End of April

 

I have been very bad about blogging. I was surprised to see it has been almost 3 months. Time is slipping away.

I went to our local Bernina dealer, Hinkletown Sewing to get a new foot for my machine. I saw this bag behind the counter and asked if I could have one. How cool is this!? I love how the handle for the bag is the handle for the machine.

I did a swap this spring with During Quiet Time with her book, Petals and Stems. The idea was to make a top and bottom but don't sew them together so you can mix and match the stems.

See how you can switch them out?

So fun!

The backgrounds were all low volume.

This is one that I made. If you are interested round 3 swap is open....go check out her website.

Remember all my little blocks? I am still making them but other projects have had to get done as well.

 Here is my little stack so far. They are addictive and fun. They would be perfect for a retreat or group sewing.

I think you all will get a laugh out of this......I was changing my foot from my regular one to my walking foot. I took it off thinking it was right behind my machine. When I went to put it back on I could not find it. I looked everywhere, for like 2 hours. I even looked in the trash can, twice. I ended up tearing apart my entire room.

My husband came upstairs and I told him what happened. Now this is a man that cannot find the mayo in the fridge.....He immediately spotted it! It fell in a crack of my sewing table and was wedged in there good! I swore I looked there at least 3 times.....

Now that everything was everywhere I decided to clean up a bit. I have a bin that all my vintage blocks are stored in and it was getting out of hand. I went through it and sorted and purged.

I totally rearranged my furniture and I love it! It may not look too organized but it feels like it and I can work so much better.

Some of the blocks/fabric is so wonderful....

I have picked these up at quilt shows and sometimes antique stores.

I feel like these are "instant" doll quilts, vintage even.

I have a collection of doll quilts I will show you one day.

I love Lori Holt of Bee In My Bonnet The woman is a marketing genius. 

This is a part of her red sampler sew along. It is fun and will get me a red and white quilt. Oh and I have done a little cross stitch! I know, I know who am I?

I love a good functional gadget. I got this little iron for Christmas and it is amazing! It gets super hot and will be great for retreats.

My other new find is Magic Pins. I love them! For some reason they are easy to use and very thin yet strong. The blue ones are called quilters length and the green ones are smaller.

I think I am a stress shopper. I found this and knew immediately I had to have it. It's soft, hand quilted and it was only $65, no stains, rips or tears!

This one was $95 and the hand quilting is amazing!! It too is so soft, I love it.

We are cleaning things out at my mom's house. She let me read a bunch of letters that my dad wrote when he was in the Korean Conflict. It was before they met and apparently women were proposing to him by letter! The content is so heart warming and you can feel the loneliness in some of them. There are also some gems in there from my grandmother who was never shy about telling you her thoughts! Who even remembers Air Mail? This is a reminder to write some letters, email will be deleted and some really amazing events will be lost. Write those letters! Give your grandchildren something to read and maybe even be amazed by....

For those of you that subscribe by email I have posted a new box on the top right of my blog. You need to subscribe again if you wish to still receive my blog in your email box. The current way you subscribed originally is going away. I am not sure why Blogger feels the need to keep changing things, it such a pain.

Kelly

Mid October

How is that we are more than half way through October? Our leaves have hardly even changed yet. I better not get gyped out of some pretty fall colors.
As you can see I did get a new camera, now I need to figure out how to get rid of the date......
Doesn't this fabric feel like circa 1970? Something about it appealed to me. Who knows where it will wind up!

 Some more vintage fabric that will find it's way into a scrap quilt. I need to do one with just plain squares.
For bookclub this month we read The Hour Husband. Only 3 of the 7 of us read it. The 3 of us who did were not impressed, just saying!

More baking! Here's tip.....Pepperidge Farm makes a wonderful "Farm House Cookie" I figured out it is plain old chocolate chip with Heath bar toffee bits added. Try it I think you will like it.
So I feel like I am getting back into the groove with the blogging. Now if I can only figure out the camera.....

Kelly

VintageTuesday

As many of you know I love vintage things, both inspired and the real thing. Pyrex has released a line called Vintage Pyrex. While it does have a vintage feel, it is not as good as the real thing (the way it looks). I have the "real" blue polka dot bowl so I could compare. You can get these at Target but I could not find them in the store, only online. The good news is you can order them and they will deliver them to the store for free, no shipping!

This is a real vintage Florida dish towel that I used to make yet another Lola Pouch. I promise this is the last one. It is taller than the pattern directions but I could not bear to cut off the "Florida" or the palm trees. On the plus side I can fit a lot of things in it for my upcoming getaway. I even love that yellow on the flamingoes and decided the polka dots added to the vintage feel. Once I get the binding at the top sewn down I can fill up.
I really enjoy using vintage finds and will be doing more of this kind of sewing!
See you next week with a show and tell from our retreat. Let's see how many things I get done!

Kelly

Sprig

Sprig

Making the doll quilt I made last week, made me think of making some more pieces that are small. It was fun, not time consuming and gave me almost instant gratification!

I am easily distracted when it comes to sewing. I was looking for one thing and stumbled on the leaves that were given to me last fall. They are all almost the same size and are cut from a variety of fabrics, some pretty and some not so pretty.

So now I dug out the rest of my vintage fabrics and the wheels started to turn.

It can get overwhelming and I have 2 different "ages" of fabric. Vintage which I call the fabrics of the 30's through the 60's and antique which are more dark colors, probably late 1800's through the early 1900's..... think reproductions.

I bought this book back in 1995! I think it is proof, good design is good design no matter how old it is. Janet gives you some easy tips to either copy her design or make your own. She tells you to start with a bird because it is easy, of course I did not listen.

You will never find me making a cat quilt and you will most likely never find me using these colors! Yet it appeals to me. Simple, fun and something you can make your very own.

I had a piece of an old quilt that was leftover from some pillows I made. I bought it as a piece of an already cut up quilt top. The fabric was so soft and the quilting was beautiful. I liked honoring her work with mine on top.

I made a mug rug using this design (in my header on the right) and a postcard. So there must be something about the way this looks that appeals to me. It happens to be doll quilt size but the proportions of the leaves are not in keeping with doll quilts.

What I liked about making this quilt.....
Everything except the floss is vintage
I didn't feel the need to make my embroidery perfect (it's not!)
I loved hand appliqueing the leaves without thinking about turning it on the line, they are all different
I love all the pretty pinks, even the ones that are a little dingy
I was hesitant about the yo yo and the rectangles but am glad I put them in
Just touching the soft white quilt made me happy and was nice to sew through
I thought about the woman who quilted those tiny stitches, would she be horrified?
I started this and finished it in 1 day

So now I am deciding if I will put a binding on.....it feels kind of nice without it but looks a little raggedy. It will be a vintage fabric so that may be a deciding factor.
I will be making more of these. Watch for a bird quilt!

Kelly

Sewing Day

I finally got all my nine patches from the swap that Barb, from Fun With Barb held last Fall. It was such a fun swap and I got a great variety of fabrics in this quilt. I did make some more on my own as I wanted it a little bigger, this one will go on the couch for naps.

While this was not the original pattern I chose, I sewed them all  wrong at the Getaway in February and decided I was not going to unsew them. I really do dislike sewing long rows together, it is pretty boring.

On my design wall I have another group of swap blocks also a swap that Barb organizd. This is a randomly pieced quilt so it is taking a bit longer than I thought.

When I haven't sewn in a while, I want to make everything that is floating around in my head. Not that it is practical but things get pulled out, willy nilly. These blue fabrics are going into the quilts for the twins now that we know they are boys. It's pretty bad when you are stacking up your boxes of scraps. A cleaning is in order!

I came upon this vintage Economy Patch quilt that I absolutely loved. Sorry for the bad pictures, it is very bright here today.

It is damaged and needs repair. There is one fabric in particular that has disintegrated. Part of me feels the needs to rescue it.......

but as I look closer at it much of it is coming apart. It was hand pieced and hand quilted with no batting and no binding.

The fabrics are very vibrant and have wonderful designs. It does need a bath too.
So would you cut it apart and use the fabrics or keep it whole and try to repair it? Does anyone know if I wash it now, would I be sorry?

Kelly

Vintage Blocks

I dug out some of my vintage blocks and played with them yesterday. While this is cool looking, I am not sure how it would sew up. It does have a lot of movement!

This was my original layout. I think this needs a little more work before I sew.
I took the original blocks that were pieced on newspaper foundation (that was removed) and pressed them with some Mary Ellen's Best Press. Then trimmed them down to a uniform size.

If you look closely you can see hexagons traced on the purple fabric. I love that she used every last scrap!

Here are the leftovers from the trimmings, I might hang on to these (-: you never know....

Bluebird of Happiness and Sunflower

I wanted to show you my quilts that got hung in my livingroom over the weekend.Technically this is not a formal living room but more of a read-a-book-have-a-conversation-without-distractions kind of room. I also still need some curtains.

The light is extremely bright in here so it looks very white. I will be getting/making new pillows for the couch.

Overall I am glad I put these quilts in this room. I used Commando strips to put them on the wall so I can take them down without leaving holes. Those ferns go out on the porch in the summer and are a bit overkill in this room, but I have to keep them alive until spring!

Do you hang your quilts up in your house? If not why?

Kelly