nqr--not quilting related

Our family is saddened by the death yesterday of my mother-in-law, Ruth.  She had just turned 94.  This picture was taken at Brita and Ben's wedding with her (favorite!?) son--

She was a fun and busy lady, hardly slowing down a bit.  Last summer she decided it was time to move out of her big house and into a senior-living apartment.  Turned out she really liked her new place, which was great.  The only drawback that I could see was that she said she could no longer make her good cinnamon bread in her little kitchen.  I thought that was almost reason enough to move her back to her house!

She raised 9 (yes, nine!) wonderful kids on the farm, keeping up a great big garden and keeping track of all of those kiddos.  Lots of 4-H projects and animals, sports, FFA, and the church was a big part of the life of the family.  From the first time that I met her when Bob and I started dating, I was always impressed by her energy and vigor.

Below is a picture of her with a few of her grandkids and great-grands.  She earned the name "Mini Grandma" when it became evident that she was shrinking as they were all growing!  She kept track of them all, no matter where their lives took them.  And they all remember her admonishment--"Remember you're a Hansen!"  Just to keep them grounded and a reminder of the importance of family ties.

She had recently had some concerns with her health, and just last week needed a tune-up for her cardiac status.  She had long ago made it clear in her healthcare directives that she did not want to live with limitations, so when she had a major stroke while in the hospital last Thursday, her sons and daughters understood what she meant when she said she was "ready to go home to Heaven".  And so the end of an era passes through our lives, with many good lessons and memories to hold onto.  We love you and miss you, Mom.

2 more oldies

Sharing a few more of the old-time quilts that I have hanging around here. I just had a thought about the way I amshowing these in contrast to the lives of the women who made them. This would be so strange to them, since some of them were not living at the time of the development of home computersand this world wide web stuff. My mother being the exception, and she is one of my readers and knows her way around the keyboard. In fact, we were just talking on the phone about getting her a new computer since hers is so slow that she sews while waiting for things to load! But for women of my grandmothers' era and great-grandmothers, do you think they would be pleased? Surprised? I bet they would wonder what all the fuss is about for these simple quilts that they made out of whatever was on hand. Like this crazy quilt, which I think came from my Grandma Herbert's home and was maybe made by her mom?

It is a mixture of fabrics, a few of them disintegrating.

Some unusual shapes and sizes thrown in the blocks, mostly wools but some other things including velvet. All outlined in a feather stitch by hand.

I think that my Grandma Irvine made this little doll quilt. The squares are about 1 1/2".

A simple pattern of repeating colors across the diagonal. But what really caught my eye was the

use of a couple other shades of a color when needed:

And the little orange square with a seam running across it to put together enough fabric for the size needed.

I think we worry way too much about matching colors perfectly and cutting perfectly and sewing perfectly. The imperfection of this doll quilt makes it no less loveable, and I'm sure it made not one whit of difference to the little girls and their dolls. I need to remember that.

We had such a fun BBQ at Molly's house last night, even more fun because we had some out-of-town family there, too. By a serendipitous turn of events, we got to see Jarry, Mary and Spencer (my brother, sister-in-law and nephew) in the city from the North Shore and northern Iowa. The cousins paused for a picture--

And Kevin, father of son-in-law, Ben, was visiting from Big Sur, so we got to share in his introduction to everything you ever wanted to know about Minnesota but were afraid to ask.

Even though we were smiling in this picture, the 3 of us on the left were covering up our sadness over being defeated by our offspring in a best out of 3 Backyard Tip Cup tournament! Yes, there was alcohol involved. Spencer expressed shock and awe over competing against his parents and aunt and uncle in such a special game! The competition was close, and I know the only way those younguns won was because we taught them everything we know! Ahh, the glory days of summer!

well aged

I have been unearthing many things with my closet excavation. Some things I had forgotten about, some things that need to go to a new home, some things I had been looking for. Like this good old gem of a quilt:

It was made by my Grandma Irvine for me, I think around the time of my HS graduation (1971). It is all hand-pieced and hand-quilted, and I did really appreciate it and it is very well used. I had it on my dorm bed in Brookings, and it hung on the wall in an apartment in Crystal. It was much brighter then. A few blocks are very tattered.

My Grandma Irvine, (Mormor in Swedish, denoting mother's mother) was a wonderful woman. I don't remember ever seeing her angry or upset. She kept butterscotch oatmeal cookies in a coffee can and she let us eat them for breakfast when we stayed overnight. She read stories to us from the Little Golden books, and I remember the 3 Little Kittens and Tuffy the Tugboat. She had one of those upside-down cloth dolls that you could flip from one doll to the other by reversing the skirt. She collected salt and pepper shakers, and my favorite was the little cup of coffee and pie on a plate, which I got to keep. She always did embroidery, quilting, crochet, etc., and let us learn how to make things with her. You can see another example of her handwork on my sister's blog. And root beer floats were the special treat when staying overnight! Her name was Nora, and the name lives on with my niece, Nora. She was a special grandma, I wish everyone could have a grandma like her, I think the world would be a better place!

On to quilt #2, which I do not know the history of. It is even more faded, looks like it is made of various shirtings with pink fabric in the pinwheels.

It, too, was entirely made by hand. There are even seams in some of the white blocks to put enough fabric together. I guess this must have been made by someone in my family, but we do not know the name nor time period. This should make me more diligent in putting labels on the backs of the quilts I make! I would love to know the story behind this, but even though I don't, it is still a treasure to me.