Two days in a row — I guess you can tell I’m having a good time with these aprons. It’s so fun scrounging around the sewing room looking for things to use as embellishment. The first apron is made from vintage yardage that reminds me of feedsack. I didn’t want to add pockets to this…
My daughter often gets phone calls that begin something like this: “I just had this really good idea for the wedding, and I hope you like it because I’ve already started working on it.” She’s a good sport. My latest idea is to make vintage-inspired aprons as favors for all the guests at the bridal…
Joseph’s Coat is a fairly challenging pattern, and it’s also one of my all-time favorite scrap quilts. There is no date on this pattern, and I can’t read the date on the original envelope. Alice Brooks was another name used by Needlecraft Service, Inc., the same company that published Laura Wheeler patterns, so it was…
Over the past 10 years, I have collected lots of vintage quilt patterns. I am now in the process of scanning and cleaning all of my newspaper and mail order patterns (the most fragile), both as a method of preserving them, and to share with other quilters. Because so many people sell copies of these…
More from the 1943 book, You Can Make It – Things To Do With Scissors and Paste. Some of the crafts in this book seem pretty hard for children — even older children. These Easter favors are so cute, but honestly, I think the whole tiny strips of paper as hair idea would be tricky…
One-third of the designs are done. This is such a fun project that I really don’t want to stop. I’m behind on the wedding napkins, though, and I promised myself I would spend at least one whole day of my spring break working on them.
It’s funny — I love collecting and sharing all kinds of vintage and antique embroidery patterns and transfers, but I rarely stitch these patterns myself. For some reason I am always attracted to vintage book illustrations — always trying to figure out how I can adapt them to embroidery and quilting. When the illustration is…
My next Christmas project is a quilt using a Charley Harper illustration from “The Giant Golden Book of Biology,” published in 1961 (now out of print and very rare). The image was scanned at a high resolution from my Todd Oldham book, “Charley Harper – An Illustrated Life,” a Christmas gift from Gordon. To make…
Here is something I really appreciate — for over 80 years, some nice person kept together every item of this quilt in progress. Large pieces of the colored fabrics were included, as well as a tiny illustration from a Lockport leaflet and a hand-colored drawing by the quilter. Apparently, the quilter had just that tiny…
No sewing today, but I did manage to clean up some more of these sweet embroidery patterns. In a couple of days I’ll be back with an actual quilting post.
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Saturday was Elliott’s birthday party, and I know I have mentioned before that my party themes for Elliott alternate between Transformers and GI Joe, which were his favorite toys when he was little (Emily always has a Hello Kitty birthday). Last year I made GI Joe cubees, so this time I wanted to make the Transformer…
This was a really different quilt for me — more like the table toppers I make than my quilts. To me, the Polartec fleece batting makes it a feel a little more like a comforter than a quilt, but that’s probably a good thing. The old Everglaze chintz for the backing has been in my…
To be honest, I have been dreading looking for a dress. Although I knew what I wanted (linen sheath, preferably pink), I doubted I would be able to find just the right dress. Then, on Sunday, Emily and I stopped by the Goodwill on our way back from picking up her wedding dress (a perfect…
Quilters Newsletter is working with the Japanese Quilt Magazine, Patchwork Tsushin, to collect comfort quilts for people affected by the earthquake in Japan. When I thought about what type of quilt I would make, a few ideas came to mind: it should be a simple pattern (because there’s not much time), it should be warm,…