Month: October 2022

Fall Colors, Fall Fun and a few Fall Glass Projects

On By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Fall Colors, Fused glass, Life, Travel1 Comment

Last year, I took a trip to Colorado to see the fall colors in the Rocky Mountains with one of my sons. Unfortunately, we were about a week too late – while the scenery was still beautiful, we dealt with snow and cold.

This year we decided to do our fall color drive about ten days earlier. The fall colors were lovely, as was the weather. The day that I arrived in CO was cold and rainy, so after having a tasty dinner at Sauce on the Blue in Silverthorne, we drove to our villa in Vail. The next day, after waiting for the weather to clear, we left around noon and drove Buffalo Pass through the Medicine Bow and Routt National Forests. On day two, we drove the Top of the Rockies National Scenic Byway. This drive took us from Leadville, over Independence Pass to Aspen for a late lunch. On our third day, we drove the Grand Mesa Scenic Byway and continued south to Ouray, CO. Here we found the Box Canon Park, a mineral hot springs that is tapped and piped to the city pool. On our last day, leaving the mountains, we drove Guanella Pass before I needed to head to the airport and return home to MN. It was a lovely trip enjoying time with my son and God’s wonderful creation.

Last Friday, October 14th, we awoke to snow falling in MN. While it was lovely to see, I was not quite ready for “winter” weather.

Later that day, I left for a weekend getaway to Gull Lake with a few friends. What a wonderful time of conversation (and CE) we had.

Since I am writing about fall, I am including a couple glass projects that I completed this year.

Napkin Holder – made with twisted copper wire, sheet glass and leaf shaped murrini.

Dessert Plates – made with copper Mica, iridized glass cut into shapes of leaves and glass frit.

Tree Votive Holder – made with glass strips / coarse frit slumped over a metal votive form

Wishing everyone a Happy Fall!

Quick Quilts, Scrap quilts and a State Fair Ribbon.

On By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Quilting, Scrap Quilt1 Comment

Knowing that I love to quilt, various friends and family have gifted me with fabric for me to use. Usually this happens when they are moving to a new home, or downsizing in anticipation of a move. When I receive larger pieces of fabric, I wash each piece and add them to my fabric stash.

This summer, after moving my mother into assisted living, I returned with even more fabric. Running out of space to store my fabric, it was time to use up some of the fabric. Having seen some really simple quilt ideas, I decided to make some quick quilts. These will all be donated. And, by doing large quilt blocks, I could use up fabric rather quickly.

Using the Tri-Recs tool, I made a pair of matching quilts with large 6″ blocks and two different color schemes. These quilts used about a half yard of each color in the gradients.

The next two quilts were made with some larger pieces of fabric that I had been given. The pink quilt started with a floral fabric that was pink, purple and yellow. I had a large piece of yellow fabric, but no large pieces of pink or purple in my fabric stash. I did, however, have a piece of pink fabric that I had originally dyed to use as backing for a baby quilt. Since this matched the floral fabric, I decided to use that.

The teal and yellow floral in the second quilt was some that I have had in my stash for a while. While packing up my mom’s excess craft supplies to be donated, I noticed the teal polka dotted fabric and thought it would match nicely, so I added it to the box of things that I was taking home with me. It matched the floral fabric nicely.

I’ve had this avocado green fabric for several years. Being an unusual color of green with a rather large print, I really was unsure how to use it. And, I had several yards of it. I chose a simple tumbling blocks pattern with a beige contrast fabric.

A split four patch design used up large pieces of three other fabrics that were in my stash.

My mother had a lot of scrap Christmas fabrics, which she would no longer be able to use, that I also took home with me. From these a made a Christmas Cats sofa quilt. I really like how this one turned out and may make a twin sized cats quilt out of some more of my larger scraps.

After completing these, and other quilts that I made this year, my scraps baskets and buckets were again over flowing. On my fabric shelves, I only store fabric that is larger than a quarter yard. Mid-sized pieces of fabric, larger than 6″ x 6″ but smaller than a quarter yard, are placed in either a plastic bucket. And, smaller pieces are placed in some decorative Longaberger baskets. Because these were over flowing, I sorted out the fabrics and made a few scrap quilts.

I started out making the black quilt. When cutting the colored fabric, I mistakenly cut too many pieces of each fabric. So, I realized that I would need to make a second quilt. For the second quilt, I decided to change it a bit. I used white as the background color, changed the order of the colors to highlight the zigzag effect of the pattern, and added another column to remove the need for a large border.

The white quilt came together nicely, so I entered it in the MN State Fair scrap quilt category, where it received a blue ribbon. I was surprised to see it prominently displayed at the fair. This quilt was donated to the MN Dental Foundation. At the One Smile Gala on Friday, the quilt was successfully bid on by a couple people and raised funds to support the dental outreach programs in the state. I hope the person who purchased the quilt enjoys owning it!