nostalgia

Half 4 rows to go........... from Exuberant Color

I should be able to finish this today, just 4 more seams to sew and then to the ironing table.

I was going through the drawers of a little chest that sat on my dad's desk as I was growing up. In there I found my first grade scissors, a hand carved wood letter opener from Delevan WI and one of the first ball point pens, when they had a screw on top like the fountain pens had.

I only remember going to Delevan once as a child and I was about 7 years old. My aunt was dating ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 2 years, 11 months ago. under kaffe fabric , nostalgia

A better photo........... from Exuberant Color

I finished this quilt in January 2010 but the photo on my blog was from 2 cameras back and not a great shot. I took it to the basement and hung it on the double design wall and set up my auxiliary lights and this is much better. I quilted lines in both directions on my longarm and then stitched in the ditch on my straight stitch machine. It is 73" x 96" so it would fit a twin bed.

The quilt was made with a combination of batiks and regular quilting cottons, some of them Kaffe Fassett fabrics.

The ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 3 years, 2 months ago. under nostalgia

50 years......in one place.......... from Exuberant Color

We moved into this house at the beginning of June 1972 and it was the first and only house we owned. (photo from last fall)

The house was built in 1953 as a retirement house for a local farm couple and we bought it from their daughters after they passed away (he in 1965 and she in 1971). The stone on the outside is Crab Orchard stone from TN. It is a rare sandstone quarried from the Crab Orchard Mountain of the Cumberland Plateau. It is multicolor rust, tan, rose /pink, orange and brown. There were several ranch style houses ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 3 years, 3 months ago. under nature , nostalgia

Surprise! First finish of May 2022............. from Exuberant Color

I decided I need to quilt something before I start piling things on the longarm table again. You know, flat surface, piles......... I went for the smallest one waiting to be quilted on the longarm. Also the oldest one; the top is from 1991 with side borders added last month. I just did a lot of wild and crazy loops.

I think the only reason I left it unfinished for so long was that the proportion was not good. It was too narrow compared to the length. Now it is 37" x 53", just right for an adult lap quilt ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 3 years, 4 months ago. under machine quilting , nostalgia

Dumpster diving....well more like bin diving.......... from Exuberant Color

I moved a design wall to get into a bin I haven't opened for a few years. I was really surprised to find Halloween fabric but then I remembered I had made one small quilt top in 2009 with some of it.

This is the only photo I could find of it and it looks like it is just blocks on the design wall.

Also in the bin was this start of a sewing machine cover. The shapes are untrasuede and the stitching around the appliques is done with a wooly thread.

I actually even put the rest of ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 3 years, 11 months ago. under nostalgia

40 blocks............. from Exuberant Color

I realized as I was sewing blocks last night that 3 of the mottled batik blocks could be used to fill in the last 3 spots. I may still make some new blocks if I think I need a different combinations somewhere.

There was only one seam left on the 37 duplicate blocks so I got them all sewn while watching 3 hours of TV.

Now I need to move all of the blocks to a larger double design wall to determine the layout. This might wait for a couple days while I finish up the behind the scenes part ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 3 years, 11 months ago. under batiks , nostalgia , strip piecing

Second finish for September 2021.............. from Exuberant Color

I finished hand stitching the binding last night on this Kaffe collective 16 patch baby quilt. It is 39" x 47" before washing.

The Cloud backing is also a Kaffe Fassett fabric. The binding is the pastel Pencils fabric.

I was cleaning out a box in the basement and found the pattern for the 22" soft sculpture dolls which were popular in the early 1980s. One of my employees gave a class on making them at my quilt shop. In another box I still have some of the stretchy fabric for making them and I think there might even be ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 4 years ago. under binding , kaffe fabric , nostalgia , strip piecing

Nature walk on Easter morning........... from Exuberant Color

I pulled out all of my vintage Easter postcards for a group photo. They are all from the early 1900s.

I found a lot of blooms around my yard. This is the most daffodils I've had in years. They must have liked the winter weather.

Right near them was this little flower growing in the grass. At first I though it was a hyacinth but now I'm not sure. I didn't plant it, the squirrels must have done it.

This is another I didn't plant. There are 2 clumps of them in the back garden. I ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 4 years, 5 months ago. under nature , nostalgia

Strips............... from Exuberant Color

Brown gets a bad rap most of the time. Some people don't like it and have no brown fabric in their stash. I think it is rich and warm. I have shown my little drawer unit full of 2.5" batik strips before, click here if you want a refresher. Last night I decided to pull out all of the brown related strips. I can see I want to cut some more dark strips from my batik stash. I'm thinking another 16 patch quilt but even a jelly roll race (which I call Random Plank because I cut ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 4 years, 7 months ago. under batiks , nostalgia

70 years ago............ from Exuberant Color

70 years ago this was my Christmas present. I was 10 years old and my dad was an amateur photographer. My older brother got a camera like this too but I don't think my younger brother got one.

I took the camera to school with me occasionally. My dad developed his own films and sometimes he would develop mine too but usually I took my exposed film to the drugstore and picked up prints a week later.

I have had many different cameras since the early 1960s as cameras became smaller and easier to carry around.

I don't ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 4 years, 8 months ago. under food , nostalgia

Yard work, basement discoveries........... from Exuberant Color

I mowed my front and side yards yesterday and couldn't help but notice all of the blooms on the Lungwort/Pulmonaria plants. There are lots of these plants near a tree at my lot line.

I went back out later and started cutting down volunteer trees, about 50 of them so far and that was just one corner of a flower bed.

I was doing laundry so while I was down there I started going through things in one corner of the basement. I found these 2 little leftover bargello pieces from 30 years ago. I made my oldest ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 5 years, 4 months ago. under nature , nostalgia

Happy Easter!............ from Exuberant Color

Three vintage Easter postcards from my collection given to me by my grandma. I'm not sure where she got them. They are all addressed to Gerald Dudley, one postmarked 1908 and one 1911. The other must have been hand delivered to him.

My indoor garden has blooms for Easter too. The white one has more buds but the other 2 plants just have the one blossom.

I finished the hand sewing on the binding of my table runner last night, too late to have the light from the window to show the texture. It is 15.5" x 24 ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 5 years, 5 months ago. under nature , nostalgia , tablerunner

Valentines and miscellany........... from Exuberant Color

My grandma used to collect postcards and when she decided she was done with that she gave them to me, a little girl living on a farm in the middle of nowhere. This one was in the box.

It was sent to my great-uncle Oliver, a bachelor who lived with his mother, my great-grandmother in Bristol IL. This one is postmarked 1928 and is from Iowa from 2 of Oliver's brothers. Somebody pulled the stamp off of this at some point.

In my own mailbox I got the Valentine on the left this year and the one on the ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 5 years, 7 months ago. under baby quilts , basting , nature , nostalgia

Visiting 5 years ago.............. from Exuberant Color

I finished basting the zipper quilt and chose thread for the bobbin, ran errands, and really didn't have anything picture worthy for my blog today so I decided to look back 5 years and see what my recap for February 2015 was. I had 3 quilt finishes and I have gifted all three of these quilts, 2 to friends and one to a great-nephew.

I also made 2 quilt tops.

I started out the one on the left as a Trip Around the World but ended up making it more like a bargello. It is all Kaffe fabrics. I ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 5 years, 7 months ago. under nostalgia

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