February Fun: Quilts and Crime

Minnesota is strutting her stuff: balmy days that thaw the snow and ice, followed by bitterly cold wind, freezing rain, and a snowstorm. I love the fragrance of soft snow slowly melting on a warm day, but I don’t love the rest of it. So, I’m making my plan for some February Fun.

walking dog in winter
During the bitter cold, I wear my Big Coat and dress Chester in his coat and boots.

Jolly Bar Bon Bons Quilt

This month the Fat Quarter Shop provided me with a pattern and fabric to make the Jolly Bar Bon Bons quilt. Several other bloggers are also making this quilt, and we’ll hopefully reveal our fun finishes on Friday, February 22. (It’s a perfect project for my February One Monthly Goal.) I chose to mix fabrics from two Moda collections: Sno by Wenche Wolff Hatling (from Norway) and White Christmas Metallic by Zen Chic (Brigitte Heitland from Germany). I even included a few leftover pieces of Modern Backgrounds Luster from my Jolly Braid Tote Bag.

  • Sno fabric
  • White Christmas Metallic

So far this quilt has been so fun to make. Cutting the fabric and assembling the blocks was easy peasy. And assembling the quilt top also looks like a breeze because the quilt comes together in units. I like the plan and I’m enjoying the process immensely. As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, winter is a season of rest. So I don’t plan to rush through this project. I’ll take time to enjoy the fabric, the process, and the quiet time spent indoors.

Texas Quilt Museum

During the end of January, I visited the Texas Quilt Museum in La Grange with my mom, sister, and a college friend’s daughter, Kelsey. (We had a serendipitous moment: On Facebook, my friend Lori shared her daughter’s work bio for Camp Lone Star in La Grange the night before we drove to La Grange. So, through various forms of messaging, we met for lunch, a quilt museum tour, and a Bible camp tour—so fun!)

Texas Quilt Museum

The museum opened in 2011 with the goal of displaying traditional and avant-garde quilts from around the world. Often these quilts are displayed during the International Quilt Festival in Houston, and then make the journey to the museum for an extended viewing period. The renovated 19th-century building provides more than 10,000 square feet of display space, housing three distinct galleries. The winter exhibits included the following three shows:

  • World of Beauty: These are the 32 top winners from the International Quilt Association’s judged show.
  • Stories of West Africa: Fifteen quilts by Hollis Chatelaine embody her interactions with people while living in Africa.
  • Season after Season: This exhibit of 32 quilts from artists around the world offers creative explorations about passages through time or personal transitions we experience throughout life.

We weren’t allowed to take photographs in the museum; however, when you purchase a ticket, the docent offers to take your photograph with your favorite quilt before you leave. Admittedly, that made touring the exhibit a bit more fun because I took on the challenge of selecting one, and only one, quilt. After much mental debate, I chose Turning Over a New Leaf by Karen Eckmeier from Connecticut.

Turning Over a New Leaf quilt
Creator Karen Eckmeier described her quilt: I love to play with gradations of value and decided to play with this idea in a giant log-like layout with white to black, warm colors, and cool colors. The light in the center pulls the viewer in to read important words, which represent the joy of being in the present moment.

There were so many great quilts in the Season after Season exhibit; I really wanted to take photographs! So I purchased the exhibit catalog. I am particularly fond of Diane Melms Winter Solstice—click on the link to see her fantastic quilt!

Season after Season catalog
The Season after Season exhibit catalog includes beautiful photographs of all the quilts plus the backstory written by each quilt’s creator.

February Funny: True Confessions

While visiting my sister in Texas during January, I seemed to have left part of my brain at home in Minnesota. The photo below is a prelude to my ditzy adventure.

greeting card
Exhibit A: Greeting Card Exhibit B: Swiss Army Knife

I carry a very small Swiss Army Knife in purse. Why? The greeting card pictured above says it all. Before I travel by airplane, I try to remember to remove the knife from my purse. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t. Once it even made it on the plane, slipping through the security check. Gracious, that’s a 1.25″ blade! Who knows what damage I could do?

On this trip, I flew with my mom during the USA government shutdown. We heard that lines were long at the terminal, so I wanted to be sure that we arrived early and had everything in order. No problem. Until the TSA agent pulled me aside and asked if that was my bag. Yes…. Well, I forgot to remove my knife, so I surrendered my second Swiss Army Knife to the TSA agents at MSP. (Yes, this happened before.)

While in Texas, I was shopping at an antiques store with my mom and sister. That’s when I spotted the above greeting card. Of course I had to buy it after my latest run-in with the law. After the antiques store, we wandered into a bakery. I reached out to admire a dishtowel when I realized that I still had the greeting card in my hand, and I had not paid for it. Good grief! Now I’m a shoplifter. I turned right around and walked back into the antiques store to pay for the card. Thankfully the shopkeeper has a sense of humor and laughed at my crime spree.

After that, I told my sister that she was in charge of me from then on. Apparently, I wasn’t doing a very good job on my own.

Joyfully,

Tracie