Upgrades are always nice~!

My sister was visiting me here in Idaho couple of weeks ago.  She lives in Pennsylvania and we don't see each other very often.  When I took her over to my studio, she noticed that I was using an old selvage trimming for a lanyard.  I like to wear my little snippy scissors around my neck so they are always at hand--no matter where I am in the studio.

Now, what is wrong with this? . . . it functions well.

Hmmm . . . this does look nice.

She graduated from the University of Idaho (the Vandals.)  During her visit here to Idaho, she met up with 3 girlfriends from her college days in the 80's.  She also visited the campus book store and picked up some U of I shirts to take back with her.  She must have felt sorry for me because she bought me this nice little black lanyard with a soft knit webbing . . .

 . . . and a retractable extension.  I love it!

New Apron. New Lanyard.

My girlfriend stitched this embroidery on this apron for a gift exchange with a group of friends.  I just happened to receive it and I love it too!

I want to be just like Maxine when I grow up~!



Oh . . .

 . . .yes, I do have a tree in the middle of my studio.

When we remodeled the building, we took out all the interior walls and put this old tree in to hold up the beam. It makes a great central location to hang my apron, measuring tapes and scissors.  It also makes a great conversation piece.

For more studio pictures, you can look "Behind the Green Door" on my Home page.



Quick Receiving Blankets

My little neighbor gal is having her first baby this spring.

Yesterday, it was blizzarding like crazy and I love quilting in my warm cozy studio on wintry days . . . but I am waiting for a shipment of thread to finish up the quilt on my frame.

Having put this off long enough, I dug into my flannel stash and found these two cute prints to make a couple of receiving blankets.

One thing I learned . . . I will not buy anymore printed stripe flannel. Once you get the fabric squared up, the stripes are wonky. I really dislike that....!

If you are interested, I have an older post with a link to a tutorial for these cute blankets.



Grandmother's Quilts

These quilted treasures were in my grandmother's house.  Here is a photo of her about 1912.  She had flaming red hair.  My dad had red hair, it skipped a generation and was then passed on to my son . . . but I digress from the story I wanted to share.

Bulah Genevra Shuping c. 1912

I have these quilts hanging on in my living room and enjoy them every day.

 

This quilt is made from men's wool suits.

You can see that this top was pieced in three distinct sections. 

The backing is a cotton flannel-type fabric that was once a medium blue. 

All the pieces are sewn by machine and the seams were covered by decorative hand stitching.  Then the quilt was tied with cotton yarn.

This piece had been darned.

Under this tear, you can see that the batting is encased in a cheese cloth-type loosely woven fabric. 

There is a small tear on the back.  The exposed batting is cotton wadding similar to the vintage batting seen at Kentucky Primitives.

At 72 x 63, this quilt is very heavy weighing in at just over 8 lbs. 

Grandmother's Quilts #2

Grandmother's quilts continued...

This quilt was hand pieced and hand quilted. 

 I really like the crisp, clean simplicity of this 9-patch with white cotton. 

Grandmother's Quilts #3

Grandmother's quilts continued . . .

This is a 3 color quilt: a light buttery yellow, a blue calico and a blue solid. 

It is completely hand pieced and hand quilted. 

Nice tiny, even stitches. 

Hand stitching on the sawtooth border--  The back of the triangles is not pieced, the backing fabric is simply extended out to face the triangles.  The raw edges were cut, turned and hand stitched closed.  I don't know if I could do this or not. 

Grandmother's Quilts #4

Grandmother's quilts continued . . .

Both of these are unquilted tops.  The Grandmother's Flower Garden was hand pieced by my grandmother.



This is almost a queen sized quilt. 

It is in almost pristine condition.  I have debated for years: should I quilt it or not.  As you can see it is not quilted.  I like to be able to see all the tiny perfect stitches on the back.  If I quilt it I will lose that . . . so it remains as is.

There are several blocks that have interesting fabrics.  The brown plaid and the center plaid have silver threads running through the fabric.  The cream color is silk.

The centers of the flowers in the next 5 photos are silk.

Tiny, robust stitching.

See those little knots?  I remember my grandmother teaching me to roll the thread around my index finger to make a tiny knot.  I think about her neat little knots when I make a rather loopy and untidy knot.  I am still aspiring to make mine better.