Swiss Cheese

This is another of Rob's Great Grandmother Alloway's quilts, The Mill Wheel or Millstone, I'm not sure which is the correct pattern name. One of his aunts brought it to a family gathering, in a big black garbage bag, shoved it in my arms and said maybe I'd want it, or burn it, whatever. Was I thrilled?? Duh!

The main problem was apparent upon laying out the quilt. It had been tied far too far apart, and whoever did it had used two super heavy old flannel sheets for the batting. In the course of many years use as a utility quilt all that shifting had done it's damage; there were so many tears where there had once been ties. Secondary problem was, as you can see in the first photo a lot of the fabric had simply disintegrated.

The first thing I did was clip the ties and get rid of the weight. Then I spent several months unpicking all that fine hand sewing. If anyone thinks hand stitching isn't as strong as machine stitching, they've never unpicked hand sewn seams. Then I sorted and pressed what pieces were salvageable. Even those were very thin, so in desperation to save something I ironed each of those pieces to a light fusible interfacing. At the original seams there was nothing left except a few threads so I squared up the blocks at the old seam lines and repieced everything I could salvage.

As you can see, the re-squaring threw off the wheels a bit, but no harm done. I just love this little quilt, and I hope my sharing it will inspire someone else to save a family heirloom that might appear unsalvageable at first sight.

The back side is a Fish block made from a set of templates I purchases in Cowbridge Wales many years go; I like double sided quilts. Swiss Cheese can usually be found hanging over our bed, firmly tucked back in the family bosom. 29" square, 1998.

Bah Humbug? No Way!

What does image 1 have to do with image 2?

If you need some 'make them smile' low dollar gifts for guild exchanges, mini-groups, or just a friend who enjoys sewing now is the time to start on this idea. Keep a shoe box behind your sewing machine and every time you use up or break or decide to fling some little sewing notion or quilty bit throw it in the box rather than the trash. In a short time you will have a great selection of items. Include some of the trimmings from the cutting table and Shazam, you have the ingredients for a great gift.

Divide the bits into smallish jars, (or a gallon jar if you are only making one and go for a really big smile!) tie on a couple of selvage edges for ribbons and then all you need is the gift card. These two jars are pint sized.

Print up what you'd like to say on paper, fuse it to an appropriate fabric scrap, trim and you have a unique and lovely Scrap Buster gift card. This card says...

Enclosed: One Heirloom Quilt

Some assembly required

Where Have I Been??? Not RAKing...

There is quite a move afoot this year for a special type of RAK or Random Act of Kindness. I'm a great believer in RAK's and love to do them because they are always anomonyous and they will always bring a smile to someone somewhere.

My friend over at EveryThingQuilts did a post today on RAKing small ornaments. I don't know or care who started it, only that it is such a fun idea. Which got me to thinking about a post I did awhile back on all my wooden spools. Because I have such a crummy memory I made a quick unadorned project to remind me next November or early December to get a bunch of these made. I have a box of little Christmas picks with holly and tiny bells etc which would add a lot of charm and variety to the simple idea of ribbon through spool and a list for Santa. And we certainly can use plastic spools too...finally a way to repurpose those!

This idea doesn't have to be specific to Christmas either, Halloween ones, Easter ones, etc. would be super fun to hang on knobs and leave on benches around town!

Don't forget that instant Heirloom Quilt gift... still time to make one of those~

Thursday Thankies

Sunshine

Stash

Sewing Machine