Baby Quilt from the Past

When I first began making quilts, our tools were fabric, pencil, and, after I graduated from using file folders or oak tag for templates, Shrinky-Dink plastic. I was thrilled with my first Olfa Rotary Cutter. While the Internet existed, it was pretty much confined to military use. I've forgotten about many of the quilts I made--especially if they were never photographed or if the film never was developed.
Here's one that had slipped my mind:

This quilt was made for my friend Tammy Somers when she was expecting her first child 21 years ago.  He is now a 21 year old U. S. Marine.

The back story is that Tammy's grandmother had made a quilt of the "cactus flowers" in Birmingham, Michigan around 1910.  (The pattern is sometimes called "Rosebud" and, like most patchwork patterns, has many names carried forward by oral tradition as well as printed sources.)  Tammy's grandma's quilt is made of green and white solids.  About 25 years ago Tammy was using it on the back or her sofa.  We were car pooling to our teaching jobs at Yahtahey, north of Gallup, NM, and one day I stopped by and saw it being used by her cats as a spot for sun worship.  That Christmas I made her a pillow with the Rosebud block, only I used the colors in the quilt above, which were a bit more blue than the original green.  Tammy gave me her grandmother's quilt--kind of a "Gift of the Magi" O. Henry twist.  It seemed appropriate that when Tammy was pregnant, she needed a  quilt made with the block pattern her grandma had used over 80 years earlier.

In the intervening years, a lot of history has been added to our pasts.  Recently, Tammy posted this photo (taken last Saturday) on my Facebook page in honor of her son's 21st birthday.  So, I'm sharing it with you.

I'd remembered our O. Henry story, and I cherish her grandmother's quilt. I posted about the antique quilt and the quilt I made to honor it here.  However, until I saw Tammy's photo, I'd forgotten that I'd used the same block to make her a baby quilt. The writing on the quilt is because in those days I often copied collected quotations onto baby quilts.  I did the same with my grand-niece's baby quilt. By that time I'd realized that despite being heat set, the words often disappear, so I'd settled for attributes instead of long quotes.

These babies do grow up fast, don't they?  It's fun to see them evolve, but it's equally nice to be able to call up the memories.

Happy quiltmaking and knitting,

Bob Warr Number 2 - Baby's Quilt

Here's a baby quilt, built fairly quickly on the same type of theme as Bob Warr 1, but for this one I cut the blocks at 9.5 inches.

 The two rows of sashing around each block brings the finished block size to 17 inches.  I was giving equal attention to other things while I pieced these and didn't realize until the first row was on that I'd forgotten to put the triangles in the corner of the block, so I added them to the sashing.

Claudia, one of the Victory Quilters passed her mid-1990s children's fabrics on to me.  I love these fabrics because they remind me of my early Scott-Foresman readers and of the paper dolls that brought so many hours of joyful play into the  1950s.  In my mind paper dolls disappeared sometime around the time Barbie became ubiquitous.  I used 11 fat quarters from Robert Kaufman to cut the sashing and borders. These are so reminiscent of 1940s fabrics.

This quilt is for a colleague's new baby.  I'm hoping I have enough scraps of the fat quarters to complete the binding.  I've finished quilting it but haven't yet taken photos of the quilting.


Happy quiltmaking,

Quilt Progress, Tatting, Lucky Finds

If you came here looking for the give-away that runs through September 4, you will find it on this post.

I spent 2.5 hours in the office of the rehab doctor on Tuesday before he managed to get to me for a 10 minute procedure, there was no time left to run errands (in fact we had to do some car hopping and driver changes in order to get me home).  So yesterday I needed to head into Albuquerque for a couple of purchases, and on the way in I stopped at Good Will.  While I realize lots of people find great bargains at Good Will, it's much more rare here, although five or ten years ago I found wonderful things.  However, yesterday I did find some sweet things.

First the quilting progress:

 I'm trying to decide which of these two threads to use in the border of Little Miss Gardener, the quilt for the new great niece who will arrive in early October.  The thread on the right is Fil-Tec Glide and the one on the left is Fil-Tec Affinity, which is the same as the Glide except it's variegated.  (You might want to take advantage of their sale on Magna-Glide bobbins, which will continue for a few days.  No, I don't work for them.  I just love their threads. I use their size L magnetic bobbins in my Class 15 sewing machines.)

Yes, I will do a tutorial on quilting a feathery border, although I've decided to make it continuous around the entire quilt, which is not the way I do it most frequently.

 Here is the quilt so far, in all it's feathery goodness.  The tutorial for how to do the feathered plumes in the snowball blocks is here.

Good Will purchases:

 Two sets of embroidered pillowcases.   They are 100% cotton, so I'm guessing the cases were purchased in the 40s or 50s. Yes, I was amazed first that something of this quality was in that particular store, and more amazed that they had to have been destinedfor the variegated size 40 tatting thread I purchased this summer from Jess! at Tatilicious.

I suspect the pillow cases were never used  and that it was because an edging was never attached.  I have decided that rather than attach these edgings on the edge, I'll attach them on the hem.  A couple decades ago when I finished a set of pillow cases and sheet with embroidery and tatting, I did attach the lace at the the edge.  Despite the fact that I don't often use that set of sheets, the lace is coming apart in some places.  So I think this lace will last longer if it's on the hem.

Both of these lace edgings are narrow and my own design, because I had no idea how far 50 yards of thread would go--and I did end up ordering more.  I was going to come up with a tatted medallion for each pillow case, and I actually have finished one and have begun another, but the embroidery colors on these cases were so perfect that I just knew they were destined to have lace made from this gorgeous thread hand dyed by this wonderful young woman.

I almost didn't see these treasures.  The frames look like pecan wood--and the framing was done by Pic Frame in Alamagordo.  Beautiful stitching with all x's made properly and thread lying nicely.  We have hummingbirds all summer in our area and even more during migration season.  I'm thrilled to have these.

Okay, there were a couple of more purchases.  One was a file to sharpen the blades of my people-powered push mower because the vintage or antique (more likely) file I've inherited from Grandpa is not doing the job.  Neither the file nor the task is at all romantic, so no picture.

This was a splurge from Sunflower Markets/Sprouts  (they're in transition).  I have not had a slice of blueberry pie for decades!  No kidding.  By the time I was 11 or 12, pie making was my task.  My mom used a recipe from Mazola Oil  (at the time we had no idea I was allergic to corn products), and the pies were more like a tart.  My favorite was blueberry, but we rarely had blueberry filling.  (And now my favorite is cherry, but they had no cherry pies.)

Among my goals for today is to get at least the widest border of Little Miss Gardener done.  I'll take pictures as I work.

I'm linking to Melissa's Try New Things Thursday, despite the fact that attaching lace in a new place has nothing to do with quilting (except that bed quilts deserve to be accompanied by beautiful pillow cases).

Happy quiltmaking......

Little Miss Gardener, Blog Hop Party, and Give-Away

This Give Away is now Closed.

How about a Blog Hop Party with Give-Aways?

It's being organized by Michele Foster over at Quilting Gallery.
I'm taking part.  I'll share what I'm giving away in a bit, but first, a little more of Little Miss Gardener, much more quilted, but not yet done. Life just keeps throwing little surprises my way, but she will get done--hopefully, I'll have her completed before we get too far into the weekend.

As a reminder, here's the top, completed last weekend:

 And here are some of the quilted nine-patches and snowballs:

 Yes, quite a few thread changes.

 I especially love the plumes I'm quilting in the snowballs.  

While I'm using Fil-Tec Glide thread for most of the quilting, I'm using Fil-Tec Affinity on the pale aqua.  Affinity is much like Glide but is variegated.  This has soft blues.

 Yes, this quilt is being made on my Necchi BU in a treadle cabinet.

 And, yes, it's really easy to forget one is treadling--and the exercise is a great bonus.

 I've been asked to show how I do the plumes in the snowball blocks, so I plan to do that in an upcoming post.

 And now for the give-away.  These are eight of my hand-dyed fabrics.

I began dyeing some of my own fabrics sixteen or seventeen years ago--inspired by a lovely lady, a former student in Chattanooga, who wanted fabrics "in the colors I see in my head."  Of course, shortly after I began dyeing, children entered my life, limiting my sewing and quiltmaking time.  Every once in a while I'd steal some time and do more dyeing--which has resulted in shelves well stocked with an array of colors more likely to be found in someone's head than in stores.  I used unbleached and bleached muslin in 36" width and, occasionally, I splurged on Kona cotton. These were dyed from narrow fabric, so they are not quite the same size as the "fat quarters" most of us are familiar with today.

The colors above are a grape-y violet, dark fuchsia, sky blues, sea blues, and a blue green.  All were dyed by mixing Procion MX dyes from Dharma Trading and with very little movement in the dye bath (usually in Solo cups) so the textures are lovely.  About the same time my quilting friends back east were ordering their dyes from Pro Chemical & Dye, and here we are years later, still saying we should do some kind of exchange of our hand dyed fabrics.  (Pro Chem is having a sale on their dyes through August 31, including PRO MX Grape, which is hard to find in an MX dye.)

If you would like this little bundle of fabrics, here's what you need to do to enter the drawing:
1. Be a follower.  Leave a comment telling me you are a follower and something about your quiltmaking endeavors or your first quilt--or if you are not yet a quilter, what you'd like to be able to make.

That's it.  No other hoops to jump through.  We'll draw a winner September 5.  I'm willing to ship this little bundle internationally.
It would be a good idea to check your settings and be sure you are not a no-reply blogger.  I'll e-mail the winner and post the name of the winner on this blog. (And if the winner does not respond, I will do another drawing.)

Please be aware that if you are a no-reply blogger, I will not be able to contact you if you win.  It would be okay to leave your e-mail address in your comment.

You might want to head over to Michele's and check out more blogs and more give-aways. (She says she expects the list of links to be up shortly after midnight in the wee hours of August 26.) Sounds like fun Sunday surfing and the chance to make some new blogging friends.

Happy quiltmaking....

Trying New Things Today

 I do make an effort to try new things every week.  This week I have a snack or light lunch and some new quilting.

With Sweet Teen gone off to school, lunches and snacks just do not come easily to me.  However, it is Fig Season, second favorite only to Cherry Season in my book.  I'm still thinking about this one.  Sour dough bread, swiss cheese, sliced figs, a drizzle of balsamic vinegar mixed with blue agave syrup.  In the microwave because I did not want to heat the kitchen with the broiler.

Then, with Little Miss Gardener basted and stabilized, it was time for some quilting.  I used the Necchi BU in the 1919 Singer treadle.  (I really need to use Ms. Verniece, the 1936 Singer 15-88 one of these days soon or she'll get jealous.)

 Feathers and Ribbons in the nine-patches and encroaching into corners of the snowballs.

 Alas, it seems I will be doing multiple thread color changes again.

I had more than a few conversations with myself about what I would quilt in the snowballs, but have pretty much settled on these feathered plumes that are almost-circles, which, for some reason I've never used before.

So, I'm documenting my attempt at something new by linking to Melissa's TNT Thursday where you can go to see what other new things people have tried.

And because I'm keeping track, I'm noting that yesterday and today, the most likely times for rain this week, we were missed again.  I even had to water the sunflowers!  But we did have the benefit of more very beautiful clouds.

Happy quiltmaking.....

Piecing Progress

First from the Friday Night Sew In:

 The Borders are on Little Miss Gardener:

I really do love this quilt.  It's my first Jane Sassaman fabric.  It's surprising how these solids sweeten the look.  
Sweet Teen was productive too.  She used gift bags to make covers for some of her text books:

She'd mentioned using a Hollister bag with a mostly naked guy on it.  I don't think sooooo!  I do not care how many other kids are using Hollister bags with the naked guy either!

I made  the curtain for under the counter where the dishwasher used to be.  I love the fact that I now have adequate room to hide away the wastebasket.  I do need to get something to cover the surface of the subflooring.  I need to take a closeup of the fabric too--it's a toile with hens on it. I do love walking into the kitchen and seeing and using the sink that is big enough!

The other big effort early this morning was more weeding therapy.  In Central Illinois where I grew up, someone was always remarking, "You can take the boy off the farm, but you can't take the farm out of the boy."  As an adolescent, I couldn't wait to leave the farm.  Imagine my shock to discover this late in my life that you can't take the farm out of the girl either!  And weeds are just like potato chips--I keep thinking, just a couple more.

Those weeds back there just grow like crazy on the city right of way.  I am fairly sure that there has to be a leak in the water main along there.  I've suggested that to the city several times, but they don't want to believe me, and keep suggesting there may be a leak on my property, but they won't come out and look at it.  When I stand in the alley, I can see a thick path of weeds following the water main.  I need to think of something to plant there to take advantage of the extra moisture and to squeeze out the weeds.
That mobile home back there had most of us really upset when it was moved in.  This area is for site-built homes only.  We were assured it was for a temporary construction office and would move on.  It's now been there for years--and, obviously, no one takes care of that property. 

Oh, I forgot that I'm linking to the Friday Night Sew In.  It's your chance to meet some more sewing bloggers.

P. S.:  Sweet Teen is on her way to the county fair dance--that's okay.  Except, we had the portico light on, and the moths are back!  Yuck!  Guess the moths are migrating again--signaling summer is drawing to an end...just in case I hadn't noticed how short the days are getting!

Happy Quiltmaking.....

Quilt Progress: Little Miss Gardener

 Here's where I am at bedtime:

Colors are off because it's taken with living room lighting after nine.  I just draped batting across a chair and plopped on the blocks, because otherwise the breezes from the fans would have had the pieces flying! And oops!  I do see something I need to fix.  But it will wait until morning.

I've been sewing this on my Featherweight, but if it's nice and not windy in the morning, I'm planning to take my handcrank Singer 99 outside for at least part of the rest of the sewing.

And, yes, it's new name is Little Miss Gardener.  I have to admit that these solids make those Jane Sassaman prints very special.  They remind me of when my daughter was little and called everyone's yard a "garden" and could entertain herself for long stretches watching flowers and insects.  Let's hope the little girl who receives this quilt will have the same fascination with gardens.

When Sweet Teen was a toddler and we went for walks, the birds were so friendly to her that I wouldn't have been surprised if one had hopped right into her hand. Now she does not like bugs or snakes at all--and does not appreciate it when I point out that without insects her diet would be a lot more limited--not that anyone should think I'm saying she eats insects!  I refer to the jobs they do in nature!

Okay, it's been a long day!

Linking to Connie's Free Motion by the River.

Happy quiltmaking.......

Robin's Song Quilting Complete....

  ...except for being signed, and it still needs binding.

 I quilted feathers with s-spines in the borders--3 different colors of thread, alternating a Fil-Tec Glide green, a Fil-Tec Glide pearl, and a ThreadArt variegated that ranged from almost ivory through apricot.

 The border is beautiful, but, boy, did I get tired of rethreading the machine.  I like the effect, but I don't think I'll try so many color changes on a border again--at least not for a while.

 I do love the serenity this border adds to the quilt. This quilt was made from two Moda charm packs, 3 Sisters' Papillon, from a quilt designed by Mary Lane Brown from the old Florida cracker pattern and featured on the Moda Bake Shop. This quilt was made entirely on my ca. 1940's Necchi BU in a 1919 Singer treadle cabinet. (Yep, it represents a lot of treadling!)

 And this is the little lady who will receive the quilt.  Blanche is almost five months old, and look at the personality in that face and those eyes.  Her mother's eyes were equally as deep blue at that age. (Blanche was designed by Karen and Max and named for Karen's paternal grandmother, who died almost 60 years ago.)

Now that I'm pretty much finished with the fun of quilting, it's time to get the binding cut and applied. I once let a quilt sit around for almost a year waiting for the binding to be sewn to the back!  I need to be a bit quicker this time. I'm pretty sure I should have cut out the binding when I pieced the quilt--would have made it less painful!

I'm going to link to Connie Kresin's Quilting by the River:

as well as Quilt Story:

and, in the hope that this won't be a WIP for long, to Esther's Blog (sorry, tried numerous times to paste the html for Esther's pretty little badge, but it didn't work).

...blogs where you can catch up with and be inspired by what a lot of other quiltmakers are working on this week.

Happy quiltmaking.......

Robin's Song Blocks Complete

Advisory:  Another Picture-Bounteous Post

I am happy to report that the Robin's Song block quilting is complete--although I will still check for missed spots.

At least temporarily, the best part of all this quilty goodness is that I will now be able to begin on the quilty-wonderful borders!
I'm quilting this on a Necchi BU from the late 1940's in a 1919 Singer treadle stand.  The variegated thread is from Thread Art, but the other quilting threads are Fil-Tec Glide available from www.bobbincentral.com ...And, if I'd realized I'd end up using mostly the pearl colored Glide in the bobbin, I would have ordered a bunch of their Magna-Glide bobbins.  I realize many people may look at those little bobbins with nothing but a round magnet at their core and think they wouldn't work in our vintage class 15 bobbin cases.  However, they are absolutely a delight to use!

I'm thinking this means I can actually link to some of those linky parties in my left sidebar!

Happy quiltmaking......