grandmother's wildflowers

The baby hexies are finished! I know I said I would post this well over a month ago. Lets just say I severely underestimated the time it would take, and the time I would have available, to finish it.

"Grandmother's Wildflowers" is a take on the traditional grandmother's flower garden quilt pattern. While the technique and all the handwork I did was traditional, the open spaces aren't. I was inspired by a quilt in "Pretty Little Quilts" that had individual hexagons missing allowing the wall to show through.

I have one of my fellow quilting friends here in town to thank for the arrangement. I played back and forth with several ideas, even several different layouts, when Kathy sat down and began moving them in more of a color order arrangement. Bingo! A few minutes later I had them grouped the way I liked. I debated a bit about whether I should add a few more, but decided I'd stick with what I had.

All of these hexies are vintage fabrics that were precut and strung by an anonymous quilter years ago. Like the rest of us, she seems to have had a few UFO's in her stash. I bought them at the garage sale and can now consider them vintage project number 2 that's been completed from that huge find. (The first was the string quilt blocks.)

Every stitch in this mini quilt was done by hand - from basting the hexagons over paper, to the stitches joining the backing to the top. The back is a vintage feedsack. I would not use a feedsack again for a project of this type. The weave is too loose and I had to put in twice as many stitches to secure every loose thread in the weave as I finished the project. The quilt is tied in the center of each hexagon with matching embroidery floss.

And here's a quick shot of my next vintage UFO. More handwork, so it'll be a long time before I can post a finished quilt for this one. I have twelve of these dresden plates to applique to blocks. The long drive to New Hampshire a few weeks ago took care of 3 of them.

Step by step...

thrifty thursday

Take a deep breath, Carol. One of your favorites:

faux bois

Wish I could say I found the planter super cheap at a thrift store. It came from a great vintage finds store nearby and while it wasn't thrift store priced, it was good enough for me.

My african violet now has a new home.

I wish it looked a little better, this plant has bloomed nonstop since I put it in this window 7 years ago, but I think it's adjusting to its new home.

thrifty thursday

I have such a backlog of thrifting to post, but I have to skip over it all to show you what I found last week.

Wooden spools - a few hundred of them.

I've been picking them up for a few years now finding just a few here and there. I'd collected several dozen before happening on this find. The shop manager and I struck a deal for the whole bin.

What, you may ask, am I going to do with them?

Up til now, the ones I had just made me happy sitting in a glass jar, but this bounty has to be put to use.

I'd love to attach them as pulls on a piece of furniture in the craft room or make pegs like these.

I spotted a shelf like this at the flea market years ago and am still kicking myself for not buying it.

Wouldn't this be the sweetest valentine or thank you note?

I have some dollhouse furniture ideas as well, though they aren't fully formed in my head yet.

There were plenty of other toy ideas out there that didn't particularly appeal to me - maybe my kids are too old for many of them.

Some, like the ones below, are quite small. The ones on edge are the diameter of a penny. Perhaps charms on a necklace?

I was a little surprised that I didn't find hundreds of ideas for them when I googled wooden spool crafts. Anything come to mind for you?

thrifty thursday

How does that line from The Godfather go? "Just when I got out, they pulled me back in." Or something like that.

Last week I sat at the table in my quilting group and was quietly working on my baby hexagons (maybe a progress update tomorrow) when Bernice walked up to me and asked if I was sick of the hexagons yet.

I said, "Just about". She replied that she had something I might be interested in.

So yes, I've bought another hexagon project (and this one's huge).

I didn't count how many there were total, but these are much larger than the other hexagons I've worked with and I imagine when they are all put together (there are pieces in ziploc baggies for about 30 more) there will be enough for a bed quilt.

I'm posting these now, but don't count on this project getting touched anytime this year. I've discovered that yes, I am a bit sick of them for the time being.

one step closer

The hexagon diamond top is done! In the photo it's hanging at my weekly quilt group meeting for show and tell. The strips of fabric to the right are vintage scraps that will be used to bind it. The backing will be a combination of yellow and blue solids that I have on hand.

For now I'm leaving the piece alone. I need a bit of a break from it. I'm pretty sure that I'm simply going to trim down what you see, binding it with the blue print and use it as a wall hanging (I'm concerned that some of the original stitching in the diamonds that were complete may not hold up well in a quilt that's used on a daily basis). I do have a little bit of nagging doubt though about not putting a border on it. Instead of tearing ahead and regretting it later, I'll let it sit in the back of my mind for a bit.

I hope to have a better sense of what I want it to be before our driving vacation at the end of June. I can get a lot of hand quilting done on the drive from IL to NH.

choo choo

When I find stuff like this, I wish Glenn was still a little guy. This would have been perfect for his train themed 2nd birthday.

I have no idea how old it is - 50's? 60's. The colors are so sweet. I think it may have been a cake topper.

thrifty thursday

A few new additions to my vintage apron collection.

I'll never tire of gingham.

And ric rac. I cannot stand how cute it looks sew on that way.

This one's a sheer little number with lilac polka dots.

Hand finished trim on the pocket.

I've really got to come up with a way to display these. Right now, even though I use many of them, they primarly live in a drawer. Seems a crime to hide them.

itching to do some stitching

I wish I could say this great piece was mine. Sheila, a quilting friend in town, shared it with me last week, knowing I'd fall in love with it. She said her sister got it for her at the Kane County Flea Market years ago.

While it looks like a dresser scarf I wonder if it was used to drape a sewing machine to keep off the dust.

The motifs are just killing me.

And all that crocheted lace. Oh my.

why i've gone missing

Nothing dramatic. No problems here. Just life - spring break, family stuff. It's so easy to just get out and enjoy the sun and warmth and forget all about the computer. I'll try to catch up on the kids' lives for family this week. For my quilting friends, I've managed a few more blocks and I'll post those soon as well.

With spring's arrival, I'm spending more time outdoors with the kids and need some handwork to keep me occupied. (I also think my local quilting group - many of whom hand quilt - has rubbed off on me.) I decided to continue working on those hexagon diamonds I posted a while ago. I love working on this project, but because it's all done by hand and takes so much more time than machine work, I simply don't have as much to post each week.

This is the design wall in my studio with some of the hexagons in my final arrangement. You'll notice it looks like many are missing.

That's because they're here:

I'm hand appliquing each diamond onto white fabric. Because the hexagons were sewn partially by another woman, I was somewhat forced to continue assembling them in the same way. The seams are a bit wonky and none are exactly 1/4". A steam iron and starch did wonders for getting the diamonds to behave and lay flat, but there's just no way they'd all go together neatly with one another. Nor would making a path of hexagons between them work.

So hand applique it is. I've wanted to try a new skill and this is definitely giving me practice. At this writing I have about 7 more to add. Each one takes me about 45 minutes - I'm new, I'm slow. I'm trying not to think too much about how long this project is going to take to finish.

-Especially since I feel I should finish it with hand quilting.

Later in the week, I'll post another related project. I'm a little hexie crazy right now.

hexies

Several days ago Jan asked what we worked on during the Olympics.

Jan, great minds must think alike. Among some other embroidery projects, these hand pieced hexagons have taken over my life.

They were purchased last year at the garage sale. I brought home a box of antique UFO's and among them were these hexagon diamond blocks.

A few were finished, but most were not. I started with the ones that had the centers and next round done. You know, sort of a quick fix to feel like I'd accomplished something. After that came the ones where I had to sew the individual hexies together and then put them on the block in a row. Took a little longer, but it's amazing what you can do when figure skating's on.

I wish I could say that these are done with the precision of Jan's English piecing (I think that's the method she's using). That's one drawback to picking up on a project where someone else has left off. These were done in a more haphazard way. None of the seams are exactly 1/4". They aren't pressed in any order that I could make sense of. Some of the hexagons are slightly larger or smaller than the others. It's definitely a make do project. Nothing a steam iron can't fix, I'm finding.

I'm nearing the end of them. I have about 3 more blocks to go and then I can start assembling them. (There are actually more that I didn't photograph. In the end I think I'll have about 20.) The best route to go seems to applique them onto a background fabric - more handwork and the summer olympics are two years away.

thrifty thursday

These are the last of Effie's treasures that I've photographed. There were also some damask tablecloths, but they aren't as cute as this:

The work on this purse is lovely. I can't imagine what a woman might carry in such a tiny pouch (with holes!) - a hankie? The diameter of the body of the pouch is only 4 inches across.

These are probably the oldest items that were sent. The ankle length apron has many holes in it. I think parts of it would look great in a quilt with the hankies. The cap is very stiff either from age or starch. I wonder if both items belonged to her mother, the woman who died in a prairie fire.

I cried out when I pulled this from the box. Within moments I was wearing it. I know Liz had once planned on framing it for her home, but never got to it. Instead of being art on the wall, it'll help cement my reputation on the block as the crazy apron mom.

Next Thursday it's back to junk I've stumbled upon at thrift shops and garage/estate sales.

thrifty thursday - effie's aprons

A few more aprons that were in that wonderful box:

This one is hand stenciled:

I use this one when I'm picking up around the house. That pocket holds the phone and a vast number of tiny toys that need to go back in the girls' rooms.

This one is child-sized, though I know from Mary's letter that Effie didn't have any children.

I wonder what inspired a woman who lived in South Dakota to stitch a southwestern themed apron?

feedsack embroidery

What I've been doing when I haven't been posting the past few weeks:

I bought the feedsack at "the garage sale" and I'm pretty sure I photographed it for a previous thrifty thursday post. Above is where I'd gotten to a few weeks ago and was feeling like it'd never be finished. I thought I could do an "in progress" post.

Instead, the weather continued to freeze me out of the basement and I got addicted to watching Gilmore Girls in DVD. Handwork was the only answer to that dilemna. Before long I had this to show for my efforts:

All of the words are outlined in perle cotton in either the stem or backstitch. The leaves were filled in with chain stitches. Blanket stitching surrounds the oval.

The inspiration for this was a vintage quilt I spotted in a book (no idea what one it was now) that had advertising feedsacks in every block embellished with embroidery. This one is much larger than those - about 20" wide by 40" long. I'd like to feature it as the center of a wall-hanging sized quilt for my kitchen. That's a project for another day.