Family Calendar Honoring My Dad

My dad turned 89 in September. I really wanted to make a family calendar using family photos for his birthday, but I'm glad I waited. About that time I decided to learn how to use Photoshop Elements -- which made this so much easier and the results are probably better than they would have been.

I downloaded some scrapbook page templates from Pixelscrapper. Then I resized them to fit the 8-1/2 X 11 inch size that the calendar pages needed to be. Finally I plugged in the photos. I needed to find a bunch of photos, so I talked my dad into letting me look for photos on his computer. But, I had to do it without telling him why I wanted them.

Here are the resulting pages:

The earliest photo we have of my father is in the upper left corner. (His great-grandson Zeke looks just like him in this photo.) And what a great photo of my dad with his older and younger brother at the top. He also has another younger brother and a younger sister. The other photos are from his US Army and pre-college days .

 This page shows the iconic tower with the A for Aggies from Utah State (Utah State Agricultural College when my dad attended) in Logan, Utah. The Logan Temple is where my parents were married. The photo on the left shows my mom getting her blood test for them to get their marriage license. The lower right two photos are from their first apartment. And the baby is the upper right corner is me. I was born while my dad was in college.

Various photos of my parents. The most recent is the one on the right, in front of the Logan Temple where they were married, exactly 60 years later to the day. They have now been married for 66 years.

There aren't a lot of photos of my dad with his siblings. In fact, I don't know that there was ever a formal family photo done of them professionally. But here are some photos: one with my dad and his three brothers; one with all of the siblings with their father; and one of two brothers and their father. My dad's mom died in her 60s and was not around for any of these pics.

My dad's parents. 

My dad's father was quite an entrepreneur. He operated several gas stations ("service" stations in those days because they actually offered some service!). His last station was a
Beeline gas station in Elko, Nevada. 

My dad's mother was born to Icelandic immigrant parents who had been in the U.S. only a few years when she was born. If she had been born in Iceland, her last name would have been "Bjornsdottir". Her parents anglicized "Bjornsson" be be "Bearnson" after they came to the U.S. She became a school teacher before marrying my grandfather. The picture in the lower left shows all that is left of the Thistle school, one of the schools where she taught. About 20 years ago a devastating flood and mudslide destroyed what was a beautiful schoolhouse.

These are some of my father's ancestors on his father's line. Far left is Andrew Jackson Allen who was an 1847 pioneer to Utah, arriving only a few months after Brigham Young's pioneering party arrived in July. He kept a journal which is a wonderful history of his life and experiences. The photo on the far right is Absalom Wamsley Smith. He, along with Andrew J. Allen, was a pioneer who settled in Draper, Utah. One of the buildings Absalom's property became a Pony Express Station known as Traveler's Rest. The top center photo is Andrew's son, Thomas, and the bottom center photo is Absalom's daughter. They married and are my father's paternal grandparents.

These are my father's maternal grandparents who immigrated from the southern coast of Iceland to Spanish Fork, Utah. In 2000, my parents, one of my brothers and his wife, and I visited Iceland and were able to find their home/farm. Such a beautiful part of Iceland, with lots of waterfalls and not far from black-sand beaches.

Various photos of my parents' 13 grandchildren. They are all grown up now and married, and all but two have children of their own.

And the legacy continues, with 25 living great grandchildren, one who was stillborn, and one due to be born this month. 

This was a fun project. I printed them with VistaPrint. I simply uploaded jpg files of my layouts in the order I wanted them and they did the rest. I uploaded them about a month before Christmas and the price was $19.95 per calendar. So I ordered only 6 -- one for my dad, my mom, my three siblings, and for me.

About a week later an ad popped up on Facebook promoting a sales price of $9.95. I was not too happy and was expecting some push back when I called VistaPrint. (I had my speech all ready about how I was going to do everything I could to let the world know of my dissatisfaction if they wouldn't honor the sales price.) But they were gracious, I didn't have to get dramatic, and they immediately refunded me about $60. So, I think it's only fair that I sing their praises. Not only did they refund the difference between what I paid and the subsequent sales price, the calendars turned out beautiful!

I know my mom wants one about her legacy as well. Maybe next Christmas.

Just for Fun: A Couple Handwritten Recipes

My sister scanned a couple of our grandmother's recipes. I took them and "prettied" them up, but kept the aged look that they now have.

These were handwritten and then sent to my mother (probably in the 1960s).

Enjoy.

Better Late Than Never: Finish #14 in 2018

Not quite a baby quilt since the recipient, Temple, is nearly 2-1/2 years old.

 

He was so eager to be born that he arrived three months sooner than expected, weighing less than three pounds.

I've always thought this photo was so amazing since it shows his dad's wedding ring on his little wrist like a bracelet.

But here he is now: healthy and strong, and a typical two-year old.

I actually made a different quilt for him originally, but then realized the quilt needed to feature a train since his dad works for the railroad. I started with the train, and it kind of evolved from there. And this was the result:

And except for the lime green minkey on the back, all of the other fabrics came from my stash and scraps.

Oxford Star

I am making my version of a quilt my grandmother made. It is the Texas Star quilt -- a six-pointed star with a hexagon center. I've named it Oxford Star because my grandmother was born and lived her whole life in the town of Oxford, Idaho. This is one of the six quilts she gave to my mother.

Here's my grandma's quilt (made probably in the 1950s). 

She machine pieced the stars and hand quilted the quilt. 

I am making my version using Lollies fabric by Jen Kingwell for Moda. The fabrics I chose have eight prints in the width of fabric that all coordinate with each other and that are separated by the gray stripe. So it looks like I've combined multiple fabrics in each star -- but it is kind of a "cheater cloth". 

Some of the blocks use the same fabrics for all six points:

Some blocks use two fabric selections for the star points:

Like my grandmother, I'm also machine piecing the stars. I've completed 25 of the 46 full star blocks. There will also be six half-size blocks. I will be setting the stars with charcoal gray diamonds. 

Lots of Y-seams, but they have been pretty easy to do. I'll be an expert at them by the time this quilt is done.

My blocks are about an inch smaller than my grandma's stars, but that was because I'm using Perfect Patchwork Templates set H by Marti Michell to cut the hexagons, diamonds, and star points.

Over the past year or so this has been a popular quilt made using English Paper Piecing techniques. You can see a fabulous example at Red Pepper Quilts; her quilt is named Daisy Chain. Her finished stars are a bit smaller than mine.

My goal is to have this quilt finished, quilted, and bound by our family reunion at the beginning of July. 

Another Pony Express Quilt

I thought I’d share the quilt I made using Northcott’s Pony Express fabric. It is for baby Samuel who is due to be born in the next couple of weeks. 

My sister and I did the Northcott Pony Express Block Party shop hop and collected the patterns for the blocks the shops did. But I’m not a fan of sampler quilts and wanted to do something different with the fabrics. 

So I decided to use the fabric to make a baby quilt for a great nephew, Samuel, who is due to be born within a couple weeks. (Yes, that means I finished the baby quilt BEFORE he was born – which doesn’t happen very often for me.)

Samuel has several family history connections to the Pony Express.

Absalom W. Smith is baby Samuel’s fifth great grandfather. His property in Draper, Utah was the Pony Express station Traveler's Rest. Below is the backing fabric, which shows the names of all of the Pony Express stations. You'll notice "Traveler's Rest" in the center of the photo.

On a different ancestral line, two brothers (John and William Fisher) and a brother-in-law (Richard Erastus Egan) of Samuel’s third great grandfather were Pony Express riders.  I think that makes them his fourth great uncles. John and William ("Billy") immigrated from England. I always thought it was interesting that these two young men with British accents were part of the Pony Express.

Here's a close-up that shows the quilting:

Believe it or not, this is the second Pony Express quilt I've made. The other one used the Pony Express fabric designed by Jodi Barrows for the backing, and I designed the front of the quilt to represent Pony Express stations. 

I also designed a cross-stitch design as part of my Family History Sampler to pay homage to John and Billy Fisher. 

Now I just need to get the quilt sent off to Laredo, TX in time for Samuel to be born!

Zeke's Quilt

I finally finished the quilt for Zeke, my nephew's son. Both of his older sisters have quilts, but this one definitely is the cutest. I saw the design on Pinterest and knew I could replicate it myself.

I printed the numbers and letters large on my printer, laminated them, cut them out, and used them as the templates for tracing and cutting from fabric. I had ironed Misty Fuse to the back of the solid fabrics before cutting them out and adhering to the gray background fabric. I then stitched around the letters and numbers with invisible thread, sashed the blocks, added borders -- and TA DA! Quilt top was done. Very quick project. And except for the outer border and backing, all the other fabrics came from my stash.

Here's nearly 18-month-old Zeke with his quilt. I actually finished the top last fall and quilted it. After taking it off the frame, I discovered about a square foot of loops on the back. ARGH! I procrastinated picking out the stitching and getting it back on the frame to requilt that section. But, a couple weeks ago Zeke's dad, Ian, accepted a job in Southern California, so they are moving in a week. So, the deadline was looming and I had to get it done!

I backed it with Minkee and quilted it with a digital design by Wasatch Quilting with the numbers 1, 2, and 3, letters A, B, and C, amid lots of pebbles/bubbles.

I should have scooted the rows closer together, but hindsight is 20/20. Still love this quilt -- and I hope that Zeke does too!

Second Finish of the Year

Unfortunately, I can't show my first finish of the year yet. It is a quilt that will be published in McCall's Quick Quilts later this year -- and I figure I shouldn't scoop the magazine. (I'll share it after the magazine comes out in a few months.)

That quilt was started in December 2016 and finished in January 2017. But I started AND finished this one in January 2017.

This quilt is for my brother who has a cattle ranch (although he currently isn't running it as a working cattle ranch). He also uses his 2000+ acres as recreation property. Last year I bought this cattle drive fabric on a whim -- some fat quarters and some yardage of the cream and brown prints to add to it. Figured I'd eventually turn it into a quilt for my brother when I figured out what pattern to use.

I was browsing some copies of Block magazine and ran across this Illusion quilt by Jenny Doan of Missouri Star Quilt Company. It was perfect. It would showcase the fabrics. It had a masculine feel to it. It would be quick and easy to make up. After all, I want this quilt to get used! And I think it definitely was the right choice.

I quilted it with HQ Pro-Stitcher on my HQ Avante using a simple spiral digital motif. I found lots of cute western motifs, but I felt they competed with the fabrics. The spiral all-over design kind of looks like lassos (to me, anyway). It adds texture and movement to the quilt, without distracting from the ranch fabric motifs.

I'll be giving the quilt to my brother later tonight. My mom gets my siblings, spouses, and me (and her) season tickets to the local community theater each year for Christmas. It means we get together about every six weeks, have dinner with my parents, and then go to the theater which is only a mile away. And tonight is the first show of the season.

I hope he likes it. I'm pretty sure he will. He is very generous to me and has even let me build a tiny house/cabin on his ranch property. And I've even hosted a quilting retreat for friends at the ranch. So, he deserves a quilt.

    

Family Reunion Quilts

My mom's family has an annual family reunion at the farm/homestead property that had belonged to my grandparents. Their descendants now own the property in a very small town in southeastern Idaho named Oxford.

Photo of Grandpa Fisher's dairy barn -- complete with a barn quilt

Technically Oxford is a "living ghost town" because fewer than 50 people live there. The official count from the 2010 census was 48. When we have our reunion we literally quadruple the population because there are typically more than 150 people who attend -- including the first generation (my mom and her siblings), my generation (including my 40 cousins and their spouses), their children (great-grandchildren to my grandparents), and now their children's children (my grandparents' great-great grandchildren). I would guess that if everyone were able to attend, we would have close to 300 people in attendance.

To raise money to pay the property taxes and maintain the property, we need to do fund raisers at our reunion. I decided to make a quilt to contribute to a silent auction.

My grandmother was a quilter and I blogged about one of her quilts here. It's no coincidence, therefore, that many of her granddaughters and great-granddaughters are also quilters. So I invited them to donate blocks for the quilt -- which turned out to be three quilts!

I asked the contributors to use traditional fabrics and make a traditional block that would finish 12 inches. One cousin was especially energetic and she made nine blocks -- all with the same block pattern. Although I expected the finished quilts would be sampler-style quilts, since she did multiples of the same block, I made three more so I'd have 12 blocks for the quilt. Of course, the blocks are scrappy, so here's the scrappy setting I came up with for the first quilt.

I'm hoping that since my cousin made most of the blocks, that she'll strive to be the high bidder for this quilt!

For the next quilt I was able to cherry-pick the blocks that I felt worked well together. For the setting, I created a pieced sashing with pieced 9-patch cornerstones.

For the third quilt, I was left with blocks that had very little in common with each other. One cousin sent three blocks that shared some common fabrics, They went well with each other, but not necessarily with the other contributed blocks. My challenge was to unify the blocks in a pleasing way. Here was my solution:

The result was a very nontraditional approach to the quilt setting. Although the donated blocks were great, I felt that I almost needed to create something that downplayed the blocks. The striped alternate blocks did that well. I think this is almost my favorite of the three quilts. I especially love the backing and the scrappy binding.

Here's hoping the quilts garner several hundred dollars towards the funds necessary to maintain my grandparents' property.