Quilt Hangers

I love flea markets and you can usually find pretty good deals on salvage pieces of old furniture. I saw these old moldings and turned them into quilt hangers. I used large cup hooks and screwed one into the bottom on each side and then put a hanger on the back. I used a regular cafe curtain rod to hang the quilt through its sleeve and placed the rod on the cup hooks.

The top picture shows a molding that is from a dresser I had as a child. The dresser was crushed by the movers placing my husbands motorcycle on top of it when we moved to Germany! So much for that dresser, but I saved the molding - it was too pretty to throw out. I've seen lots of small molding pieces that I thought would make cute hangers for miniatures too - someday...





For the quilt hanger to the left I used a pair of old skis and poles that we picked up at a yard sale when we lived in Alaska. I tied the skis to a nail in the wall with jute thread since I didn't want to damage the skis.

Happy Anniversary to Me & Hubbie

Today my husband and I have been married 26 years! Hard to believe, even though the aches in my joints keep telling me that I'm not 21 anymore! I don't think we've changed at all! ;)

It is 6 degrees outside right now and I have no heat! Turns out I haven't had heat for a couple days, I just didn't realize it until the temperature dropped outside yesterday morning. I guess our house is pretty well insulated so that is at least a good thing. I have the fireplace going so that helps, three of the kitties are curled up by the fireplace and the other one was curled up on my lap and not happy that I got up to do some chores around the house. Hopefully the furnace will be fixed tomorrow morning -so for tonight I will be sleeping on the couch!

Military Quilt

I'm still working on machine quilting the Dutch Tulip Quilt so there is not much new to share. I thought I would share something older. My husband retired from the Army six years ago and I made him a retirement quilt to pin all of his past company insignia on. I paper pieced it and then hand quilted it. During some of our moves I think a couple of his pins have been misplaced, so hopefully he can get some new ones.

My Dog has me thoroughly trained!

It's hard to be mad at a dog that looks this ridiculous! I've learned that Golden's are notorious for "stealing" things. Uh, yeah, I guess so!!! What a stinker. If it ain't nailed done he thinks it is fair game. I won't list the things he has gotten into because I don't want my husband to get mad at me all over again, let's just say I have had to replace quite a few things, including my quilting gloves! We are still going to obedience classes and it is helping, but I think we still have some major work to do!

Amazing!

Every year bald eagles from the North migrate to the Quad Cities area to hang out for the winter. Due to the locks and dams on the Mississippi River in this area, the water does not freeze solid so the eagles come here to fish.

Yesterday was the first time that we saw them - it was AMAZING!!! In one area alone there had to be at least 100 Bald Eagles sitting in the trees. They are such huge birds, I never realized that they were so large! We got to see them soar over the river and look for fish and then dive and pick one up - truly amazing! We saw some nests but not too many, I'm thinking they were probably deeper in the woods and people are prohibited from walking back into the forest. It was hard not to get teary eyed while watching those beautiful birds.

I grew up only about 45 minutes from the Quad City area and had never heard of the eagles here. I learned that the eagles were on the endangered list and there were not many left. Thankfully, the last 15 years or so they've made a wonderful comeback.

Click on the picture for a better view of the eagles. The picture with the single eagle in it is of a younger eagle, he doesn't have his white head or tail feathers yet. I felt silly with my tiny Sony camera, most people were there with major, professional heavy duty cameras! I have more pictures in Webshots if interested.

Thank you Krisi!

My daughter Krisi pointed out to me last night that I had a punctuation error in my Blog that was driving her crazy. I had "Lola Quilt's" for my Blog title. She said it should be "Lola Quilts" instead. It's nice to have an English teacher in the family now to correct my bad grammar and punctuation! Too bad she's too far away to smack her on her rear! My other daughter, Kelly, is a journalist for a newspaper but she would never tell me if I goofed up because she's nicer!!! I love you Krisi! :)

Enough Winter Already!

And it's only January! I'm so ready for spring.

English Flower Garden Quilt

This is a quilt I just finished putting the binding on. The blocks were from a block of the month club from High Country Quilts in Colorado Springs. I was glad to see that it was still there when I looked online, it's a great store. We lived in Colorado Springs over 8 years ago! Yes, it does take me along time to get things done!

The original blocks had art nouveau flower appliquéd in them, but I'm not a really big fan of that style, so I replaced them with Grandmother Flower Garden flowers. I love the bright colors of the quilt, I think that originally drew new to sign up. The blocks are hand pieced and the borders were put on my machine and then machine quilted.

New Sewing Room

When we moved from the Netherlands in August we had these cupboards from Ikea that we had bought for our clothes since our apartment did not have built in closets. Of course we do not need them here in Iowa for our clothes - but they make wonderful storage for my quilting room! We took a spare bedroom in the house and turned it into a sewing room - it's great to have so much space to spread out for a change.

















The picture to the left shows my flannel board. It is made out of a preprinted flannel piece of fabric that I picked up at the local quilt shop. My husband and I wrapped it around a thin piece of particle board and hung it on the wall. It works great and no more cats on the floor laying on my quilt blocks!












I used to collect crocheted potholders from the 40's and 50's - I looooooooove them! My husband hates them though so I put them in my sewing room as valances for the windows. They are so fun to look at and I love the bright colors.

Dutch Fabric Quilt

I'm almost done with my Dutch Fabric Quilt! I really should have a name for it by now, maybe something will come to me soon. The center is hand pieced, the tulip border is appliquéd with machine embroidery and I am machine quilting it. I really enjoy hand appliqué but the carpal tunnel problem still nags at me so the machine works quite nicely for right now! When I was ironing the quilt top some of the red bled onto the white and beige background so hopefully that will not be a problem when I wash it. Maybe some of the color catcher sheets will help in the washer.

26th Anniversary Celebration

Ed and I will celebrate our 26th wedding anniversary on the 30th of this month so we went on a quick getaway to Galena for the weekend. It was sooooooooooooooooo cold! -13 degrees! We had a great weekend regardless of the weather. Ed was a good husband and heated up the car and dropped me off at the door so I wouldn't freeze my toes. We stayed at a victorian mansion built in the 1880's called the Cloran. We would highly recommend it, the owners were gracious and the breakfast was the best!!!

We had some wonderful meals, not particularly in line with my attempt at healthy eating these days but I guess it could have been worse!


Of course there was a quilt, bead, and yarn store in the agenda!!!! Phat Quarters Quilt Shop was very nice, had a great selection of fabrics and patterns and a nice and helpful staff. The more I move and travel, the more I appreciate kindness and helpfulness in stores!!! Galena Bead is a very fun store. Nicely layed out, fun owners and staff and they have a great selection of beads and supplies. My other favorite store in Galena has to be the yarn store. Though I don't knit as much as I used to, I still love wonderful yarn and will still answer the call to come into a yarn shop!! Fiber Wild! does not have a web site yet, but said they were working on it. This is a beautiful yarn shop. The owner is very, very friendly and helpful.

On the way back to LeClaire on Sunday we stopped at the Mississippi River Museum in Dubuque. This is really a great museum, very well done! We kind of hurried through it to get home to watch football, but well worth the visit if you are ever in the area!

We had a wonderful weekend in Galena and I really look forward to going back when it is maybe 75 degrees!!!! Thanks Brad for watching Bear and the kitties!

Back to Blogging

I'm back to blogging after being absent for six months. Time flies when your having fun moving huh???? We are finally settled in LeClaire, Iowa it's a pretty little town outside of the quad cities (Bettendorff & Davenport on the Iowa side and Moline & Rock Island on the Illinois side. It's the birthplace of Buffalo Bill! And best of all it has a wonderful quilt shop: Expressions in Threads. The house is about 10 years old and was ready to just move in, we didn't have to paint, carpet or anything which is a real plus when you move so frequently. There were some wonderful older homes in the area, but they just needed too much work on them to move into. I guess an "old home" is a relative term after seeing people live in homes 300 years old in the Netherlands! After having so much snow and it being so cold, it is hard to remember that it was so green when we moved in!

Ed is traveling quite a bit, probably about 50 - 60% of the time. He gets to go to Argentina, China, Canada, China, France and Germany. He's usually pretty thoughtful and brings me good presents back!

Big news is our son Brad is living with us! He is working full time as a programmer during the day and a part-time student at night. He is still working on his own business too of building websites. He has one of his own that he has had for a while, Mactips. Check it out if you are into Macs or if you have i pods, it's really good! Of course I'm biased! Brad brought a little friend with him when he came home! Not a girl friend thank God, but a cross-eyed orange kitten named Jasper. He is adorable and constantly messing with the other cats, very cute!


















In October, while Ed was in China, I decided I really, really needed a dog. Actually I had decided a long time ago, but significant other did not agree. He stopped protesting as loud as he once had, or maybe I was just wearing him out? Anyway, I ended up finding an 8 month old golden retriever named Bear at the Davenport shelter. He has been a handful! The poor thing developed a severe infection after he was neutered and then he had kennel cough. After me babying him for two weeks, I had a monster of a dog on my hands. After three months, he is becoming a wonderful dog!!! I just adore him. I take him to obedience every Wednesday night and I think I'm being more trained then he is. It is so much fun to see all the dogs and puppies!!



















Life back in the states has taken some getting used to. I got used to not eating fast food overseas so I really didn't want to get back in that habit. I miss our friends, the flowers, flea markets, cheese and the cows and so much more!!!! My hometown is about 35 minutes away. It's been hard coming back to this area. Lots of memories. It has been wonderful to reconnect family that we don't get to see often. Don't know if the sadness ever goes away when you loose your parents, grandparents and others though.

Other big news is I'm going to school! I will graduate from Western Illinois University hopefully in 1 1/2 years! I'm taking 16 credit hours right now, so it definitely cuts in on quilting time, but this is something I've always want to do and why not now?

I'll get more pictures up soon and try to fill in the last six months!