Minnie & Me

This is my Grandma (Minnie) and me, when I was 3 months old, 50 some years ago.

I wanted to introduce you all to my grandma as she was the one that started me quilting when I was about 9. So I have quilted on and off for 40 some years. She taught me how to quilt, crochet, embroidery and told me stories about my family that had gone before. As I may have mentioned before part of my quilting philosophy comes from her teaching. There fore many of the things in my life that merge together merge also with her.

You see she lived with us until I was in my early 20s when she passed on.

I have been lucky enough to inherit her love of fabric, much of her stories, love of quilts and some of her personality. As I have been clean out my parents house, I have run onto bits and pieces of her needle work or fabric (stuff - an old term for material), not all of it in her room. So on to a quilt that I built around an embroidery that she did in the late 40's.

The little puppies in the center are my Grandma's needle work. I later found the embroidery thread that she used. I found that the company that made that thread went out of business in the mid 40s. The colors, fabric and style are all strongly 40s, not to mention the little Scotty puppies. Who I started this quilt about 8 years ago (my parents were still living in their house), repo fabrics were not that easy to find around here so I got fabric that came close to matching and tea dyed it.

Next I drew little doggy prints on squares of the tea dyed muslin. The reversed appliqued them with tea dyed gray. As you can see the prints lead to the center piece. These little paw prints were sewn on 6 1/2 hour train rides to Bakersfield to visit my sister. At the time she was the minister in a church in Bakersfield.

Above the center piece you will see 2 little umbrellas. I also reverse appliqued them with embroidery embellishments. In a latter blog I will show you some more detail of this quilt.

Ok I have told you the story of this quilt. I think the story that it tells is pretty clear. It is the story of two little dogs caught in the rain. They share an umbrella. I like to think it is a little boy & little girl dog, so I started them at the lower corners and let their little paw prints show the path to where they share the umbrella. They could of each had an umbrella but they chose to share one.

Alright, now what did I learn. This was not the first time I tea dyed something but it was the first for large pieces of fabric. I used a fairly large kettle. It was my first on point quilt. Also it was the first time I did reverse applique.

Well blogger is not cooperating in regards to pictures. So the pictorial part of this blog will have to continue another day.