Squished Pineapple - two wedding quilts

This quilt was made for Cody and Becky's wedding around in November of 1996ish. The pattern is not mine, but the way I pieced it was my own invention. It is done with strip piecing -- not paper piecing -- and the use of one template in the center following by a series of cuts done with a square ruler.

I made another one for Andy and Kelly's wedding. Theirs was burgandy and green.

I would so love to make it again; however, it takes 9 yards of just the background fabric -- around 18 yards total. It would cost $170 just to make the top at today's prices.

Grandpa Winkler's Quilt

Mom and I co-designed this quilt together to give to Grandpa for his 80th birthday party. I helped design it and did a little work on it, but it was pretty much from Mom.

I also wanted to mention that we designed it, but many elements in the blocks were taken from other people's patterns while many also were not.

The party was a huge success. ViKi arranged for Grandpa and all his children to go in a hot air balloon together. My said it was a way cool experience. Apparently it is something Grandpa always wanted to do.

I also wanted to mention that were were probably 200 people who came to the reception in his honor that evening. It was an incredible gathering of friends and family like you would not believe!

The quilt commemorates the wonderful life he has lived. It was a joy to spend time with Mom thinking up ideas about his life to depict in the quilt.

The temple represents the religious, devoted side of Grandpa. It also serves as a reminder that he and Grandma Josie were sealed there along with their children. Loretta Nielsen, a great friend, allowed me to use her Bernina embroidery machine to do it.

This block represents Grandpa's pride for his naval ship, the U.S.S. Enterprise. The photo is actually of him as a young man (17-18) standing ashore looking out at his ship. The U.S.S. Enterprise was an aircraft carrier and one of the only one in the fleet that was not at Pearl Harbor when it was bombed in World War II. Grandpa was on that ship in the Pacific at the time, but we are so blessed that the Lord made sure he was on the right ship.

Grandpa traveled to many places in the world on this ship including the Panama Canal. He said there were literally inches on each side as it passed through.

Mom did all the hand applique work (the holes) on this block while I did the photocopy onto fabric. It reminds me of the holes on the sides of a battleship.

Mom wanted to depict Grandpa's collections. He had many clocks, pocket knives, unique or old bottle openers (not on the block), and old cars. He even has a nice collection of guns.

I remember appliqueing the car, but I think Mom did the rest of this block.

The boot and sewing machine remind me that he was a boot repairman in his earlier days. He still has an old leather sewing machine and an entire room upstairs for this hobby.

Mom made this block.

This block was in the very center of the quilt. It looks like Bear Lake where Grandma and Grandpa spend a lot of summer time with their family. Loretta again loaned me her machine to do the embroidered tree. Deb Walker, a wonderful family friend, painted/drew the picture of him.

I believe I appliqued the lake and mountains while Mom appliqued Grandpa on it.

Grandpa is an outdoorsman. He loves to fish and hunt. I have very early memories of him fishing at strawberry reservoir (Great Grandma and Grandpa Winkler were even there) and Pelican Lake on a fishing boat. I also know that my dad could tell many hunting story experiences he has had with grandpa - partically ones in Colorado. I recall one time that Dad said he was with Grandpa when they tipped a trailer over full of horses. All the horses came out alright inspite of the fact that they were piled on top of each other.

Mom pieced this block which is interesting because the fish is paper-pieced and she really hates to do that.

Grandpa and Grandma love to travel the world and they truly have. He has traveled by boat (navy), airplane, car, and motorhome.

Mom made this block except for the motorhome which is machine embroidered.
Mom also appliqued and designed this. Grandpa was a coal miner when he was first married to LaRue, Mom's mom. They actually lived up Spring Canyon just above Helper when Mom was born. He was buried in a mining accident and broke his legs. He pretty much had to learn to walk all over again.
Grandpa retired from Thiokol a few years back. It is so neat that he was born and raised in the basin (bluebell area) and went to school on a wagon pulled by a team of horses. He later worked for a company that sent men to the moon. There were so many technological advances during his lifetime.

I want to conclude this post with some other thoughts and memories of Grandpa. ViKi put a couple of books together for his 80th birthday party. One was a geneology of all of his children with photos and personal histories. The other was just memories that we all have of Grandpa. What interested me the most about the memories is that EVERY PERSON seemed to feel that they were Grandpa's special favorite. He truly makes everyone feel that they are extra special to him, and he has an extremely large family.

Grandpa and Grandma took me on several trips when I was young. They took our family to Disneyland while I was in about 6th grade. I went back there with him twice more while I lived in college, and they even helped me pay for a good chunk of my expenses on the trip.

I lived with Grandma and Grandpa for a short time while I was going to college. It was shortly after one of his heart-attacks, and Grandma was still working at Thiokol so I felt like they needed someone who could be with him more during the day. There was a lot of family close by to help, but I wanted to be right there with him. While I lived there he taught me many things and told me many stories about his life. I recall him showing me his recipe book which said when making sour dough starter, to leave it out until it smelled like the inside of a dead, black cat. He also told me about a man named Hosey Lisenbee. I laughed so hard at just the name. Anyway, Hosey was a sheep herder with Grandpa and after they finished eating their evening meal on the trail, Hosey took his socks off and used one of them to wash the dishes. I gagged and laughed. Grandpa swears it's a true story but I just don't know.

Grandpa had another heart attack after Jim and I were married. I was pregnant with Jessi, actually. While visiting with him at Logan Hospital, he and Grandma, and Dana and ViKi insisted that Jim and I take Grandma and Grandpa's red-eye tickets to Vegas for the weekend. They were non-refundable and figured someone else might as well go enjoy themselves. Dana even watched Jolynn for us while we were gone. We were picked up in Vegas at the airport by Keith, Grandpa's brother, who was on a mission down there. We stayed with Great Grandma Winkler in her little mobile trailer in a trailer court. We didn't have a car, but we figured out the bus system and made our way around Vegas.

A couple years ago Grandpa was supposed to have surgery for an anurism he had developed. They decided he was too old and wouldn't survive the surgery so they sent him home. A couple months later he developed the signs that indicated his anurism was about to burst. They were forced to life-flight him to SLC for emergency surgery. He got his anurism fixed and is still doing well.

A year ago I rushed to SLC again to see him after he'd had a stroke. He was discharged from the hospital before I arrived, but I had an enjoyable time in SLC with Jolynn at State Basketball and Marie.

3D Kaleidoscope - to Linda

This top was made in March or April of 2005 at a retreat in Park City. Theresa, Deb, and I went together and I designed and sewed this while we were there along with my Kaleidoscope (Bali Passion Mystery) quilt made from Batiks. The pattern itself was not my design, but the folded insert idea was. I peeled back the insert pieces and stitched them down as I quilted it.

I quilted it that year and gave it to Linda Johnson for our Christmas wallhanging swap.

Autumn and Americana Row Quilts

I think my favorite quilts are my row quilts that I designed several years ago. Here is the autumn one...

I have since designed a barn in place of the building. The barn is definitely favored among my quilt classes. I have also designed a row of corn and a picket fence combined with pumpkins for those who struggle making the apple tree blocks. They were really a crazy design anyway that should have been paper pieced. Perhaps someday I will redesign them.

and here is the Americana one. This Americana one "really" needs some more quilting put in the striped borders so that it will hang better. I was in a hurry to get it ready for a quilt class and just never went back and finished it -- naughty me.


I taught both of these quilts, each in a different year, at Annual Meeting for the Utah Quilt Guild. I have felt honored, also, that a local guild chapter has resurrected my patterns this year as they have been making a row a month.

There is also a spring row quilt in the collection; I'll look for a digital photo to post. I intended to someday make a winter one, but it is pretty much on the back burner.

Sliced Quilt Challenge

This was my section of Bev's underwater sliced quilt. You can read more about it by following this
sliced quilt link.

Italy Through Window Blinds

This is my ALQS3 quilt swap and my first attempt at an art quilt. My little quilt is done and I'm thrilled enough with it that I'll have to make myself one.

Title: Italy through window blinds

This little quilt is 16" x 16" and made almost entirely out of batiks and my own hand dyed and hand painted fabrics. It is my interpretation of a photograph I found and Ricky Tims "Convergence" ideas. I sampled drawings with both vertical and horizontal strips but fell in love with the horizontal ones because it adds so much height to the tall building. It gives me the feeling of being in a basement looking out a window through blinds. This quilt is almost entirely paper-pieced with strips sewn between the horizontal strips. I quilted stone shapes in the left building and a sun in the upper left corner -- its rays fill the sky across the quilt. A quilt sleeve is sewn onto the back for hanging.



Here are some close ups.

Hexagon Table Topper - Christmas

I completed this little table runner last week. It is the center of my Hexagon's in Rotation creation. I was supposed to teach this class at quilt guild about four years ago, but I got sick and my friends had to cover for me. They did bring me home a kit, though (I had cut all the kits for the class previously). Anyway, I just rediscovered the kit, sewed it up, quilted it, and WA-LA.

Curvy Flowers Add a Border RR

This is a fun one that a couple of you will recognize because you put one of the borders on it. This was an ADD-A-BORDER round robin that went around in 2005. I designed the center curvy flowers, Julie turned it on point, Deb and Loretta made the little pieced border out of leftover blocks, Mom made it UNSQUARE by adding the green vine to the top and bottom, I believe Marie or Becky Evans(set me straight) added the thin green border, Lorna (my wonderful mother-in-law)did the yo-yo leafy vine on pink border, the next green border was either Marie or Becky (the other one), Linda and Thereasa did the four patch squares on point border, Mariella did the purple border, and Pat and Karen made the final pieced border out of leftover blocks.


This is the back. I've been telling Marie that I piece all the leftover fabrics together for the back of my quilts to use them up. This one was overdone, but I didn't have to buy any fabric for the backing. I also generally put any leftover blocks on the back as you can see here.

This is a close up of the quilting.



This just shows the center up closer.

Both of my girls asked if they could have this one -- I guess it's popular in my house. I told them no because it was too special to me because all my quilt friends made it.

When I originally made the center, I made 3 or 4 of them intending to put them all into one quilt. I gave 1 or 2 (can't remember) to Mom. She made baby quilts out of them and hand quilted them. The other is on the back of my quilt.

Persian Star Magic

I am so excited to move things off the "UFO" list and onto the "Completed" list.






This is a Persian Star block from Cheryl Phillips pattern. We made these last year at Mom's (Easter). I did my own thing with the blocks by overlapping them in the middle and sewing half blocks to the bottom edge. I was trying to use up some fabric and some stack-n-wack blocks rather than buy fabric. It is irregular shaped because it will hang on the wall. I think it is fun!

Miniatures

I hate to show this quilt because it still needs the pieced flying geese border and quilted, but Marie wanted to see how I was putting my miniature quilts together.

I designed this as a mystery quilt for our family retreat every year. I had taken Kaye Evans "Cracker Jacks" class TWICE because I loved it so much and decided that the minis in a bag were so much fun. All of the pieces are cut by stacking fat quarters on top of each other and cutting through the layers. The pieces are then placed into carefully labeled sandwich baggies. When we got together at Mom's I wouldn't tell them what we were making, just to open up the bag labeled "braid" or whatever.

I got the border idea from a lovely quilt I viewed from the quilt show at Road to California, although it looks nothing like that quilt. The curves were easy and fun. If you double click you can see closer the border. It is little bitty flying geese. I've only got one side in the photo but another almost done. It takes awhile to paper piece those little geese.

Hexagons and Daisies

I call this one "Hexagons in Rotation". This is also a stack-n-wack but it is my design. It is all done with the Super60 ruler by Sara Nephew. This project was our first ever "Annual retreat at Mom's" in 2004. Deb Butler, Loretta Nielsen, Mom, Becky, and I were all there and all completed our tops except borders in a three day block. I finally put borders on and quilted mine in November of 2007. Mom's, Loretta's, and Becky's have been done for a few years now. Deb just bordered hers two weeks ago and left it at my house to quilt.

This is the second quilt I have made of this pattern. The first one isn't all the way quilted yet. Deb has made four of them that I recall and Loretta two. It is fun, easy, and fast.





Lacy Daisies is the name I gave this quilt. I designed and taught it at annual meeting in Ogden, Utah several years ago. I just got it back in November from a lady who displayed it in her store in Tremonton. The border displays one of my first trapunto pieces. There is quite a bit of hand embroidery work on this one. Mom made one too.