Hexamania and a Hope Chest

Hello Everyone and Happy Sunday,

For the past few years, I've had this beautiful silk and taffeta quilt on display in our bedroom. I never appreciated the workmanship until now since I started making English paper-pieced flowers for the Party in the Garden Quilt.

I don't know much about this quilt other than the fact that my mother had it stored for years in her hope chest. I'm a firm believer in displaying old quilts, using the good china, crystal and silver. I love to use and enjoy the items that have been handed down to me. Yes, a dish from my great-grandmother broke one Christmas.....but I don't think she would mind. I think she would have been delighted that the dishes were being used by family members she never had the chance to meet.

Now back to the quilt. It is unfinished and I will never finish it since the back of the quilt is so interesting.

I've been upstairs "reading" the back of the quilt for the last hour and finally found what I was looking for . A scrap of paper with the date of May 19, 1949, making this quilt almost 61 years old! (It's as old as my sister!.....I'm going to hear about this!)
Many different types of paper were used to make the hexagons. Envelopes, paper bags, advertisements, church bulletins.....nothing was wasted. Here is an envelope used from an electric bill from Paradise, California....my hometown. So, now I know approximately how old the quilt is and where is was made.....but I don't know who made it or how it ended up in my mother's hope chest.
Seed packets were cheap!
Silk Toilet Tissue? A postmark from Chicago.
Another envelope.
These stitches are so precise that I'll bet the person who made this may have diminished their eyesight and that's why it was never completed.
More church bulletins and pages from magazines were used.
Here are my blocks. They aren't nearly as interesting. I've used perfectly die-cut hexagons made out of heavy cardstock. I'm not going to show you the back, as the stitches don't even come close to the perfection of the old quilt.
Those of you that have used applique pins know how tiny these hexagons are. They are so sweet. I will keep making my blocks hoping to perfect my stitches. Someday, someone I've never met will take this quilt out of a hope chest and use it.....I hope!

Enjoy your day and use the good china for Sunday dinner tonight.

As always,

Lynn

Civil War Tribute Quilt

Hello Quilting Friends,

Not much to report on for the last few days. Since we were at the cabin for ten days, we've had lots of work to do around this house upon our return. No storm damage, but we did have quite a bit of debris down in the yard.

So here's what I've been working on in between menu planning, grocery shopping, bill paying and getting all of the financial information gathered together for the tax accountant.....what a chore that is!

I've been working on some more blocks for the Civil War Tribute quilt. The little 6-1/2" blocks scattered around the larger blocks are the Lil' Orphan Scrappy blocks I've been making out of the leftover fabric. I'll have the Lil' Orphan Scrappy pattern available for sale at the shop soon.

Now here is my problem block. These corners have been bothering me ever since I finished the block. The direction of the wheat is all "wonky" and I didn't have enough fabric left to correct it. Every time I walked into my quilting room, I would look at that block and think it needs to be changed! I'm not 100% sold on that fabric wonky or not.

I've been auditioning other fabrics to see what looks the best. One choice....

....another choice.

I'm not satisfied with either fabric, but I do know that I'm going to change the corners to something else. That's the beauty of quilting. If you don't like something, change it. Trust your instinct and sense of color. If you are going to be spending a lot of time and money on a quilt, make it YOUR quilt, YOUR way. Just because a certain fabric comes in a kit or a block of the month, doesn't mean you HAVE to use it if you don't want to. It's okay to change things up a bit or a lot. I'll let you know what fabric I'm going to put in the corners. I may not even decide until the end, when I've got other colors to choose from in the fabric line. I'm not a purest, so I will probably use something from my fabric stash if I think it looks good.

Here are the little scrappy blocks I've put together from the leftover fabric. I've added three "lights" to the mix in a color consistent with the Civil War look and feel. I still have enough leftover fabric to make many more little blocks which are so much fun to make.

Enjoy your day and the sunshine everyone.

As always,

Lynn

Back From Beyond

Good Morning Friends,

It was time to come home. The power, phone, cable, and Internet all went out around noon on Friday. The first 24 hours we had fun being resourceful. The Cornish Game Hen we cooked on top of the wood burning stove was quite tasty. The recipe wasn't good enough for the Wilder Family Cookbook, but it was good.

I have two of these HEAVY old irons that I was trying to use to applique. Where there's a will, there's a way! I would keep one warm on the wood stove while working on these little leaves. Well, I've never had trouble with carpal tunnel syndrome....but I will now after using these heavy irons. The bottom line is I completed only nine leaves using the starch method of applique with this iron!




It was getting harder and harder each day to walk down out back to take these pictures. I finally resorted to wearing Joe's boots that were much taller than mine. But they were so big that my sock ended up wadded in the toe of the boot every time. I've fallen and I can't get up has true meaning for me now. It's hard to extricate yourself to a standing position while trying to protect your camera. Zinny was absolutely no help at all. She just pranced around me doing her little doggy laugh and thinking it was very funny being eyeball to eyeball with me.



Joe says the bird feeder resembles Marge Simpson's hairdo. It was the equivalent of gathering around the water cooler in an office. We had every bird in the neighborhood eating at our feeder contently waiting their turn.

Every candle we owned was pressed into service. Working on applique by candlelight is definitely not an option. Reading by candlelight was also ruled out very quickly. We played a game called Rummykub....great fun but hard to make any distinction between the colors of the tiles. Either we have old eyes, or weak candles. We went for a walk, in the dark to check out the rest of the neighborhood that was also in complete darkness except for the one cabin with an extremely annoying generator that pierced the solitude of the evening. Zinny had a great time romping in the snowbanks dropping out of sight on more than one occasion.

We came back to the cabin, had a glass of wine by the fire, then headed for bed without the benefit of an electric blanket. But not to fear, I have so many quilts around the cabin, on beds, on walls, on the back of couches that we were nice and toasty.

After 24 hours without power we decided to come home. Much longer than that, we probably wouldn't have been such good sports! The power is still out as of this writing. Over 5,000 customers are without power caused by 50 separate outages. I'm thinking the food in our fridge is history.

The past ten days have been some days that we will remember for a long time. We had torrential rain, sleet, thunder and lightning and snow. Driving home, the emergency broadcast system came over the radio, and we were headed into a potential tornado! Surprising weather for California.

I hope all of you have a wonderful day. I'll be warm and cozy working at the shop tomorrow. Hope to see some of you there.

As always,
Lynn