11) May Baskets – Light turquoise and Yellow – Sofa Throw – 1993
Made this for Mom for maybe her 80th birthday or so about 1993.
I wanted to change the quilt pattern from Log Cabin to May Baskets. I probably put aside quilting for several years while life goes on.
I started working at EG&G – Rocky Flats in 1991. By 1992 I moved to procurement and worked with a gal named Donna Murray who was teaching me my new job. She was having a baby probably about 1993 and I wanted to make her a quilt for a gift.
This became a two quilt project in one. The May Basket pattern was pretty and different with all the triangles. This was another Eleanor Burns book, but a little harder than the log cabin pattern. I wasn’t really very efficient at measuring the fabrics for filling in the corners and the sides with the patterned block set on-point so Mom’s was a bit of a mess. I finished it anyway, but part of the pattern was lost under the borders. She was so nice she really never mentioned that I botched this one up.
The fabric was that French foo-foo flowery print that looked great no matter what you did with it. I used a turquoise and yellow fabric for this two color May Basket pattern. The soft turquoise and pale yellow were about the same intensity of color so the pattern almost blended together. May basket is a lot of work for blending. More contrast in needed to really show off this pattern. I used a really dense filling that is thinner and very warm. This was a change from previous quilts made with the puffy 80’s fat comforter look.
Mom used this quilt or at least kept it folded on the end of a spare bed. I have it now and use it every day on the sofa on chilly evenings. That dense thin stuffing is warm. I don’t notice the pattern problem really.
12) May Baskets – Light turquoise and Yellow – 4 block Baby quilt – 1993
This one was made for Donna Murray’s new baby girl in about 1993.
This pattern worked better as I had learned from the errors in Mom’s quilt of the same fabric described above. Donna loved it a lot. It was a big hit at the shower.
13) May Baskets – Peach with a black background prints for the basket – queen size – 1998
This was the first wedding present quilt I made for my niece Tracy Holmes when she married Steve Libby in the late 1990’s.
I was finally getting better with the May Basket pattern. It seems odd to make a wedding quilt with black in it, but black and white weddings were all the rage. Peach was a popular color at the time as people moved from those drab dusty blues and mauves of the 1980’s to peach for a short time.
14) May Baskets – Peach with black background prints for the basket – sofa throw – 1998
Made in the late 1990’s. This one was from the extra blocks from Tracy Holmes quilt.
I added pretty strong darker turquoise for the filling blocks between the May Basket blocks that were on-point. That really set off the quilt and made it more interesting. I used this on the sofa to warm up on chilly days for years until it was worn to sheds. It is long gone now and I don’t know where.
15) May Basket – Bright Kelly green print with white fabric that had a white printed design – 1994.
For Robert and Rebecca Truitt wedding present about 1994.
Robert and Ryan Truitt were twins and were best friends with John through grammar school and most of high school until they changed interests. There are several young boys who gathered at out home after school to play together. It was always satisfying to know where there were and what they were up to. Sometimes they would take a walk to the ditches and play in the empty culverts. God knows what really went on there and why boys were so intrigued with spiders and bugs that might be living in the dark holes. Other times they sat giggling in their high pitched young boys voices playing strategy games such as battleship, wars games and of course onto dungeons and dragons when they got a little older and their voices started changing. We always had a fridge full of sugar pop. Dr. Pepper was one of their favorites. Other times the kids would play their our version of war games against each other outside by the ditch with their wrist held pea shooters. They used pinto beans for ammunition. Good thing know one put their eyes out.
Years pasted and the gang still got together. Mostly John, Ryan, Robert, Gordie and Jake played together. Sometimes Darren would join them but not often. At least until the hormones set in and girls and studies for college became more the focus.
Robert tumbled head over heels for Rebecca when they met at his part time job at McDonalds. He was hell-bent to marry her as soon as he graduated from high school and he did. Rebecca as dressed in the puffiest bright white dress I have ever seen. It was interesting to see all of his friends dressed up for their modest wedding. Robert moved to Limon where he worked for Rebecca’s dad in his garage. He learned to fix cars and had kids right away.
Ryan went off and joined the Marines and last time I saw him years ago he had married a fellow Marine. He was in the intelligence section of the Marines. He brought over his little baby to show us.
Geordie worked on his PHD in Polish studies for a really long time and finally became a professor in Chicago.
Jake studied chemistry or some type of bio-tech subject, married and lives in the northwest with his wife he met on the internet.
John went on to CU to graduate with an engineering degree in Mechanical Engineering. His first job was as a computer scientist. Now with a masters degree from Tuff’s in computer engineering he can put those early strategy skills to work.
Derrick never did seem to focus his intellect like some of the rest of the boys. One time he picked John up in his Mom’s red sports car to chase around looking for mostly trouble. Last I saw him he was bagging groceries at the local market.
16) May Basket – Bright Kelly Green prints with white on white patterned print – 1993
One lonely block made into a lap robe when Mom was at Allison Care Center.
When I first started making quilts I liked to make an extra block so I could remember the quilt fabrics and patterns. Then I would finish the blocks into kind of a wall hanging for table cover. Jamie has a couple of them. Now I try to take a picture of the top and maybe the finish quilt if I remember to snap the shot. Sometimes I use up all the fabric or there is just enough to finish the pattern for the quilt with no spare blocks or scarps.
There was one block left from Robert and Rebecca’s wedding quilt. I had several different patterns of the same green color hue that I had used in the wedding quilt so each basket was different. I used strips of that fabric to border around the one quilt May Basket block. It made a pretty large lap robe.
I had forgotten that I made this one until I looked one day in the old round topped trunk my mom had given me. There is was waiting to be used bright green as the day is long. By that time around 2000 Mom had broken her hip when she took a stroll out the front door of the care home she was staying and fell. I remembered they called me in the middle of the night as said Mom was being stubborn about getting up and back into the house. Stan and I rushed to the house to check things out. Sure enough Mom was lying on their sidewalk, yes too stubborn to get up with quiet tears running down her cheeks from the pain she had suffered from her broken hip. I had never seen my Mom cry before as she had the stiff upper lip to always suck it up. I turned to the caregiver and said, “911 – that’s who you call. Can’t you see that she has broken her hip and can’t get up?”
Well, that was the end of that care center. I would not pay for the remainder of her month’s stay there as to me their services ended when they left my Mom on the sidewalk to suffer. They needed to change their name from Quality Care to something more appropriate.
After Stan and I followed the ambulance to the hospital and waited while they x-rayed to confirm the damage and then waited hours or was it days for her turn in the operating room, we lined up an appropriate nursing center close to our home. If you have every experienced one of these needed situations, you catch on real quick that personal items are not to be really considered as personal. Also all washing done by the centers, is with the hottest water and strongest soap.
We settled Mom in to Allison Care Center as best you can in this type of situation that she disliked. She had Alzheimer’s which added to the confusion or maybe took away part of the stress. All her clothing and articles were clearly marked with a permanent sharply with her name; France Swanson. We even printed a dog tag and attached it to her watch in hopes she could keep it for a while.
I knew she liked quilts and hoped that the bright green lap robe would cheer her up. So I wrote her name in large letters on the back of the quilt with the black sharpie. I put it on the end of the bed to brighten up the room. Sure enough next morning when I visited it was gone. I was furious at first and then started to look for it in other rooms. I guess people wonder off with each other’s stuff from time to time. I found it at the end of one of the other resident’s beds. I talked to the people at the nurses station, who assured me that it belonged to the other lady. Give a break. Who on earth would have a quilt just like that one made of bright green fabric in the May Basket pattern. I escorted them to the other resident’s room and turned the quilt back. Right their in extra big letters was the name – Frances Swanson.
We moved the quilt back to Mom’s room, but that quilt didn’t have much staying power. It disappear to be lost forever at the next washing cycle. I hope whoever took it really needed it and enjoyed it.
17) May Basket – Yellow and white 5-20-2003
Frances Swanson’s 90th birthday 5-20-2003
I had been working at a full time job for about since 1991 and had put aside lots of my craft and pottery projects. I went to a team building seminar with my co-workers. Along with business information there was a section on goal setting. This really hit home when you view life from what is left not where you have been. I was 57 at the time and figured I had about 20 more years to get things accomplished before I slowed down toward retirement. I had lots of fabric of my own and bags of fabric pieces from my mom when she moved from her home into a retirement apartment. Every time I made a quilt I noticed for tops you really didn’t use up much of the fabric stash. I figured that I had enough fabric to make a thousand quilts. I made a commitment that day to give it try.
When I started I had the plan to use up the fabric I had collected. In working through some of the projects I noticed that when fabric was on sale a new piece here or there really perked things when making some patterns or adding borders to the edges or the pieces top.
I thought it would be important that the first quilt I made starting this 1,000 quilt project would be for my mom as she was instrumental in teaching me how to sew and she loved quilt projects so much during her live time.
18) May Basket – Yellow and white background 4-23-2003
Josh Arnold’s first baby girl born 4-23-2003
While working for Qwest, I met the most interesting people. Josh Arnold was one of those folks. He was young eager to learn, friendly and polite. His enthusiasm for his job and outlook for the cheery side of life was contagious. He and his wife were expecting their first baby about the time I met him. He was so excited. I was going to be a little girl, the first on his side of the family for a generation or so of boys.
While making Mom’s 90th birthday quilt, it saved out four blocks of the same May Basket pattern for a quilt for Josh’s new baby. The yellow print for so cute with cheery butterflies in the print. His wife Julian was an artist and wanted to know right away the name of the pattern when she saw this quilt. They are such a nice family. Josh went on to work other places, but was such a joy to my life at the time I knew him and met his wife and little girl.
His little girl was born the same day as my sister, Nancy’s birthday. I will always remember both of their special days.
) Double Irish Chain – Black background with rose floral print and white – Queen – 1999
Beth Henry and Adam Jones wedding quilt.
Beth Henry, Geordie Jones, Tricia Hicks and my son John hung around together after school when they were in high school. They kept track of each other on holidays and summer vacation when they all went off to college in different cities. Still to this day they keep tabs on each other now that they have families and/or jobs that have taken them out of our Lakewood community. Its is good to see bonds of friendship last through the decades.
When Beth went to college in Durango she met the love of her life, Adam Jones. They married and are living happily every after raising their three little kids; Caleb, Zoey and Harmony. At the time they married black weddings and decorating with black was all the rage. Wedding parties had elegant bridesmaids in black gown framing the bride in white. I thought it would be interesting to make Beth a quilt for her wedding out of May Basket triangles of black background with small rose colored prints. I used white eyelet for the background to dress it up. It is always pleasurable to make a quilt for someone’s wedding as a special day of remembrance.
Fifteen years later in 2013, Beth mentioned that her quilt needed some repair. I have seen these before. The seems are usually wore and almost impossible to fix. I found a bag of scraps from when I made her quilt in 1998. When I went to her house to check out the damage I found that only the back had shown wear. Beth had removed most it. I took it home and ripped out the seems on the edge the held the remainder of the backing, clipped the few remaining hand ties and tossed the old batting and edges. It was amazing that the quilt top was in such good shape. I washed it and put it back together with new batting and a new sheet for the back. Beth and Adam were happy to have it back in tack again. Wishing them 15 more years.
20) May Basket – Pink with green polka dot and muslin background 6-6-2009
Brittany Kihlthau Nielsen and Shellby Nielsen wedding 6-6-2009
In 2007, I found the most exciting fabric with polka dots. There was turquoise with brown and the compliment brown with turquoise. Another had black with white dots and their compliment. I bought a few yards of bright pink with lime green and the compliment green with pink polka dots. I made a few blocks of the May Basket pattern using muslin as the background. The idea was that I would have some blocks that were green with pink dots and some that were pink with green dots in the same quilt. When I laid out the blocks on the floor I discovered that using both colors was a little overly busy looking. I decided to make a pink polka dot quilt and a green one. I finished the tops a year or two ago and hung them in the closet just waiting for the right people or occasion to finish them up. It turns out that both tops were queen size and were given for wedding gifts in 2009.
My grand niece Brittany had fallen in love with Shelby while she was in college. She planned for over a year for her wedding June 6, 2009. I asked my sister what colors Brittany liked. When she said pink, I knew just the quilt that I would finish up for her. Stan and I took a trip to South Dakota and on the way through Nebraska dropped off the quilt for Brittany. It is really pink as I used pink plaid for the borders, so I’m sure she will enjoy it for a while at least. It was certainly fun to make.
21) May Basket – Green with pink polka dot with muslin background
Sarah Fischer Jones (Rachel’s Sister) for her wedding 7-2009
The rest of the May Basket patterned blocks that were green with bright pink polka dots were set aside for a while. I had several yards a taupe/grey subtle print that had been lying around in my stash of fabric. That fabric just didn’t seem to go with anything. One day I noticed that it would work with the bright green May Basket blocks as the filler when the patterned blocks were set on-point. I finished this up and used up every scrap of the taupe/grey and the green in the borders. That was my goal after all, to use of the fabrics. It came out very pretty.
It hung in my closet next to the pink May Baskets for the same time. In 2009 I made a point to try to finish up the tops that I had been making the past several years. I had 25 hanging neatly in the closet with no homes or plans. I do enjoy piecing them all together; however it wouldn’t do my family any service to find a closet full of unfinished tops when I pass on. Finishing quilts is not quite as fun as making the tops and watching the patterns and colors emerge from strips of fabrics. It’s September now and I have finished 12 tops. Two of them were the wedding May Basket quilts, one in pink and one in green.
Sarah is my daughter-in-law Rachel’s sister. Sarah is such a bubbly person who fills Rachel and John’s life with joy when they spend time together. She is our granddaughter, Anya’s Godmother. When I heard she was getting married, I made a point to finish up this quilt for her and her husband Chris. When Rachel and John were visiting in May, they took the quilt back to Boston with them for Sarah and Chris. I had doubled up the batting to make it nice and warm for the winter. We packed it in those nifty plastic bags that you suck all the air out to make it flat enough to fit in their luggage. Sarah and Chris liked it. This quilt was one of the prettiest I’ve made. Must be all the practice with the other May Basket patterned quilt I had made.
This would make the fifth wedding quilt I had made for a wedding gift;
1) Tracy Holmes Libby,
2) Robert and Rebecca Truitt,
3) Beth Henry and Adam Jones,
3) Brittany Kihlthau and Shellby Nielsen and
4) Sarah Fischer and Chris Jones.
22) May Basket – Chocolate with Turquoise polka dots
Top finished 2007 – Waiting to be stuffed and for backing.
Part of the stash of fabric that I bought during my polka dot phase included chocolate with deep turquoise polka dots. Browns were just making a come back in 2007 edging out blacks as the standard. Shirts, tops, pants and suits were showing up in department stores in chocolate brown along with sheets and pillows and other home decorating ideas. This fabric really sang out to me.
I found a pretty large scrap of fabric from Mom’s collection that was deep turquoise that I used for the background. There was only enough fabric to make a through to fold up on the bottom of the bed.
In Mom’s stash of fabrics I found a turquoise with small white printed design. It just blended with the other colors in the May Basket block. Mom must have made a dress with this fabric as the facing pattern for the sleeve was still pinned onto the fabric. I just had enough of this to fill between the blocks.
Some day I’ll finish that up the top with the stuffing and backing. It is really striking with these intense colors.
I sold this quilt for $135 at a garage sale Dec 2012. The lady who bought it just loved the colors.