knitNkwilt

April 10, 2026 · 10:05 pm

Local Hospital Mural

There is an inside mural at the assessible entryway where I walk to get to my primary physician’s office. (It is also the assessible entry to the hospital.) I have often thought I should take pictures, and finally did. It is currently a basement level of a research building, Samuel Jackson Hall, but it must once have been an entrance to a children’s hospital–it’s way too cute for a basement entrance to a research building. I did a quick Google search for history and learned that the children’s hospital had started in 1926 and moved to a new location in the 80s, but I couldn’t find information about the mural.

The illustrations start with transportation to the hospital, one to a bus stop and two to rather dramatic vehicles. The campus is that of Oregon Health and Science University; Doernbecher is the name of the children’s hospital there.

The child would have had to arrive somehow; it is interesting that there is no automobile. Perhaps the mural is as old as the hospital and in 1926 more people used bus than car? The problem with that idea is that TriMet began in the 60s. Before that the name was Rose City Transit.

Next the entering child would see various hospital personnel and patients in various situations.

They are too cute to be forgotten. I do have to wonder if they had the reassuring or cheering effect on a child being admitted. Maybe there were also doctors’ offices in the building so that some children were coming for routine check ups, so more open to looking at pictures. Maybe they were more appreciated when the child was going home.

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February 24, 2026 · 7:13 pm

SAHRR Fifth Prompt and Rippin Robins

Last week’s prompt was simply two colors. Gail of Quilting Gail thought we needed something easy after doing curves the week before, Well I couldn’t make it work for my curved piece that I wanted to cut into a different shape, but it did prompt an idea.

Here is how the top was with two pieces of made fabric with curves waiting patiently.

I had it out all week looking at it, trying to decide how to finish off the chain pieces from the make-it-a-double block. One option that I rejected almost before thinking of it was to repeat the Double 4-Patch making squares. First that would be too much brown. Second, I didn’t have that much brown even if I had wanted to do that. I got the idea of sort of echoing the Bear Paw block. And here it is:

I did have to stretch the prompt a little because I wanted to continue alternating the two shades of brown, so I thought of it this: reads as two colors. From across the room, this does seem to be all the same dark brown. A mistake in measurement involved a little ripping, though. I’d remembered the block from before correctly as 6 inches. Instead of adding 3 inches to account for half of the four patch I added 1 inch for each. Lesson learned. Don’t count on math. Measure. I had enough blue (yes the background is blue) to make two sides of the border. My friend, who picked up the extra blue for me will be coming by tomorrow. And I think the border works.

Because the center wasn’t a corner, I couldn’t duplicate the Bear Paw exactly, but I think points works netter than the flat edge. It also seems to emphasize the quarter Bear Paw in the corner even though it points away. I like the way it seems to make a table for the Bear Paw.

So the made fabric must be patient a while longer. I do have an idea for it, but I will wait to see if Prompt 6 gives me a different idea. I’ll have a bit of catching up to do this week.

aAnd Rippin Robins letters came due. My assignment was to piece two letters and leave a lot of margin because Sharon doesn’t know how close she will be wanting her letters. She gave two sample pieced alphabets and I chose Best Day Ever from McCalls on the web. I had a little math to do to transform measurements from 11-inch letters to 3 1/2-inch letters, but it wasn’t too difficult for “O” and “E.” Sharon asked for bright pink; my pink looked a lot brighter against white and pale pint than it does against brown. She told me that the next person working on it shares the word with me, so we could coordinate. Maybe Donna will brighten it up.

I didn’t trim the last strip to size, thinking it would give Sharon a bigger scrap when she trimmed the blocks. Sharon said her project has four words and she is having each done somewhat differently. Nancy, who loves to embellish, had a great time. I don’t love it, and embellishment was optional for me. Nancy’s will stand out more if the word I work with is more plain. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

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Tagged as group project, patchwork, round robin quilts

January 20, 2026 · 8:34 pm

Catch up: SAHRR, Rippin Robin, Socks

Time flies.

I had planned to post December’s letters along with Christmas Socks, but I had to wait till after Christmas. So of course it fell through the cracks. Time to catch up. And the Stay At Home Round Robin (SAHRR) has begun.

Easiest project. Select center block for the STHRR. Of course I went to my stack of orphan blocks.

The block is 14″ X 14.” You can find information about the SAHRR at Quilting Gail’s blog, here.

On to Rippin Robins

For December Nancy asked for letters mostly 1-inch by 1-inch (2-inch okay for those with overhang). She has 60+ of her own to make after getting 5 each from 8 of us. Hers will have the longest text. She said any style of letter and any method, so of course I did pieced and improv. Luckily before I started cutting tiny squares for triangles I remembered stitch and flip and made larger rectangles to accommodate. She also requested batiks and brights.

In spite of the colors you see, the background is a grayish blue and the letters are purple. The quarter is for scale.

Moving on to January. Doris provided all fabric, an assortment of yellows and oranges along with a black print for the letters; four squares of Steam-A-Seam2; and patterns for her letters. Her letters will be appliquéd. We make the 9-patch background and fuse the letter. She will do the stitching with the same stitch on all.

Since I had never used Steam-A-Seam before and there were no directions, I searched for YouTube videos, of which there are plenty. Not having a light box, I had to postpone tracing the letters till daylight when I could do it the old fashioned way on the window. Luckily the woman before me had made the mistake of tracing the finished letters instead of the reverse that would be fused to the wrong side of the fabric, and she reported on that fact. Otherwise I would have made the same error. I really like the alphabet Doris has chosen.

On to socks. There were two pair I had intended to show, but the ones with the stripes in the cuff got giftwrapped without their photo, and I was too lazy to redo the package. But I have one to show. I was shopping at a store I don’t use a lot (because I had a gift certificate) and most of their sport weight yarn was plain. I did find a nice blue/brown/beige mix that was appealing and bought it, What I didn’t realize until I finished the first sock was that there was no exact repeat.

I have a friend who knits a pair, one sock from each end of a patterned ball of yarn; she calls them fraternal twins. So shall these be named. At least the cuffs don’t look as different as that which will be in the shoe and not seen.

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December 10, 2025 · 9:24 pm

Gingerbread Time

Imagine my surprise to walk into the Benson Hotel Lobby and see not white but green. It’s the palace at the Emerald City, yellow brick road and all. The road is more cream colored, but you get the idea. First a front view and a side view.

A close up of the tree in the center of the yellow brick road.

Chatting with a staff person, I learned that the construction is started in September and the chef likes to hide scarves with the colors of his favorite sports teams and snowmen here and there.