Decoration Day, a Day of Remembrance

A sacred day of remembrance to honor those who paid the ultimate price for our freedoms.  Thank you to those who have died in our nation's service.  We honor you on Memorial Day.

We cherish too, the Poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led,
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies.             by Moina Michael
  

This Memorial Day (formerly Decoration Day), I am featuring three patriotic quilts, each decorated with buttons.

The first one is a folk art flag pattern from Jo James.  I don't think the pattern is available now, but this site shows where it was available previously. (Here)  It's 17 x 24 inches.

Second is a cute little mini flag - it's only 6.5 in. by 9 in., and was made by Monique of onlydollquilts.blogspot.com, and was shown on her blog in 2011 (Here)  I really like her blog.

The above two pictures were saved on my computer - I was doing a private version of what Pinterest is all about for many years.  So my home computer hard drive has lots of files of quilts that I like.  Now I save them on Pinterest so others can see them too.  

Below is a small quilt that I started years ago.  It is now just a top, but will be a pillow cover, or a wall quilt.  It measures 16 x 20 inches in unfinished state.  The outside borders may get cropped somewhat when I decide what I'm going to do with it.   It's on my design wall now, so it will remind me to get it completed.  Check out all the other design walls (at Patchwork Times - here).

The beginning picture is of adorable Madeline Grace Wallace, then 4, carrying flags at the National Cemetery in Little Rock, Arkansas, May 25, 2012.  It was in the newspapers on the web last year.  She was helping her mother, U.S. Air Force Tech Sgt. Wendy Wallace, honor the soldiers who died in protecting our freedom.

A Doll Quilt is A Nice Rainy Day Project

Good Morning Quilters!  The past few days have been very rainy here in Virginia, and it's been a good time to quilt!  

Here's my progress on replicating Jane Weaver's little doll quilt.  At the top, is a photograph of the bottom four rows, beneath it is my version of those four rows:













Three more rows to go and then the little hst border all around it.  Can't wait to get to the little hst's!  What are you working on today?  

34th Street - What About Borders? Part 2

When I finished my version of Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street (mine is called 34th Street), I was unsure of what I wanted to use for borders.  Nothing spoke to me.  see my past post (here)

Yesterday I had an Oprah Ah Ha moment when I was folding up an old quilt, and looked at the border, and thought - how would this look on 34th Street?

A light green border, with a red inner border!

So I tested it out by laying 34th Street on top of the old quilt.  At the left is a picture of the old quilt that is underneath.  So the border is settled!!  Only, and there's always an only, isn't there?  I don't have any more of the light green fabric that I used before!


So, off to find a substitute green:
 No, not this one.  No, not the one below either.

 

This is the one!!  So now that it is decided, I can finish 34th Street and get it to the quilter to become a quilt before Christmas!  I'm always glad when one of my quilts bumps along through the pipeline toward completion.

This time of year, the flowers are so beautiful I can hardly stand it!  Yesterday a dear friend brought me a beautiful bouquet of peonies in her beautiful cut glass vase.  Aren't they beautiful?  And their smell is divine.

Next are some blue flag iris that are growing on the golf course behind our home.  Here they are in all of their glory:

God is so good, isn't He?  Have you had any Ah Ha moments lately?

Doll Quilt Fun!

I'm having fun replicating an old doll quilt that I started last week (here).  I got to thinking that I should ask the owner of the original quilt if it would be all right if I copied her quilt.  So I contacted Jane and here is her kind reply:

I appreciate your concern for permission. The quilt you have identified is an antique doll quilt made in the late 19th century in New York state, and I think it would be absolutely wonderful for someone to make it again. It is not copyrighted by anyone, and I am simply lucky enough to own a quilt made, obviously, by a young lady learning to quilt and using up tiny, tiny scraps.

I don't know if the Pinterest site directed you to my website, but I'd like to invite you there to look around. Some of the quilts were made by me, some are in my collection.   (her website)

I hope you will send me a photo when you are finished. And photos of anything else you'd like to send. You must have lots of little quilts!

Thanks for getting in touch,

Jane

I'm feeling much better now about having permission to make a copy of her quilt, and here's my progress.  I have the bottom three rows completed out of seven, and as you can see, Sophia Grace and Rosie are testing it out:

Here's a picture of the original doll quilt:

On the design wall, I'm working on Barbara Brackman's suffragist quilt, and my choice of colors is cheddar, cheddar, and more cheddar.

I haven't decided if I'm going to make a Sunbonnet Sue for block #36, as it doesn't seem to fit in with the other blocks.  (Here's the block)  What do you think?  I had fun making the giant hourglass blocks after making the little ones for the doll quilt.  The process is the same for both hourglasses, but results are oh so different in size.

What are you working on this week?  Check out Design Wall Mondays to see what others are working on at Patchwork Times

Small Quilts and Redwork Quilts

I fell in love with this little quilt when I saw it on someone's pinterest site.  It is an old doll quilt that is owned by Jane Weaver (website)  She has several old small quilts, and I love all of them.  She calls this one Triangles Variation Doll Quilt.

I love to study old quilts and their fabrics.  When I try to duplicate them, it helps me learn about colors and what makes a part of the block recede, or come forward.   Sometimes I love a quilt, but don't know why, and after I try to make one like it, I understand why I love the original quilt so much.   And I usually love my attempt to make it too!  It has been fun to work on this one.

Original quilt, circa 1895, 17.5 in. by 21.75 in.

Here's the bottom row of this quilt, original version (a little blurry, sorry):

And my attempt to copy it:

Here's how far I am, as it is pinned on my design wall:

As you can see, I did most of the four patches before I attempted the hourglass blocks.  The hourglass blocks will finish at 1 inch, but aren't really that bad to make because I make them a little bigger, and then make the final cut at 1.5 inches square.

The original maker would probably think I'm batty for making a duplicate of her random fabric selections, but I love the total look, and it is so much fun to dissect it and study the old fabrics.

I may add more red somewhere in the upper left area, so there are three spots of red, what do you think?  I love the red hourglasses in it.

I'm also multitasking on several other projects.  Here's a redwork square that I finished recently.  My friend Dee and I are making squares to replicate an old quilt from a pattern I bought in Paducah at the AQS Quilt Show from a vendor.  I liked the pattern, and when I got home I realized I had taken pictures of a quilt made from the same pattern when I was at the Hampton Road Mid-Atlantic quilt show!  The quilt has a redwork border, and I hadn't seen one with a border before.   Here's one square that I embroidered:

And here's one of the pictures I took at the quilt show, showing what the border looks like.  I'm sorry I didn't snap a photo of the info tag to tell you who made it.

Now that I am doing the embroidery, I am thinking I may make a different border - It's not that I'm fond of this particular border, I just like the idea of a border on a redwork quilt. 

I'm checking out Judy L.'s blog (Patchwork Times) to see what is on everyone's design wall this Monday.  What are you working on today?

Quilting and Gardening - I love it!

This week has been filled with quilting and gardening - two of my favorite things.  I was gone most of April, and the garden grew like weeds, and the weeds grew like, well, weeds.  So I've been outside for at least an hour a day, sorting my stash of flowers and pitching my stash of weeds.

I finished binding my copy of a nine patch from the book Childhood Treasures.  It now belongs to my doll Hitty, and here is a picture of her with her new quilt, and the book's picture.  Childhood Treasures - Doll Quilts By and For Children, by Merikay Waldvogel, is one of my favorite books.

The little quilt finished at 14 inches square, and the nine patch pieces are 1.25 inches square.

I've been working on Birds of a Feather and here's my progress:

I liked the orange bird I inherited with this UFO from my friend Sharyn, and added  leaves in fall colors.  There is going to be a bright berry in the mouth of the bird.

We have wrens building a nest in a birdhouse on our front porch, and the chimney swifts are nesting in our chimney, so I feel blessed by birds inside and outside.

I finished sewing the red print flowers on this one, so one block is complete!  I am finding that the more applique that I do, the more I like it.

I'm posting a link to Design Wall Mondays at this blog.
(Patchwork Times Blog)

I like to see what everyone else is working on each Monday, and looking there reminds me to post to you what I've been working on.