Ready To Quilt

The border is on and the backing is together and Stained Glass is ready for the quilting frames.

We got a bit of a break from the rain that seems to have been constant lately so I laid it out on the lawn to get a good look at it. I've framed the blocks with a light gold that helps bring out the golds throughout and I quite like it.

There are so many rich colours in this one that I think I will make a scrappy binding that pulls them all into it.

Here's a better shot of the border fabric - tiny little daisies on a gold background; the backing is the same.

This one is a true team effort - Anne started it, I finished the sewing, and Betty is putting this one up on her frame, so I bundled everything together today, went and picked up the batting and dropped it all off so that she could start it whenever it suited. It's nice to get it out of the sewing room and feel like I had made some progress....M

Do I Turn Right Here?

As is typical for me, I went down to the sewing room yesterday to cut the last remaining pieces that I needed to finish off the dozen or so blocks for Spot and proceeded to get totally distracted with another project. Not hard since they seem to be layered one on top of the other until the feeling moves me to pick them up again.

I had been slowly sewing my flying geese together in units of about 6 - one or two units are a little longer - for Fly Away Home but they haven't been touched for a while since I was working on the Pumpkin Patch at Midnight. Now that the table is cleared up from that project I felt like getting back into my geese. There's a good-sized pile of red 6-geese units on the ironing board ready to be pressed and I put together about another dozen or so.

As I was sewing I got thinking about the layout. You'll remember that this is what I was working to...

but in the back of my mind I'd been thinking about this, which I really love too...

And it occurred to me that I could easily just turn things to the right a bit and lay my rows on the diagonal without having to wait to start a new project - two birds with one stone, if you will.

I'm also toying with whether the rows should all be pointed in the same direction...

...or alternating. I'm leaning to alternating. What do you think?

By the way, I did get the last of the Spot blocks and sashing cut so I have some hand sewing that I can pick up when I want on as well....M

Butterfly Dreams

When we were growing up there were always two crib quilts in the house that, long after we left the crib, we would use to nap under or cuddle in when we stayed home sick from school - they were folded and stored under the cushions in the sofa, which I thought was ingenious. One was made of the softest pinks and blues - darling nursery fabrics - and I think that it may have been made from flannelette. I'm not sure where it is now, but I do have the second one. It's a great collection of appliquéd butterflies and is showing signs of its age.

Each butterfly is made in a different fabric so you could spend lots of time occupying yourself trying to find duplicates, but never did. Usually I could recognize some of mom's old summer dresses in other quilts that she made but I don't in this one. Missing wings reveal the less faded yellow that the blocks were embroidered on - they are so bleached out with age now that they are almost white.

A soft grey check sashing surrounds each block and I've always thought that it would have been nice to have it in a floral print because of the butterflies, but the butterflies were all done in very strong and graphic prints and the grey doesn't fight with them so mom must have known what she was about :).

It's about 50 years old and showing its age in a lot of places. This corner looks like it got caught on something somewhere.

Many of the butterflies are long gone but their embroidered skeletons remain and it's fun to try and imagine what they looked like.

The backing is a blue/grey flannel print that works well with the check and, believe it or not, it still feels like flannelette. It's wonderful having such a vivid childhood memory in our home...M

Laundry Day

Today I've got a bit of a blast from the past to share with you. Betty was washing linens and freshening things up for the summer, and included in that is a quilt that she made in and around 1986 - are we really old enough to remember 1986??? (Don't feel obliged to answer that with your out-loud voice...)

It's called Garden Path and she got the pattern from one of her friend Sigrid's books. Betty and Sigrid were great friends and she still misses her dearly, so it's nice to have this reminder of her in their life every day.

There are 121 little blocks that finish up at about an inch square in each of the larger blocks that make up the 3-blossom mauve design, and then there are lots more in the strips used for the sashing. Lots and lots of little blocks! It is all beautifully hand quilted and gets great use - they have it on their bed all the time.

If you knew Sigrid at all you would recognize what a testament this is to her and her love of quilting. She loved using lots and lots of different prints and she was prolific, beautifully hand-stitching everything, and doing so very quickly. I remember her sitting in her wing-back chair, happily working away, creating so many wonderful masterpieces.

Quilts are such treasures, aren't they?....M