Quilted android protector

 

I made up this quilted envelope-style case for my smart phone, to add a little extra protection in my purse. It's envelope-style so it's easy to get it in and out. I used a piece of fabric from a give-away scrap table. Look at all the foreign postage stamps on it, and they are images of real stamps - dinosaurs from my generation.

~Andrea

SWITZERLAND!

We're off to Kandersteg, Switzerland to ski with friends!

~Andrea

(P.S. This photo was taken in the Method Valley, in Washington state, where we skied a year ago.)

Foundation Firm

Foundation Firm

My daughter, Molly, has a birthday today. One week ago, Nash, her husband, had his birthday. They live in the Bay area. I made them this wall-hanging and called it Foundation Firm. The bluish-greenish background is a beautiful piece of hand-dyed cotton made by a local Minnesota fabric dyer. The colors suggest the sky at sunrise behind a lovely cool forest. The center scrap depicts an old-world neighborhood, perhaps in Italy, set upon a hill. The whitish rectangular fabric underneath the neighborhood has a black, indecipherable, antique-looking script that appears to be written with a fountain pen. I think of it as bedrock. Underneath that, running above the bottom border, I placed a hand-dyed pink/lilac fabric with hints of warm orange and gold, which I imagine to be a subterranean river.

Foundation Firm is a double-entendre: a firm foundation is necessary for a marriage (good old-fashioned communication, with the text of the antique script known just to the two.) A firm foundation is also necessary for a house (solid bedrock.) The word bedrock is made up of "rock" and "bed."  Underneath the bedrock, the flowing river sustains and restores and, over time, water smoothes rough edges.

When pondering on a name, I thought of the old hymn, How Firm a Foundation. The piecing was pure stream-of-consciousness, the pieces slightly irregular in shape and placed slightly askew, like a dream. I machine-quilted the layers with a walking foot using metallic and variegated threads. I am very happy with how it turned out.

~Andrea

Happy New Year

Happy New Year, and may 2014 bring you many good things. As I write I realize there will be sadness and difficult times too. Like in a quilt, where we use the "ugly" and "muddy" and "maverick" scraps of fabric along with the pretty ones to enhance the play of color and movement, so too in life.

I made this little piece before the snow started falling. I picked a grape vine leaf and traced it on a piece of goldish-green batik fabric. I drew some veins on the fabric leaf with a ballpoint pen and machine-stitched some of the veins with metallic gold thread. The deep purple fabric behind the fabric leaf is a monochromatic print with cranes in flight, the lines of the cranes echoing the shape of the grape leaf. The stripes are Kaffe Fassett and the solids are his shot cottons. I hand stitched with perle cotton to finish the square. It was serendipity that the stripe in the bias binding matched up perfectly at both ends. I was going to mail this piece to the quilt museum in San Jose for a food-theme exhibit, but once I finished it I couldn't part with it. Grape leaves are special in my heritage. I learned how to pick and stuff grape leaves from my Armenian grandfather.

This is my mother, only child of my Armenian grandfather and my Norwegian grandmother. She is very resilient and grows more beautiful with each year. We'll celebrate her 90th birthday on Saturday. The photo was taken at a Christmas tea in December.

My mother has had ovarian cancer for over 6 years.  She is currently undergoing chemotherapy every three weeks. This photo was taken around Thanksgiving at one of her treatments:

She has stayed very engaged with the world. My sister and I were her guests at the recent St. Paul AAUW's Christmas tea:

For a good part of 2013, I had a foot problem following bunion surgery and my mobility was limited. I whined. At the same time, my 89 year old mother was taking group tap-dance lessons.

This is a postcard I whipped up. There are three eggs (clustered knots of silver metallic thread) in the bird nest below the cluster of purple grapes. Eggs are a good symbol for the new year.

Wishing you a blessed 2014!
Andrea

Welcome friends

To friends far and wide

and those on-line,

 come sit at our table awhile

and dine.

                

               We miss those who are distant

                     and hold them dear.

                  Traditions warm us

               and keep bygone near.

                Our house is clean
                      and decorated too.

             We exchange simple gifts, 
               some old, some new. 

                  As festivities end, 
            may you find peace and rest

            and through the New Year, 
         may you be blessed. 

                                                                              Warmly,
      ~Andrea
          in *snowy* Minnesota*
                                *      **              
                      *

Tea and a peaceful moment

          

won't you have a cup of tea?
   wherever you may be
      pour a cup
         sit down
            take a sip
               close your eyes
                  feel the peace of 
this very moment
    now (breath)
 and now (breath) 
        and now   

                             
won't you rest a bit from the holiday din?
   wherever you are now
      in warm sun
        or winter snow
          deep blessings
            may you know
              and the beauty of 
this very moment 
   now (breath) 
and now (breath) 
       and now....


                     

Teapot and cups: Made for a friend and relative, Grete, in Norway.
Star quilt: Made for Mennonite auction for charity. Custom long-arm quilting by Marie Johnson. Won third place in Christmas category, Minnesota State Fair.

~Andrea
                                                                    
           

Gyda in Norway

                         
                     A wall-hanging I made in 2012. "Det var så koselig."

I got news this morning that a person very dear to me died, Gyda, my 98 year old Norwegian relative in Norway. I last talked to Gyda on Monday, when her son called from her bedside in Oslo and handed her his mobile phone. This morning I had a text from him that she passed away yesterday.

Gyda was enormously important to me, like another mother. A year ago I finished the wall-hanging "Det var så koselig" which means something like "it was so cozy." That was one of Gyda's typical expressions. I embroidered Norwegian words in the dotted fabric around the scrappy center. The wallhanging is 36 inches by 40 inches and was made for a Minnesota Contemporary Quilters' challenge called "Abode."

Below, Gyda and me in 2010, near Sandefjord, Norway.

Thank you Gyda, for many cherished moments together and many letters.

~~Andrea