Back in my blog again

I have been away from my blog for a long time. In the mean time, we moved back to the house where I grew up. My mother passed. I went back to quilting more on a regular basses. As my husband says "passages".

I have my own quilting studio. We have a large yard. Our family consists of 3 cats, a dog, my husband and myself. Our house is old. It was built in 1923. So it requires a lot of attention. But we all enjoy it very much.

It is good to be back in blog world.

Noah's progress

Ok, so this is a tow for. It is a progress report and a Grandma's quilt post.

I don't remember whether I have ever explained this before. So forgive me if I am repeating myself.

In explanation.... I work on many projects at once. There will be a Grandma quilt in progress, a history related quilt (2 at this time), a quilt of my design or contemporary quilt, a small quilt (such as a wall hanging) ( 3 of these in progress right now) and another quilt related project (like pillows, ministerial stoles, etc). My progress is slowed even further by only having 2 to 4 hours a week to quilt.

So this is the Grandma quilt that I have in progress. She started this quilt in the late 40's. I'm not sure but I think I remember her working on it in the early 50's when I was very, very small. It is basically a red work pattern but she did it in other colors. The white muslin (actually, bleached flour sack material) have Noah's animals embroidered on them.

In between the animals are Arks of red and white on blue waves embroidered on squares of that 30's green. Not the nice Nile green but the one that fades out to an icky yellow with age.

At the top and bottom of the quilt is a row of Arks. When I found the quilt top it was all together except the bottom row. When I sewed all of the Arks together for bottom, I was missing one. So I used muslin and embroidered my Grandmother's name and the year about when it was pieced.

As you can see I bast with safety pens. That is the safest way for me as my Fur baby helps .

I chose a blue fabric with white hearts on it for the backing. The blue matches the blue in the embroidery. I have sense found an "Aunt Grace" 1930's repo blue for the binding.

I am in my 3rd winter of hand quilting this quilt. I am stitching in the ditch and to stabilize each square I am stitching at the edge of some of the embroidery lines. I am about 4/5 of the way done. Hopefully this will be my last winter of quilting it.

Progress report

It is about time for a progress report on my Mother's 95 birthday quilt. I am further than this but not so far as to show pictures.

I know it is a very simple beginning. It measures 12" by 12" at this point. The green around the log cabin is for the fields around the log cabin on the homestead in Idaho where she was born.

The passage in the story that goes with the green fields is: "The homestead was in a little Valley. A Stream ran along one side. Papa had an area of one pasture fenced off to make a pig pen. There was a well next to the cabin. Papa built a rock wall around the spring which dammed up the water as it trickled out of the hill."

My next bit is my fur baby Sherbert. Not only all boxes are his but almost any basket that should wonder into his kingdom. This basket is about 10" by 12". No he doesn't fit. But he has clsmed it.

As you can see, when he tries to lay down the basket rolles on to its side. He doesn't care. It is still his to sleep in.

What was in this basket was one of my Grandmother's quilts that was under construction. I don't think she liked it much because it was just waded up in a ball in the basket along with a lot of scraps. When I first unwaded it I didn't like it much either. It looked to be somewhere around 30" by 30", dingy, & musty. I decided to handwash and iron it. As it hung, dripping out side, I recognized the over all pattern. Many years ago I saw a picture of a depression era quilt from the Ozarks. When I ironed it the size grew to about 45" by 45". Each square is just over 1".

By the way, I like it very much now. Another quilt from Grandma that I get the honor to finish.

I will show more on this little gem in a later blog.

Butterfly Flutterby

This is the 4th time I have tried this blog. Sometimes I HATE blogger.

Well on with my blog.

Have you ever read one of those stories about how some one found a gold mine of patterns and clippings from their Grandmother or Great Grandmother. Whenever I read one of those articles I drool and become rather envious.

Just recently I read one of those stories. The article told how this lady had been cleaning the old family home in preparation for sale. The lady found a box of newspaper clippings. The clippings were quilting patterns and pictures. As I sat reading and drooling I tried to imagine what it would be like to find one of those stashes. Right, not me. The article went on to tell how the lady's Grandmother had drafted patterns from the clippings. As I read this I thought about my Grandmother's patterns of which I had ever seen but 2 or 3. Maybe that is how my Grandmother got her patterns. That is to say, drafting patterns from pictures of patterns.

Well guess what. It turns out I am one of those lucky people. As we clean out my Mother's house we find quilts, quilt tops and quilt blocks and parts. NOW we have also found 3 notebooks where my Grandmother had glued clippings of quilt patterns and pictures of quilt patterns from the newspaper. The clippings ranged from the 1920s to the 1950s. In the box where the notebooks were there was a lot more clippings. I have not gone through them yet.

As to how I would feel ... Like I just found the pirates enchanted treasure. About whether Grandma drafted patterns from the pictures. Yu betcha. There were small drafting of some of the pictures.

Woo hoo.

Now for the reason I offer these clippings. After my last postings I got a remark from a person that liked vintage quilts but had never seen a butterfly quilt or pattern. So I thought that these would be the first that I would share of these patterns.

I will try to draft some of these patterns but don't hold your breath. First I want to draft the pattern of the butterfly in the blocks that we found in my Grandmother's room, the ones I shared in my last post. I will be sharing more of these patterns though. As and when I do draft any of these patterns I will share them on my posts.

Butterflies

You all have meet my other Grandmother, Minnie Thorp. However this is my other Grandmother, Eden Powell. She was a lovely, little English lady but she had a hard working, stern side also. How I remember her is as she was in the picture to the left.

A little about her: She was a mail order bride from England in 1900. Her husband to be was a farmer/rancher in Utah who had 8 children by his 1st wife who had died in child birth of their 9 child. Grandma raised those 8 children and the 8 that she had. My Father was the youngest.
She past away 50 years ago when I was 6 so my memory of her is not really strong.

You may ask why I am telling you about her. Well I want to show you 1 of the 2 quilt pieces that I have of her's.

It is a 1930 style Butterfly done in Feed sack material.

She did it in 1951 as is indicated to the right of the butterfly in embroidery. Also embroidered is her name in her own hand.

Now I want to tell you a strange story. I have long wanted to do a butterfly quilt in 19030/40 style. I use to not know what material I wanted to use. I started looking for butterfly patterns. I downloaded some 1930/40 style patterns from the internet, bought some, etc.

Jump to the present. As I may have mentioned, I have been helping clean out my Moms house. In the process I have found over 20 of my Grandmother's quilts. That is Grandmother, Minnie Thorp. That means finished quilts, tops, block sets, and blocks in progress. Well this is one bundle of blocks I found. My butterflies with a flair.

The Pink and Black one is made of 1920's material.

The others are 4 of 10 blocks. These ones are made of 1930's fabric.

I like Grandma Thorp's embroidery. It is not too visible in these pictures.

Please forgive the wrinkles. I didn't want to iron them until I had time to rinse them by hand.

So my UFO pile grows.

Mae's Quilt

This is my Mom about 3 years ago.

On the right is a picture of her at a Christmas Party this year at the home of our long time friends.


What does that have do with quilting, you ask. Well this summer will be her 95th birthday.

I know that is a long way off. But not when a quilt is being made for her birthday.

Around the middle of Nov I woke up one morning with my Mom's life in a quilt in my mind. I couldn't get it out of my mind until I had it sketched out. I thought that I would be able to let it slip away or to the back burner then. WRONG!!! It just kept forming more clearly in my mind.
I decided to really think about it. Well August is quit a ways away. If I had others(Cousins, Sister, Friends) help, it might just work. I have one cousin who quilts beautifully. I can give her an idea and dominations and let her run with it. Her daughter is a neophyte in the quilt world but she may like to do some also. Well, you've got the idea. So I talked to one cousin (sews and likes needle crafts, but is not a quilter). That was around the first or second week in Dec. She was jazed by the idea. Next thing I know I am hearing from 2 second cousins. They want to do some. To make a long story not so long- 6 or 7 people besides myself are working on this quilt. When it is done I will have to give them each a copy of the story that goes with the Quilt.
So this is the first block.

The story that goes with this block is:

"Papa & Mama lived in a log cabin on a homestead in Idaho. That log cabin on that homestead is where I was born in 1912. That log cabin was always safe and warm. It was warm both in warmth and love. "

So over the next some months I will be showing the growth of the quilt. I will try to give credit to each of the quilters. I will also share the stories that go with the quilt.



I thought I would share a Christmas picture with you all. I know that Christmas is past but as I didn't get to share with you then I thought I could now.

My little Santa's helper helping wrap presents.

Hi all:

Some of you may have noticed that I have been absent from Blog world for about 2 months. It was a combination of 4 day weekend,
very sick then dead motherboard in my computer (a little over a month to rectify), 3 plus days of the flu, and Christmas gift making.

Now that I have a computer back, I am back.

I know that for most of you, Christmas is over, but in our family decorations don't come down until between New Years and 12 night (Jan 6). So I figure I can still show you my 3d Santa that I made last year. He was one of the only quilts I finished last year while sharing care giving duties for my father with DH. Santa helped challenge my mind while keeping my frustration level and grieving down.
Santa's hair and beard , also the edge of his coat, are made of a very fuzzy flannel. His boots are polished cotton so the look like paten leather. The tree is the most 3 dimensional as it sticks out some. Well you can see what I am talking about.

As to the presents that I made were scarves, some fabric some crochet; a very light weight lacey crochet throw blanket; some more pin cushions; and lastly bags (as in lunch type bags.)

I thought I would show you some of the bags. I came up with 3 different patterns based on regular brown paper bags.

The top one is the one I like the best.
They really weren't to hard.

If anyone would like the patterns I would be glad to post them.

Well I am trying to start the New Year right. Posting at least once a week, quilting, etc. I have a lot to share with you all, my own quilting and my grandmother's.

So be safe tonight and have a happy New Year.