One more present down — many more to go. Table toppers are so fun to make, and I think they’re especially pretty if you have some vintage decorator fabric scraps in your stash. These bark cloth pieces were left over from a round of tote bag sewing. Bark cloth is generally pretty expensive, but I…
Animal Friends Merrill Publishing, 1939
These are pages from a late 1930s paint book. The 128 pages appear to be drawn by several illustrators, which was not usual in these very old coloring books. I think these Mother Goose pages have a unique and interesting style. Of course, I was also thinking they would make wonderful quilt blocks, but I…
This little quilt was made with scraps from vintage floral sheets and pillowcases which I purchased on Etsy. The fabric is mostly 50/50 polyester and cotton blend — it’s very soft, but not as nice to sew with as 100% cotton fabric. Because the patterns are so similar and there was no way to create…
I’ll have a few Christmas presents to show pretty soon, but while I’m working on them, I’ll keep posting these old transfers.
I realize it’s not even Thanksgiving yet, but these are large designs and I thought they would take a while to stitch. These are from a Fashion Folder – Holiday Patterns vintage transfer booklet. There are lots more smaller transfers which I plan to post soon.
I’ve been very busy lately working on my Christmas gifts. The embroidered basket quilt is going well — the center quilting is finished and I’ve quilted about half of the border. The second embroidered pillowcase is languishing, but today I should be able to finish the top of a Rail Fence baby quilt made with…
Hope it’s not too late for you to stitch up some of these cute Artex Thanksgiving transfers.
There was something about that printed border on this quilt that just didn’t look right to me. I’m not sure what it was — maybe there was too much red — but something bothered me, even though I truly love that fabric. Finally, I just removed both borders and replaced them with a more subtle…
Saalfield Publishing, 1944
Emily just sent some photos of her Halloween costume this year. It’s from one of our favorite movies, The Birds. Amazingly, there are people who have never seen the movie, or any other Hitchcock movie for that matter. I think that’s just sad. We managed to find a bottom-weight fabric that was close to the…
Several years ago I saw this fabulous embroidered butterfly quilt top on ebay. I can’t remember what it sold for, but it was a lot more than I was willing to pay. I did, however, save the photos because I loved it so much and thought someday I would make a similar quilt. I am…
These pretty vintage pillowcases with the filet edging were purchased on ebay. For some reason they are huge, so I am going to cut them down a bit on the other end. I adapted the designs from the J. F. Ingalls embroidery catalog published in 1886. Scans of the catalog are available on John Governale’s…
I found another photo where you can just see Bette rocking out to one of my records — probably The Beatles or The Who. Here’s a photo of my bedroom. My sister and I went crazy with this funky stick-on-furniture — I had a stick-on headboard, picture frame — even a stick-on gumball machine. You…
Recently I purchased an entire set of “Make It Yourself” books — 20 volumes of neat 70s projects, including knitting, crochet, sewing, embroidery, rugs, crafts, and of course…..macrame. These were published by Columbia House in 1973 and each volume came with it’s own folder of full-sized patterns — all the other patterns are in the…