Quilts, quilts and more quilts

On January 19, 2026January 19, 2026 By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Batik, Minnesota State Fair, Quilting, Scrap QuiltLeave a comment

I admit, I have been really terrible at posting for the last few years. While I have been taking photos of my projects, I really haven’t had the motivation to write a post. And, when I would think about posting, I would look at my photos and become overwhelmed because I didn’t know which project to start with, so I would just give up.

This morning, I finished another quilt. When taking a picture of the quilt, I thought I should write a post. But, then the old feeling of being overwhelmed came back – will I every catch up on my posts.

So, I am going to try another approach. Instead of posting a lot of details about my projects, I am going to post a lot of photos, with just a little bit of the details. Hopefully I will catch up on posting. So, here goes…

Granny Square Quilt

When sorting through my mother’s fabrics, I ran across a pack of fat eighths (9″ x 21″ pieces of fabric). In the pack there were 16 batik blenders in a rainbow of colors. Most fat eighths bundles have 18 pieces. And, since there was only one blue piece in the bundle, I think my mother must have used the other two pieces of blue for one of her projects. After looking through the numerous ideas I have on my computer, I settled upon a granny square block quilt.

While planning out the quilt, I realized that I would need to be extremely careful with my cutting because the amount of fabric needed was nearly exactly what I had available. From the sixteen pieces of fabric (2 yards total), this is what I had left over.

For the backing, I used another piece of fabric from my mother’s stash.

Measuring 38″ x 54″, this will be a nice quilt for a young child.

Hexagon Quilt

A few years ago, I made an asymmetric Burst quilt. Since then, I have wanted to remake the quilt but with the starburst centered on the quilt like the matching doll quilt. However, I wanted to try something different. So, I designed a similar quilt with a hexagon shape.

This makes a nice complement to the original quilt.

While sewing it, I thought that a pastel version of the design would be nice to try. So, I made a smaller, baby quilt with a hexagon shape. And, I was happy to receive a blue ribbon at the 2025 MN State Fair.

Donation Quilts

Every year, I donate several quilts to a local chapter of Sleep in Heavenly Peace. This year was no exception. In addition to the Sleeping Family quilts that I wrote about last year, here are the images of the other quilts that were donated this year.

Quilted Coat and other State Fair Projects

On November 19, 2024 By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Crochet, Family, Minnesota State Fair, Quilting, WeavingLeave a comment

A year ago, when one of my son’s was home for Thanksgiving, he showed me a picture of a quilted trench coat and asked if I could make something similar. The coat was made by a Japanese designer and would have cost nearly $2K to purchase.

So, while he was home, we found a Burda pattern that he thought would best match how he wanted the trench coat to fit and quarter yard of several cotton fabrics as well as some lining fabric.

After taking his measurements, I used some scrap fabric to make a mock up of the coat for him to try on when he came home at Christmas – no lining, no pockets, just the basic coat.

With some adjustments to the pattern, I got to work. This quilted part included 3″ squares arranged alternating print fabric with a shade of blue, 16 squares x 37 squares, quilted in a corner to corner straight line pattern.

The coat was then cut out and sewn together, using my serger machine on the seams to keep them from raveling.

I even added pockets that were matched to the patchwork so that they are somewhat hidden on the front of the coat.

The coat turned out nice and I entered in the MN State Fair this past August, where it received a blue ribbon and medallion.

I kept the ribbon, but the coat was shipped to New York for my son to enjoy when the weather dips this winter.

I also entered a few other items in the MN State Fair this year. I received a second place ribbon for a Pine Needle Woven Dream Catcher, a third place ribbon for a Woven V Shawl and a fourth place ribbon for a Crocheted Child’s Jumper.

Kaleidoscope Quilt

On September 9, 2021October 14, 2023 By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Minnesota State Fair, Quilting, Scrap QuiltLeave a comment

Yesterday, I was able to pick up my quilts from the MN State Fair. One of those quilts was a kaleidoscope quilt that I have alluded to in a couple previous postings. Today, I thought I would give some more details of the construction of this quilt.

I started this quilt while on a vacation last November. I packed up a box of fabric scraps in a variety of colors and heading to South Carolina. When not enjoying the lovely beaches, I planned to spend time cutting and sewing.

Originally, I planned to hand piece the quilt using English Paper Piecing as described in the book “The New Hexagon”. Using a graphics program, I printed some sheets of paper with the number of hexagons that I intended to use to make the quilt the size that I wanted. Next, I sketched out the location of medallions that I thought would look nice and decided on the color placement. However, like most projects, I did change the color locations as I worked on the quilt.

The first medallion that I worked on was the one I intended for the center of the quilt. After a lot of “fussy cutting” to make create the symmetry of the hexagons, I started hand stitching.

Three days later, after sewing the seams of this section by hand, I was concerned that my stitched seams may not hold up to normal usage on a bed. So, I stopped stitching and focused on more fussy cutting. When I returned home, I reinforced my hand sewn seams by sewing them on my domestic sewing machine. For the rest of the quilt, the seams were sewn by machine. Being hexagons, this was not a simple task – way too many Y seams!!

But, it was fun to watch the different sections come together.

After all the sections were pieced, they were then sewn together into the final design and black hexagons were sewn on the edge to create a black border. The pieced quilt top was quilted on my long-arm machine. Each of the medallions were quilted the same with designs selected for each row of hexagons for the medallions.

Quilting of the Center and Row 1 of Hexagons

For the backing fabric, I found this really fun fabric.

And, for the binding, I was really excited to find some fun fabric that when folded matched the quilt really well.

This was probably the most difficult quilt I have pieced together. However, it was really fun to make!

The Great Minnesota Get “Back” Together

On August 31, 2021October 14, 2023 By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Crochet, Flowers, Fused glass, Life, Minnesota State Fair, Quilting, Scrap Quilt, Weaving, Wood workingLeave a comment

Each year, I enjoy going the the Minnesota State Fair, viewing the artistry of the creative activities entries, as well as entering a couple quilts in the competition. In 2020, I was disappointed when the fair was cancelled.

This year, I had originally thought that I would not be able to enter any quilts in the competition. Having a trip to Colorado scheduled during the drop off days for the creative activities, I was at first unsure how I would be able to enter. About a week prior to our trip, I learned that I could drop off entries at the fair office during early drop off days before leaving on our trip.

After entering, I was still hesitant to attend the fair due to the increase in Covid cases. However, with the attendance numbers on previous days being down, I decided to go this morning. Being there from 8 to 11am, the number of people that were there was pretty small. The weather was cool and it was an enjoyable morning.

Things that I did not do:

Utilize a Park & Ride bus – to avoid the crowds of people on the buses, I left home early morning and was able to find parking in a lots across the street from one of the fair entrances.
Eat Fair Food – I usually avoid the fair food, so this was nothing new for me.
Ride any amusement in the Mighty Midway
Do any shopping in the Market areas.

Things that I did do:

Wore a mask and avoided crowds
Arriving early, I walked through several of the animal and 4H exhibits prior to the other buildings opening
Enjoyed the artistry in the Creative Activities building, including quilting, weaving, crochet and woodworking
Enjoyed the flora of the fair, a much overlooked aspect of the fairgrounds

Animals:

Creative Activities – My entries:

My hexagon quilt received a third place ribbon. The quality of the entries this year was amazing. So, I am pleased with a third place finish.

My miniature doll quilt, made with hand dyed fabrics received a second place ribbon. This was a huge surprise to me. I only entered this quilt as a whim at the last minute, the quilt was never intended to be entered into a competition.

The Twin Cities Skyline wall quilt that I made for a friend did not place. However, it is displayed in a very prominent location at the entrance to the Creative Activities Building. I will be interested to read the comments from the judge when I pick it up next week.

Creative Activities – Noah’s Ark: My absolute favorite of all of the creative activities entries that I saw today!

Creative Activities – Other Quilting:

Creative Activities – Weaving:

Creative Activities – Others:

Butter Sculptures of the Fair Princesses:

Flora of the State Fair:

Blended Cultures

On September 26, 2019September 26, 2019 By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Batik, Minnesota State Fair, QuiltingLeave a comment

Of the four quilts that I entered this year in the Minnesota State Fair, I have described three of them previously. Now that the busy summer schedule has settled down, it’s time I describe the fourth quilt I entered.

This quilt was made a the request of someone I know. He asked if I could make a quilt for his new grandson. My response was “sure – what kind of quilt was he thinking of”. Further conversations helped focus my design ideas. He said he wanted the quilt to be twin sized and to incorporate the cultures of his son, who is Swedish, and his daughter-in-law, who was adopted as an infant from India. This sounded like a fun quilt to work on.

design

First, I needed to figure out the main piecing theme of the quilt. After sending several ideas to him, he selected a large eight pointed star pattern. My design incorporated blue and yellow points for the Swedish half of the star and red, orange and green points for the India half of the star. At the top of the quilt, one of the blue points was adjacent to a red point to bring the two cultures together in an American section of the quilt.

After selecting several batik fabrics, I started piecing the quilt. While piecing, I was drawing out ideas for the quilting. I wanted to incorporate, with just thread, some images that reflected the heritage of the child. By using thread and not applique, the main design of the quilt would not overwhelmed by too much going on with the fabric. For inspiration, I sought some advise from several friends who are from India and Sweden.

For the Swedish heritage, I stitched out a moose, a fox and some rosemaling. For the India heritage, I stitched out an elephant, a peacock and some paisley patterns. For the American heritage, an eagle was stitched. Each of these designs were stitched out in the background sections between each point of the star with a thread color slightly darker than the fabric. In the other three sections, I put the child’s birth month, date and year. The designs were surrounded by a diagonal hatch fill in the same color as the fabric to help the images show better.

Around the star, several circles was sewn. Between the lines of the outer circles, I thought it would be nice to include the child’s name – so that was sewn in the bottom section of the circles. To fill the rest of the circle, I once again consulted my friends. I thought perhaps there would be a phase that was specific to each culture that I could stitch out. I asked my friends if they could give me a list of three phrases that might be said of or to a young child, or more specifically a young boy. When I compared the lists, I was surprised to find one of the phrases was on both the Swedish list and the India list. That phrase “May you live long, my son” was included in the quilting. The phrase, in English, was stitched at the top of the circles on the quilt. Then, on the Swedish side of the quilt, it was stitched in Swedish. And, on the India side of the quilt, it was stitched in Hindi. To fill in the space between the name and phrases, paisley patterns were stitched.

The rest of the background was filled with some stitching to replicate Scandinavian rosemaling. This was then highlighted with some straight hatch fill.

I had not intended to enter this quilt in the fair. However, while working on it, the design was coming together so nicely that I asked permission to enter it. My quilt entry was named “Blended Cultures – Swedish and Hindi heritage in an American Boy” and was enter in the Commemorative Quilt Category. The blue ribbon the quilt was given was a nice surprise for a “last minute” entry. This was such a last minute entry that I forgot to take some close up pictures of the finished quilt before dropping it off at the fair. And, the day I picked it up from the fair, I had promised to deliver it to the family that it was made for. So, some of my photos were taken rather poorly while in my car. But, alas it’s still a really fun quilt and I am glad I had a chance to make it.

Eagan Television Interview

On September 16, 2019 By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Life, Minnesota State Fair, QuiltingLeave a comment

While the Minnesota State Fair was taking place, I received a phone call from the our local community television station asking for an interview.

Here is the resulting video that they posted on their Facebook page.

Nui Shibori Table Quilt

On September 3, 2019 By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Dye Resist, Fabric Dyeing, Flowers, Gradation Dyeing, Low water immersion dyeing, Minnesota State Fair, Quilting, Shibori, Soda Ash dyeing1 Comment

Fabric Dyeing has been a fun, creative way to make unique fabrics for my quilting. This spring, I spent some time playing around with stitched shibori. I wanted to figure out how to create drawings in the dye. I also wanted to try hand painting before and after dyeing the fabric.

So, I set out to do a few experiments.

Experiment #1. Nui Shibori flower and over-dyeing painted fabric

Draw pattern on the fabric with a water soluble fabric marker
Stitch the drawn lines with polyester thread
Dissolve Dye in 1 ml Urea Water, Add 2 T Print Paste, 14 ml Urea Water, 1/8 tsp Mixed Alkali, Mix well

Dark Pink = ¼ tsp Mixing Red
Light Pink = 1/16 tsp Mixing Red
Dark Blue = ¼ tsp Mixing Blue
Light Blue = 1/16 tsp Mixing Blue
Green = 1/8 tsp Evergreen

Paint dye on fabric areas within the shibori stitching

Paint dye in sections for over-dyeing

Allow to dry for 4 hours
Pull center threads and tie off

Place in 1000 ml of 0.15 mg/ml Mixing Blue Dye (with Soda Ash)
Batch for 5 hours
Wash with Blue Dawn, Dry and Iron

Lessons Learned:

Shibori pattern turned out well
Dye painting turned out well, but the the color edges were too crisp – use less Print Paste next time
Over-dyeing does not change the underlying painted color very much

Experiment #2. Whole Cloth Pattern:

Design quilting using QuiltCAD program

Stitch section outlines on long arm with polyester thread for pattern placement when quilting
Draw shibori pattern by holding water soluble marker in the needle position and running pattern on trace

Hand stitch shibori sections

Dye Paint:

Mixed Alkali: ½ tsp mixed with 8 ml Urea water
Yellow: 1/8 tsp Golden Yellow in 10 ml Urea water; Combine 1 ml concentrate with 6 ml Print Paste, 3 ml Urea water and 0.6 ml Mixed Alkali
Green: 1/8 tsp Evergreen in 15 ml Urea Water. Combine 7.5 ml concentrate with 15 ml PP and 1.5 ml MA
Dark Pink: 1/8 tsp MR in 15 ml Urea water. Combine 7.5 ml concentrate with 15 ml PP and 1.5 ml MA
Light Pink: Combine 3 ml MR concentrate with 15 ml PP and 1.5 ml MA

Paint on Fabric sections of shibori stitching

Allow to dry for 4 hours
Pull center threads and tie off
Stitch Floss “Ties” to center of fabric to help with lifting in/out of water
Make Dye Concentrate: Mixing Blue 10 gm in 100 ml Urea Water (100 mg/ml)
Place in 4000 ml Soda Ash solution in bucket
Add dye concentrate at 5 minute intervals (10 ml, 10 ml, 10 ml, 10ml, 40 ml) = 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1.0, 2.0 mg/ml to create an ombre effect
Lift fabric a small amount after each dye increment
Prop fabric up on support dripping into empty bucket, cover with plastic bag

Batch for 4 hours

Clip and remove all sewing lines
Wash with Blue Dawn, Dry and Iron

Quilt as planned

Lessons Learned:

Paint center dye before pulling tight the outer threads – easier than having to paint on a bubble
If you forget the first step – sealed air packs work well to fill the bubble for painting

Fabric will trap air, creating a bubble, in the middle – easy to keep the center section out of the dye bath.
Use a color of thread different from the color of dye – makes it easier to remove the threads.
The fabric dye paint did not turn out as well as I had hoped. So, after quilting, I repainted the fabric dye without Print Paste for a smoother look

I entered this quilt in the Minnesota State Fair on a whim to see what the judges comments would be regarding the shibori and hand painting technique. Boy was I surprised that it was awarding a blue ribbon!

Minnesota State Fair 2019

On August 26, 2019 By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Flowers, Minnesota State Fair, Quilting2 Comments

The weather has been absolutely beautiful the past couple of days, mid 70’s and sunny. Perfect weather for the start of the Minnesota State Fair. The first two days of the fair set attendance records for their respective days. After just three days, the attendance is over 500,000 – perhaps we may even surpass Texas this year!

On Friday, I went to the fair with a few friends. It was a fun day. Since my boys are grown, the past couple of years I have gone to the fair by myself, mainly to see the quilts and other crafts. Of course, even with friends, the first place I went was to see the quilts.

This year, I entered my “Fractured Tree” quilt hoping that it might do well at the fair. Unfortunately, I was disappointed to learn that the quilt did not ribbon this year. Fortunately, it was displayed in a spot where it was easy to see.

Interestingly, this was the only quilt this year that I originally planned to enter in the fair even before making it. The other quilts I made were not made with the fair in mind.

After making my son’s “Moonscape” quilt, I realized it was such a unique quilt that I thought I would enter it in the fair and see how well it might do. I did receive a ribbon and look forward to reading the comments after the fair is over.

When I was finalizing the registration of these two quilts for the fair, I decided to include two other quilts.

One of these was a shibori and hand painted wall quilt. I will describe the technique used for this quilt in another blog. I was pleasantly pleased to see that this quilt received a blue ribbon!

The other quilt was one that I was making for an acquaintance and finished sewing the binding on the day before I needed to drop it off at the fair. This quilt “Blended Cultures” was made to commemorate the birth of his first grandson. I was really surprised to learn that this quilt also received a blue ribbon. I am really glad I was able to complete it in time to enter it in the fair!

Sweepstakes Winner made by Mary Alsop. She has tremendous skill and is an award winner ever year. In fact, she was the sweepstakes winner last year as well.

I’d love to meet her some day.

Some other quilts that caught my eye:

After a day of exploring the fair, I think my favorite spot was the Horticulture Building. The flowers there were stunning!

The Minnesota Great Get-Together

On August 29, 2018 By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Applique, Batik, Crochet, Fused glass, Minnesota State Fair, Quilting, Scrap Quilt, TreesLeave a comment

The Minnesota State Fair is currently taking place. If you are not from MN, you may not realize how big our state fair is. While MN only ranks 12th in size and 21st in population, it ranks second in state fair attendance, with over 2 million people attending each year. This is just behind Texas at 2.25 million visitors. However, Texas is second in land mass, second in population, and their state fair runs for 24 days (twice the length of the MN fair). Thus, I would say that the Minnesota State Fair outranks even Texas.

The fair is so popular that, even on a rainy morning like today, there were lots of people in attendance. What do people like to do at the fair? When I asked some of my friends, they replied: eat the food, attend a concert, eat the food, see the animals, eat the food….

I think you get the picture – there is lots of food to eat if that is what you are interested in.

For me, the State Fair is a place to go to see the craftsmanship and creativity in the Arts and Crafts Building. Today was no exception. After getting very wet walking from the transit center to the A&C building, I spent a couple hours walking around taking pictures.

Here are my quilts:

Me (with my wet hair) in front of “Burst Doll Quilt”, which received a first place in the child quilt category.

“Burst” bed quilt received a second place in the pieced bed quilt category.

20180824_ — My reversible tree quilt “Childhood Memories” received a second place in the mixed techniques category. Unfortunately, you can only see one side of the quilt and none of the shadow painting.

“Window on My World” placed fourth in the wall quilt category. I re-entered it this year because I was surprised that it did not place last year and knew that there was a different judge this year.

Some of the other quilting highlights:

Some other crafts that caught my eye:

Overlapping Triangles Quilt and Plate

On September 10, 2017 By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Fused glass, Minnesota State Fair, Quilting, Scrap Quilt2 Comments

“Overlapping Triangles” twin sized quilt.

Last year, one of the awards I received from the Minnesota State Fair included a gift certificate to Bear Patch Quilting in White Bear Lake. So, last fall I drove up to the store to see what to spend my certificate on. I had some ideas of fabric I wanted, however, when going through the shop I was unable to find anything matching my ideas. Not wanting to drive up there again on another day, I looked around and found some fabric that I liked. Without any plans for what I was going to make, I purchased two yards of the black fabric and took it home.

Overlapping Triangles Plate — My inspiration.

Several months later, when looking at some fused glass ideas, I came across a plate that I really liked. And, upon thinking about it, I realized it would make a nice quilt pattern as well. So, I went to my computer and came up with an idea for a quilt to make using the fabric. Using the colors of the black swirled fabric, I designed the quilt to have graduated colorings in the strips. When designing, I didn’t like the blunt ends of the triangles and decided to angle them. I also decided to make the triangles overlap.

When I went through the fabrics in my stash, I was happy to find that I had enough of each of the colors I selected that I only needed to purchase the black fabric needed.

This summer, I finally pulled out these fabrics and started working on my idea. Finishing it in time for the state fair, I decided to enter it and received a third place ribbon.

While the quilt was on display at the fair, I made some things to go with the quilt.

Combo — Matching Throw Pillow and Fused Glass Plate.