard, Oklahoma City officially got 14 inches but we only got  7 - 8 inches at the house.  The city area forecast, this time, is 8 - 12 inches and it will be much, much colder.   The 2009 blizzard looked like this at our house:

Travel is expected to pretty much be shut down by about six o'clock in the morning but we aren't planning to go anywhere, anyway.  I've got a beef stew cooking in the crockpot and we have left overs from family who came by, yesterday.  Filet Mignon and grilled salmon - not too shabby.  Combine that with a roaring fire, good wine, better companions (including the girls), and being snowed in doesn't sound half bad. 

Here are Pearl and Evelyn looking out my sewing room window at a bunny that is mocking them because it knows they can't get out:

Don't look at the dirty window.   Been meaning to clean it.  Sometime next spring:

Happily, at this point they think it will be more snow event than an ice one so power outages are less likely.  All the same, we'll be hauling the generator over from the barn to have ready, just in case.  This storm is bringing in single digit temperatures with very high winds so the windchill is going to make it very miserable, outside.  Moreover, the low temperatures will last a few days which means the snow may stick around longer than we'd like (although we had a high of 75 on Friday, we are only expecting a high of 15 on Tuesday and 14 on Wednesday!).  No one likes this kind of storm due to the risk to life and limb but I am ecstatic that we'll be getting some significant moisture.  We really need to break the drought.  I want my new trees to be okay:

Hope Grandson schedules his arrival around my schedule - although I suspect his mama would just as soon he show up sooner rather than later.  He isn't officially due for another two weeks so odds are it will all work out splendidly.

I want you to take a look at the following photos of two quilt tops.

No. 1:

 No. 2:

No, I didn't make them but aren't they fantastic?  The quilter who did them had an incredible sense of color and a bold sense of design, I'd say.  The backs are just about perfect:

When I first looked at them, they were in a bin with large matching fabric remnants, perfectly pressed and not a dog hair on them.  You don't see that much around here: 

 So tidy and neat:

I love and admire the color choices and the bold border:

They were so beautifully done that I took a ton of photos:

 I'm just in love with this one:

 

So, you ask, if I didn't make them, who did?  No, it wasn't some thirty-something trendy quilter from NYC.  It wasn't a young Amish woman from Pennsylvania.  It wasn't a modern artist-gone-quilter or anything like that.  These were done by a quilter who passed away a couple of years ago.  The quilter's  mid-fifty year old SON gave several bins of fabric to my brother-in-law's wife to pass on to me and these quilt tops were included in the fabric bins.  MID FIFTIES YEAR OLD SON.   That means the quilter who made these had to be in HIS late seventies or eighties, at least.  Yes, it was an old man.  How fantastic is that?   

This man had clearly been quilting for a long time - you could see it in the workmanship, his choice in quality fabric, the sensible way he arranged his stash and the age of his thread:

But more than that, the competency he had in his stitches, his love of color (and excellent eye, I might add - I have more of his fabric arranged by group and his color sense is spot on), along with his bold, modern designs scream self confidence, experience and maturity as a quilt artist.  Not only that, but the dang quilt tops are perfectly squared.  The man even had made bindings already pressed and carefully folded in anticipation of use!

I'm dying here. 

Look at this little bit of his stash/orphan blocks:

He is just so...well... MODERN!  He isn't a bit afraid to mix and match stripes and dots and his choices just, well, they just WORK.  His quilts could be featured in a quilting magazine you'd pick right off the shelf, today.  He had some synthetics in his stash but set aside, as if he used them for something else.  He stuck to good quality 100% cotton in his quilting stash, the tops and a few orphan blocks I found.  He'd also set back some backing fabric (designed to contrast with solid colored tops), all carefully marked "six yards." The backings were perfect color matches/contrasts for the geometric, solid colored tops:

The man knows what he likes.

 You can tell - the man loved color and he loved to make it POP:

Let me interject that it really doesn't matter that the quilter was a man rather than a woman.  It is just that there are so fewer men and women quilters at his age and it is clear he'd been doing it for awhile. 

Wonder if his wife sewed?  Wonder if he was a tailor?  Wonder who taught him?  I have so many questions.

Sister-in-law wasn't sure the son even realized the quilt tops were included in the fabric bins and she asked me if I could quilt them, which I am honored to do.  She wants to give them back to the family, which seems appropriate.  As gorgeous as his work is, and as experienced as he clearly was, I suspect there are other quilts he has made that the family already has.  All the same, these are too wonderful of treasures to not stay with the family.  Once quilted, they are going to look stunning. 

If I don't screw 'em up, anyway.  I am about to go order some black thread for the longarm. 

But it is hard, I tell you.  I am tempted to make replicas for myself because I am completely in lust with these quilt tops. 

I would have loved to have met this man and learned at his feet.  And it doesn't matter than he was a man and not a woman - this person was a master quilter.  Presumably, his children didn't follow in his footsteps - otherwise, the fabric and tops wouldn't have escaped, even temporarily. 

Happy Quilting, Penny, Evelyn and Pearl

Tree Planting Season

We're in a drought and need rain but it is still a good season to plant/transplant trees.  Yesterday, we had four Caddo Maples delivered.   The guys planted two on either side of the driveway, one in the backyard and one in the pasture by the barn.  It is a father/son business and I was tickled to see the young man, unrequested, take excess dirt from the backyard tree and fill in holes the dogs had dug.   He didn't just toss it in, either.  He carefully patted it down, jumped up and down on top, and placed Bermuda springs on top.  He did the same thing in bare spots under the existing trees in the front yard. 

Before the trees arrived, I was a little worried that the girls would eat them but husband just looked at me and said, "Honey, don't worry.  These are TREES - not seedlings."  Once I saw them, it sunk in.  The new trees have 2.75 inch trunks and are about 12 feet tall.

Caddo Maples are hardy, drought resistant hard maples that are native to Oklahoma and have lovely foliage in the fall. Caddo county, a county west of us, is where they originally morphed. Husband planted a few from seed that did very well at the house he lived in Oklahoma City, years ago, but last year we had too much going to to devote much time to tree planting. Also, it isn't like we are going to live forever so if we want to enjoy them, we figure we'd get a jump start on growth.

Here is a cite with photos of mature trees.

The girls came out to supervise from time to time but mainly took naps and watched out the window, oddly enough, by choice.

Two of the Caddos were planted on either side of the driveway.   This is the one on the north side looking to the SW:

The largest/heaviest was planted in the backyard.  I worry that it will eventually block my view of the barn but we wanted one in the yard and this is the best place: 

This is an alternative photo of the backyard Caddo looking SE towards the barn:

Here is the backyard tree with Pearl pitching a fit because I wanted her to sit beneath it to show the size.  You'd think I was killing her:

Such a pretty girl.  You can see the Caddo we planted in the pasture behind her if you squint - it is at the edge of the barn:

 Such a spoiled girl:

 Such a mad little girl when I insisted she stop and sit while I took a picture:

 Another view of the north driveway tree:

 The girls wandering down the driveway:

 The tree on the south side of the driveway looking to the SE:

 We put a tree in the pasture next to the barn.  As you drive down the driveway, you look right at it:

Tree in the backyard:

Alternate photo of the pasture Caddo out by the barn:

We bought these through a landscaping company that has access to a commercial tree growing company so were able to get healthy, robust, non picked over trees cultivated from seed.    Caddos are moderate growers and depending on who you believe, should end up being about 40 - 60 foot tall.  We won't live to see them reach their full height but with any luck, we should be able to enjoy them as mature trees for a few years.  

We were so pleased with how healthy they are that we are considering ordering a few more.  We already have two Post Oaks, a Bald Cypress, lots of Cedars, Bradford Pears (that surely won't live much longer), a couple of gnarly pines and some really, really, really ugly Elms.   REALLY ugly.

As much as I hate removing trees, a few days ago, we took out a disgusting Silver Maple and a sickly Redbud from the front yard.   One of the Caddos took the place of the Redbud.  

As I am writing this, it occurs to me I haven't seen the girls in awhile.  They're outside.  I should go check on them.

On the south side of the yard, in front of the barn, we have a number of Native Pecan babies that may or may not make it.  We ordered them from the forestry service, last year, and heeled them in until they were about a foot tall.  In the backyard, we also have a couple of baby Willow Oaks that we brought back from Virginia.  I love Willow Oaks but don't have high hopes that these will survive the Oklahoma droughts and hot summers.  Moreover, the one that looked the most promising ended up half eaten by Pearl last summer and we aren't sure it will recover or be worth saving.  When she showed up with a stick in her mouth in that great prairie of a backyard, my heart sunk.  Yup, it was the top half of my best beloved baby Willow Oak.  She looked so proud of herself that I just sighed.  Fortunately, she isn't bad about that sort of thing as a rule.   The landscapers said the baby Willow Oaks still looked pretty healthy (if now ill formed) so I'll be hauling water buckets all over the place for the next few weeks until the spring rains arrive.

I am not one who particularly likes the look of a yard that is filled with a wide variety of specimen trees.  I think it starts looking strange and unnatural so when we get more trees, I wouldn't be adverse to getting more Caddos if we can get more healthy ones.   Any trees we get we want to be native to Oklahoma to increase the likelihood of their survival and, well, just because. 

As dry as things get in Oklahoma, we actually have a drainage problem around the house and need to do some work to divert what rain we get around from the front and north side to the pasture.  So once we get that in place, we'll consider where to put the next tree.   Until that work is done, we don't want to risk planting a new tree right in the way. 

I have my bag packed in case I get a call that grandson is on the way.  Getting pretty excited about that and sure hope he decides to pick a time when NYC isn't covered up with a snowstorm.  They've had a string of tough winters.  As for us, it is sunny and mid sixties, today, and sunny and 70 degrees expected for tomorrow.  I love Oklahoma. 

Aw crap!  The girls just came in with dirty feet.  Ran out to check and they have half dug up the new Caddo in the backyard!!  The burlap around the ball is all exposed.  I stood there horrified and cussing while husband just laughed. 

That man is going to live longer than I do.  While I am dead in the grave from a stroke, he is going to be drinking beer, puffing on cigarettes (I am sure he will take back up the habit before I am in my grave - he's just been waiting for the opportunity) and enjoying our Caddos from the back porch.  Probably with a couple of dogs nearby to keep him company. 
Happy Quilting, Penny, Evelyn and Pearl