The Life of Hazel Ilene is a day-by-day transcription of the diary of a 1950’s rural farm girl, who eventually became my mother. In honor of Hazel’s talents as an accomplished seamstress (who also made a few quilts in her time), I started this blog so that I could share the diary, and also use it as a teaching platform for quilting.
Since the blog began, I’ve been hosting periodic online quilt-alongs, sprinkled with extra tutorials and bonus projects. You can read about the various quilt-alongs in reverse chronological order below. Links to the still-published quilt-alongs are in the sidebar. A line of patterns is coming soon!
The book, A Simple Life: Quilts Inspired by the ’50s is now available! Click HERE for more information and to purchase your copy.
2019:
The Vintage Christmas Ornaments Quilt-Along kicked off on February 21st. And a shorter quilt-along inspired by the time period of World War II, called Virginia’s Puzzle, began on March 15. I hope you’ll join us for one or both of these!
2018:
I took a (basically unplanned) hiatus from the blog. It was a crazy busy year, and I simply didn’t have time for everything I wanted to do. I know I’ve been promising a new quilt-along for some time, but I also felt like the online world has been glutted with quilt-alongs, so taking a break wouldn’t hurt anything! There WILL be a new one in 2019, tho, so keep checking back!
2017:
The Canning Season Quilt-Along, which featured a quilt that didn’t make it into the book, ran from January 30 – March 15. Links to the steps for Canning Season are in the sidebar at the right.
The next quilt-along is tentatively slated to begin in late July or early August, 2017, so check back for more information coming soon!
2016:
The 2016 Quilt-Along, called “Triangle Salad”, includes various tutorials for making and using half-square triangles, and starts HERE. I’ve also published a quick tutorial for a scrap quilt called “MixMash“, so feel free to sew along with me as I make this crazy scrap quilt!
2015:
In 2015, a quilt I designed called “Hazel’s Diary”, was chosen as the Kansas City Star Block of the Month quilt to appear in the newspaper monthly. The final installment appeared in the paper on December 20th, but the individual installments can still be purchased in my Etsy shop HERE. Or . . . you can buy the book, which has the entire quilt, plus 8 bonus projects, also in my Etsy shop.
2014:
I hosted a quick and easy Quilt-Along, called the Happy and Scrappy Quilt-Along. Find it HERE.
2012/2013:
I sponsored two quilt-alongs. The first, Bouquets for Hazel, an applique quilt, began January 9, 2012, and ran for 6 months. The second quilt-along, Hazel’s Summer Wildflowers, an embroidered quilt, began on July 15, 2012, and included several bonus projects and tutorials along the way.
2010:
The first quilt along, Hazel’s Stars, was presented in two size options, as a mystery quilt. Each day’s diary entry was followed by instructions for making quilt blocks, one step a day. If you followed along every day, by the end of the year you had a completed quilt top. Those instructions are being made into a pattern that will be available soon.
To read the diary entries, start HERE. Or use the Archives pop-up menu in the sidebar to go to a specific time period.
The blog has other information related to the diary entries as well. Categories include People, Places, Things, Historical Events (by year), Patterns, Recipes, and more. If you have a question at any time about anything, just leave me a comment.
I hope you enjoy following this blog, taking a peek back into the early 1950’s, and have fun making a beautiful quilt or two along the way.
The Life of Hazel Ilene 
I just came across your blog. I would like to join and try to catch up.
I would love to join this site but cannot find out how. Please sign me up and send it to me. I was born in 1939 so I am sure this will be interesting to me.
Is it too late to join? What are the rules, what do I need to do?
I would like to join as well. May I?
i have finished my Hazel Ilene quilt along quilt and it turned out very nice..i got a little behind in the fall when my daughter decided she wanted some things made but i did finish it … i love mystery quilts anyway and this one is set up so that it is easy and the instructions are very easy to follow..
it was very interesting reading about Hazel Ilene in 1951–which happened to be the year i moved from GA to MI…
thank you for letting us share with you..
mary
My mother’s name was also Hazel(as well as my 3 yr old granddaughter) and she kept diaries, primarily from the1930’s. I suspect she always kept a diary, but we just don’t have them. She had some from when she taught in a one room school house, had tuberculosis and had to go live in a sanitarium, college days and others. She was also a farm girl( in OK). You have inspired me—maybe I will try to blog them.
Shelly,
We met a few years ago (briefly) at Quilt Market. Our shop, Cotton and Chocolate, doing Hazel’s Diary quilt as this year’s Saturday Sampler-a block of the month program.
If you are planning a trip to California anytime in the next year, we would love to have you come to the shop, see our quilt, meet some of those working on their blocks and maybe even speak to our group. We have 100 spots for the BOM and we typically meet on the first Saturday of the month.
I love this quilt and can’t wait to make my own.
Vicki Tymczyszyn
(I work with Generation Q Magazine as well…)
I just found this blog today (directed here from a Happy Cottage Quilter post) and haven’t been able to stop the tears! What a lovely tribute to Hazel Ilene! I’m an only child, mother and grandmother….and I wish I had started a diary long ago for my family. I lost my dad on Valentine’s Day 2 years ago and my (quilting) mother had a stroke at his funeral and passed the next day. I lost them both 6 days apart and was unprepared for their deaths. This time of the year is particularly hard for me….your blog is quite comforting to me. I miss quilting with my mom—-but now, I’ll quilt along with Hazel. Thank you.
Sign me up. Just discovered this through a link from another blog of your. What treasures.
I send a lot of time working on family history too. Have my grandmother’s Christmas Chocolates vintage candy box that she filled with birth announcements. So fun to find out the histories of the babies and their families.