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…
Make It Yourself – Beaded Alphabet
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…
Embroidered Baskets Quilt Top
This is the funny little quilt I was struggling with a few days ago when I asked for help, then removed the post because I had an idea. I was going to give this to one of the pregnant teachers at school, but because it’s almost all vintage fabric (except the narrow blue border), I…
Ferris Wheel Quilt Top
All of these blocks were completed some time ago — I just needed to sew them together and add additional applique pieces where the blocks meet. This is a large quilt (84″ x 98″) which is going to work well on my ridiculously thick mattress. It will look much better when it’s quilted and I’ve…
Happy Halloween!
Big Big Paint Book Whitman Publishing, 1936
Letha’s Electric Fan Quilt – WIP
These are the little quilt pieces I just purchased from an Etsy shop — 211 small arcs with 5 pieces each — for $15. It’s not unusual to see a lot like this — probably the quilter was attempting a more difficult pattern and ran into trouble with the piecing. There are several reasons this…
Hand Knit Sweaters by Marjorie Dellasega
My mother was an accomplished seamstress, and also loved to knit, cross stitch and needlepoint. She made these two little sweaters for Elliott and Emily shortly after they were born in the early 80s. I have no idea where she found the patterns, but they are so cute — she had extremely good taste. Elliott…
Quilt Q&A
In the 10 months since I started this blog, there have been quite a few questions about my quilts. I usually answer these in an e-mail to the commenter, but I thought it might be interesting to put them in a post. Where do find your vintage fabric? I’ve bought most of it on ebay,…
Seven Sisters Quilt – WIP
For this post, I thought I would show you a little more of my process for designing/piecing my quilts. No Electric Quilt software for me — I work with computers at my paying job, and I’m not interested in combining computers and quilting. This project began with a box of vintage salesmen sample swatches —…
John Martin’s Book – October, 1926
I love everything about these old magazines — the stories, illustrations and advertisements are all charming. 40¢ seems expensive for 1926, but they are pretty wonderful — more like a soft-bound book than a magazine. This one is just a little larger than a National Geographic magazine — my copies from the 1930s are larger…
Simplicity Needlework Catalog – Mexican, Cowboy & Indian Tots
More cute little tots from the 1948 Simplicity Needlework Catalog. A month ago there was a huge lot of vintage Simplicity embroidery patterns (lots of them from this catalog), and they sold for over $300! I wish I had the original patterns, but most of these are not too difficult to copy from the envelope…
Applique Butterfly Quilt – WIP
I’ve photographed most of my completed quilts, so now I’m bringing out all the WIPs — and there’s a lot of them. These butterflies are cut from some vintage bow tie quilt blocks I purchased on ebay. They were pretty big blocks, so there was enough fabric left over to make lots of little basket…
Ferris Wheel Quilt – WIP
Of all the old quilt pieces you can find on ebay or in thrift stores, Double Wedding Ring arcs and pieces seem to be the most abundant. It was a very popular pattern in the 30’s and 40’s and, because it is challenging to piece, many quilters seem to have ended up with unfinished DWRs….
1942 Animal Paint Book – Part 8
This is the final group of the Animal Paint Book images.
Embroidered Haunted House Pillow
Update: I used an online coloring page to make this pattern, and I just realized that the page no longer exists. Fortunately, there are lots of haunted house coloring pages out there, so I’m sure it would not be difficult to find a pattern you like. All of the fabric is vintage and the lavender percale was…