Here in the Pacific NW, it has been dreary and raining for the past week. We got a little bit of sun last week, but I was still so jealous of the warm spring weather everyone else seemed to be enjoying. Anyway, to cheer myself up, I decided to make a springy little doll quilt….
The only place I could find this pattern is on the first page of Maggie Malone’s “5,000 Quilt Block Designs.” She calls it “Big O”, but the name doesn’t have a reference to any publication. I thought I should change the name for this little quilt. The pattern reminds me of Kansas Dugout (here is…
The Happy Childhood Quilt pattern, which was designed by Aileen Bullard, appeared in the Kansas City Star in 1932. It is an appliqued quilt, and many of the elements in the blocks are designed for the use of bias tape. I have another old pattern that calls for bias tape, and I think it’s a…
The Brother-Sister Quilts were published as a newspaper series in 1933 by Florence LaGanke, under the pseudonym, Nancy Page Quilt Club. There are 14 blocks in all, 7 meant for use in the brother’s quilt (with blocks repeated and the tree as a border) and 7 in the sister’s quilt (blocks repeated and the pram as…
Thank you everyone for your nice comments about the shop. I have been working very hard this past week on the little doll kits. The plan for this Scottie quilt top was to make kits, but I wasn’t happy with it because the scale was all wrong. I was concerned about the number of pieces,…
First of all, I want to thank everyone for all of the nice comments on my Baby Aster quilt top instructions. I added the two suggestions from Joyce and Mickie to state the dimensions (good catch, Mickie), and put a level of difficulty (great idea, Joyce). The kit is all put together and ready to…
This past week I have been working on the doll quilt kits, prepping and cutting tons of tiny pieces of fabric. The one thing I have been putting off is writing the instructions, which is a struggle for me. In this first draft, I tried to come up with a format I could use for…
This is my latest idea for a doll quilt kit — a miniature Baby Aster which is basically a Dresden Plate, but without the scallops on the blades. The pieces for this top are actually from some vintage Baby Aster blocks which were crudely sewn. The blocks provided enough pieces to make three more of…
Lately I have been obsessed with browsing antique newspapers, looking for apron inspiration. This set of children’s aprons is so cute, that I thought I would clean up the image and share it with you. The directions in these old publications are always so quaint and are usually well written, but inevitably they assume a…
Just a couple more aprons after this, since I already have the fabric selected. Then I promise to change it up and move on to the little quilt kits. The fabric for this first apron was advertised as a cutter luncheon cloth. It was homemade using medium weight fabric that I think had faded evenly…
This set of aprons was really fun to make because I had more fabric to work with. Vintage chintz is pretty much my favorite fabric to use in aprons. It’s especially nice if the piece hasn’t been washed and still has its original finish (like the strawberry fabric), but chintz is still pretty even if…
Nashua Telegraph January, 1942
I hope you are not getting sick of looking at these aprons, because I am clearly on a roll here. This cute vintage geometric print was purchased in a cool thrift shop in Arcata, California on one of our road trips down the coast highway. The combinations on this apron are a little odd, but…
The apron inspiration is still going strong. Even though I should probably move on to doll quilts or some other product idea, I don’t want to stop when I’m having this much fun. The vintage fabric on the Rose Apron is a sort of cheater quilted fabric. I have several variations of this type of…
The borders of this apron are made with the prettiest French glazed chintz fabric. The remnant I purchased was just a length of cut border with one wide selvage. It was advertised as vintage, but I have no idea how old it is. I used the selvage as the hem, so on the inside…