From Treasured Linens to a Quilt

I am one of those lucky quilter's who come from a long line of quilter's and stitchers. My Mom was very crafty. She knit, quilted, cross stitched, and sewed all of my sister's and my clothing including wedding dresses and veils when the time came. My sister, Dawn, recently visited from out of state and brought some embroidered tablecloths,

dresser scarfs,

handkerchiefs, and doilies that my Mom had done years ago and were just sitting as keepsakes in her cedar chest. She wanted to use these linens in a wall hanging or quilt or something. We searched through Pinterest and the internet and saw pictures of embroidered linens used in crazy quilt blocks.

With the beginnings of an idea I took my sister to her very first quilt shop visit to start looking for fabric (a very funny process as I had to explain to her that the wall samples were not for sale, they are to give you ideas of quilts to make yourself- put them back).

Two jelly rolls ( a collection of 42 coordinating 2 1/2 inch wide fabric strips) and a couple yards of a coordinating fabric later we had the start of our quilt.

My sister traveled home and I started the crazy quilt blocks. I found this ruler

which was very helpful getting me started with the blocks but I still had to make those first difficult cuts in my Mom's linens and handkerchiefs.

The blocks kept growing with their precious centers

and have become a beautiful quilt top.

Next step will be the quilting but first another trip to the quilt shop for backing fabric. Come back to Nebraska, Dawn, I miss you. We will drink coffee together in the sewing room, you with your iPad and me at the sewing machine, and share in this happy labor of love.

Happy stitching,

Cheri

 

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Glue Basting

I recently made a doll quilt for the humblequilts.blogspot.com annual doll quilt exchange. The instructions were to make a doll quilt, less than 24 inches square, that looks like it came from the 1800's to about 1910. Well I remembered a crib quilt, circa 1840, I saw one day while browsing the quilts on the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art website.

It was a red and white quilt made with with a red and green flowered fabric. I had almost an exact match in a Jo Morton reproduction print fabric. The blocks looked like drunkards path blocks and I made three inch hand appliquéd drunkards path blocks for my doll quilt version of the museum crib quilt.

I also remembered recently seeing an article about using glue instead of pins to baste quilt binding and even piecing. These little druckards path blocks seemed like the perfect opportunity to give glue basting a try. There were many points that had to match in these little blocks to get the secondary design of circles to look nice and neat.

I would line up the blocks and fold back the 1/4 inch seam allowance on the top block and put tiny drops of Roxanne's glue where I would normally place pins before sewing blocks together.

I also put these drops of glue just inside the seam line so I would not stitch through the glue and carry glue on my sewing machine needle into my machine. Overall the technique of glue basting worked very well. I would only use it on piecing where it is important to get points to match, but I will probably do it again for such a project.

I hand quilted a simple quarter inch outline in the white sections of the blocks and a triple quilted line in the borders.

 

Red binding added and my little doll quilt was off to Jessica in Colorado.

Lori at Humble Quilts always comes up with the best quilt alongs and exchanges and I can't wait to do another doll quilt next year.

Happy Stitching,

Cheri

 

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Smithfield Crossings, Doll Quilt Exchange

This is the lovely doll quilt , Smithfield Crossing, I received from Tammy Morrow in the 2016 humblequilts.blogspot.com doll quilt exchange. Tammy made the quilt from 12 charm square and a border print of Judie Rothermel reproduction prints.

Tammy lives in Alberta Canada and she also sent me some Canadian themed fabric, the red maple leaf from the Canadian flag and the legendary lnukskuk figure.

This little doll quilt exchange was so fun to take part in, thank you Lori from Humble quilts for organizing and hosting the exchange. I am already thinking about the quilt I will make next year if you repeat the exchange. Smithfield crossing hangs on a nice section of empty wall in my quilt room where there would be room for future little doll quilts :)
Happy Stitching all,
Cheri

 

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