Down the Rabbit Hoel

Stories of family, creativity, and diverse distractions.

Two blocks are more fun than one

In my discussion of color in this post, I showed a quilt that used two blocks to create the design. This quilt also uses two blocks, and creates an interesting secondary design.

The finished quilt.

This was from one of the earliest classes I took after I joined my local quilt guild. It was before I started putting labels on my quilt, but I am pretty sure it was made in 2003.

The two blocks used in the quilt are commonly called a square-in-a-square and an eight-pointed star. Blocks often have more than one name, depending on when an where they were published. This square-in-a-square has also been called an economy patch.

The eight-pointed star in this quilt has two different color layouts.

The one on the left is the center block. The one on the right is the four corners.

The instructor was encouraging us to use our color placement to make secondary designs. I was so new to quilting that I didn’t understand what that meant until I took this class.

You can see that the eight-point star design is repeated larger.

By this time, I had started to understand that the quilting design added to the overall appearance, so I spent some time deciding how to quilt this one. The arc shape is the same size in the pale green circles as it is in the diagonal line going across the quilt from corner to corner. You can see it much better in this photo of the back of the quilt.

The back shows the quilting.

Who is Brigham Emkey, and Why Does Mom Talk About His Place?

When I was a kid Mom would always talk about the “Brigham Emkey” place. Or maybe it was “Brigham Empty”. Or “Bring ‘Em Empty”? She said it all as one word, like “BrighamEmpty”, and it was hard to tell. But the BrighamEmkey Place was where Mom lived as a little girl, and she told a lot of stories about it. But I could never figure out the name.

Things Were Going Great Until It All Caught Fire

In some recent posts I’ve detailed the process to build an alcohol stove from old beer cans, along with a pot support, windscreen, snuffer and fuel bottle. The only thing left to do, really, is try it out…

Color my world

Quilts offer a lot of opportunity to play with color and color placement.  When you change the color placement on a design, you can get very different looking results.

I have taken a fair number of quilting classes over the years. My favorite classes are those that stretch my skills and teach me new things. 

Joining Hands All Around

In 2008, my guild had a teacher in named Sharyn Craig. Her class was teaching a couple of piecing skills – curved seams and y-seams.  Piecing is the term for how you put the fabric together to make the quilts.

Old enough for the scary stories – remembering Aunt Dee

Delores was born on June 7, 1934 and died on January 25, 2005.

I remember sitting on the porch at my aunt and uncle’s farmhouse, listening to my Aunt Dee playing the guitar and telling stories. When I was very little, I thought she made up all the songs she sang for us. I remember being very surprised to learn that she didn’t write “You Are My Sunshine”

Aunt Dee and Aunt Genny, who shared a June 7th birthday. Aunt Genny was born two years earlier.

The Last of the Alcohol Stove Accessories: Windscreen and Fuel Bottle

In this post and this post we made an alcohol burner to use as a backpacking stove. We’ve also made a snuffer and a pot support. But before we can call this stove project done enough to play with, we need to make a windscreen, and find a fuel bottle. I promise after this we’ll get to set it on fire!

Peonies In a Jar: The Somber Celebration of Decoration Day

Today is Memorial Day, though the old folks called it Decoration Day. Memorial Day is a big deal now. It’s a three day weekend for many people, and it memorializes fallen soldiers. To hear Madison Avenue tell it, everyone goes to a parade that features a military flyover. After the parade everyone has a cookout with their family. I can’t say how many people really celebrate Memorial Day that way. But I can say for sure that when I was a kid Decoration Day wasn’t like that at all.

It runs in the family……

I was looking through some pictures the other day and I noticed how many of them showed people fishing. It was a popular way to pass the time for Carl and Georgie and other members of their family.

Let’s make a pot support for an alcohol stove

In this post and this post I detailed making an alcohol burning backpacking stove from a couple empty drink cans. In the last post we added a snuffer. Today, it’s a pot support. Let’s get to work!

Another challenge quilt: altering block shapes

For the quilt show that was taking place during the 25th anniversary of my local quilt group, we were given some white fabric with a silvery sheen and told that the block had to be divisible into 25 squares.  There was also a maximum size limit for the quilt. 

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