This was a pretty easy block with an obvious pattern to use on the letters. Originally I was going to do the quail for Q instead of the queen (even though she looks so cute with the little king), until I managed to change her design a little bit to create a pattern for the…
I think the colors and the scrappiness of these pinwheels manage to pull the alphabet blocks together into more of a cohesive look (my daughter, Emily, also likes it that several of the characters appear to be waving). I sort of regret that I didn’t use a brighter color for the elephant block (and maybe…
Here’s part of a comment I just received from my friend, Bunny, at When Life Hands You Scraps: “about the wood grain on the door, you’re right, it does look busy but I think that is because the house is so plain other than the door, windows and roof. Maybe some light horizontal lines across…
The “I” block in the ABC Coloring Book is a giant ice cream cone. I just wasn’t interested in stitching it since it has so little detail. Fortunately, I have two other coloring books illustrated by Vincent and Dorothy Fago and one of them has a cute drawing of an ice cream vendor with a…
My Paint Book Samuel Lowe Company, 1941 Uncredited Illustrator
This was a pretty straightforward block that was quick and had a nice fill pattern for the letters. I like this variegated floss — the colors are perfect for a giraffe. I just couldn’t bring myself to make yellow grass, so I bent my self-enforced rules again and used a different color floss for the…
This is a DMC variegated thread and it’s very subtle — sort of a red, fuchsia, pink and orange, but it’s difficult to see in the photograph. Since the fireman drawing doesn’t have anything obvious to use as a fill for the letters, I decided to draw some flames. There are a couple of other…
This house took even longer to stitch than the owl. Originally I was going to use the little roof shingles as the filler in the letters, but I just couldn’t do any more of those. I decided to do the window pattern instead which was way easier, but I wish I’d made the lines a…
Preparing these quilt pieces has taken a lot longer than I thought. Of course, I’ve done this lots of times before, but I never really kept track of how much time I spent (since I didn’t have blog deadlines). First, I only had enough of the smallest size salesman sample triangles for half of the…
This little folder was tucked in with a group of vintage patterns I purchased from Great Britain. There is no date, and although I expect they are pretty old, they’re in perfect condition. The transfers are printed on parchment type paper and I’m sure they would iron just fine, but I’m not going to try…
The elephant was finished several days ago, but I have been busy pressing, drawing, cutting and sorting a gazillion little vintage triangles for the sashing strips. Although I had settled on the pinwheel pattern, I tried several different versions — all prints, scrappy prints & white, scrappy prints & solids — but finally decided on…
I love both of these little quilts from the 1948 Simplicity Needlework Catalog, and I even have the original pattern for the Lilies of the Valley Baby Puff. The transfer is very faded and I’m not sure it would even work, so I would probably draw over the pattern and trace it onto the fabric…
This quilt was started in 2004 when I purchased 15 vintage Dresden Plate blocks on ebay. A few of the blades needed to be replaced, and I exchanged the yellow centers for pink ones. The additional 5 plates were made up from some of my vintage scraps and the blades for the ice cream cone…
Thank you to all the people who have commented on this series of blocks. It’s so nice to hear from other embroiderers and quilters. This Jack-in-the-Box is stitched with my new Anchor multi-colored floss which I think looks just right on him. For most of the block I used just one thread because of all…
This is the perfect Pacific Northwest item for the letter U. This one went lots faster, so maybe I will be able to post a block every other day if I continue to trade off between the easier and more complex drawings. This weekend I am going to lay out some of my vintage triangles…