A dolly blanket

On another book run to the library last week, 

(the kids are addicted to books!),

the director handed me a bag of colorful blocks.

He found them among his mother's things.

Could I do something?

I showed them to Jan.

They are turn of the 20th century fabrics.

The dark blues are mourning fabrics.

They are quite fragile.

But not to late to save.

The director said his grandmother must have sewn the little blocks.

I pressed all their scrunched up faces quite flat.

Look at the blocks made of even littler bits.

I volunteered to set them together.

Not one was square; the job would be very fiddly.

But my sewing machine is put away in favor of two young ladies who love to sew.

Jan put them together.

I went into the studio just in time on Saturday.

The quilt is on the frame and ready for quilting.

Time for the big Gamill and the artist to go to work.

"It's like drawing with a needle," Jan says.

She's sewing freehand, and called the little design her modern Baptist Fan.

Baptist Fan is an old, traditional quilting pattern.

Jan said she was sewing more closely than she normally would in order to add stability to the fabrics.

The back of the quilt.  A lot of movement.

The little quilt is about three feet on each side.

I attempted to sneak it into the library this morning,

but the director caught me.

He has no idea what transpired between the little bag and the item on his desk.

But he knew what it was.

His Grandmother was making a dolly's blanket.

Who for?

The rest of the quilt show

Go on over to Jan's blog and see The Rest of the Show

A quilt well rescued

I've mentioned rescue quilts from time to time.Quilt tops pieced but never quilted. My sister Jan is extremely fond of rescuing quilts, and quilting them.  She says some one's grandma is smiling in heaven, "Look, Ethel, look  That quilt is finished and can be used on a bed!"

Jan's friend Patty found an embroidered quilt top at a flea market.  It's a very large quilt, two embroidered panels, very well done.  Jan set aside a week to quilt the top.  Patty entered it in a regional show that the three of us went to today.

Some one's grandma is extremely pleased;

A kind lady with a good eye rescued the top,

And took it to an excellent quilter.

The quilt is quite white; the flourescent lights make is appear more yellow.

Storage wars

    

With fifteen around the table Sunday, some good stories were bound to be told.  Some were. 

After flipping through the characters of several reality shows we found a common thread in Storage Wars.  One of us told the story of a son who realized a year later that the remaining household goods in a storage shed were “just things.”  He told his buddy to cut off the lock, sell it all and keep the proceeds.

And from the other end of the table we got the story of the day.  Another friend is a builder and his wife has the unenviable task of keeping track of and updating the furniture staged in model homes.

They do own a storage unit her husband built and operates, and she uses a unit or two to store the excess.  Of course they had their share of abandoned units, and the occasional auction of the contents.  As Storage Wars, the television series, became more popular Jeane saw a definite uptick in the attendance at an auction and the amount of money they realized.  When she noticed a regular bidder responding with a “Yeep”, she knew the time had come; there was opportunity for a sharp contractor’s wife to turn her inventory, too.

Jeane added a unit of her own to the next several auctions, nicely staged.  She was tempted, but did not put a cardboard box up front labeled Grandma’s China.  The results were as anticipated:  all the unwanted furniture was gone.

As Jeane said, at her last garage sale her son’s lemonade stand made thirty dollars, more than she had taken in.  She didn’t have to tag anything, put it on her driveway for a long hot afternoon, and, last of all, collect back up what didn’t sell.

Tom and his son, Tommy T, last Sunday.  Every notice how little boys walk like their father walks.  They grow up and lean over deck rails the same way, too.

And finallly, visit my sister’s blog, Janice loves to quilt. She just finished a customer’s art quilt destined for a national quilt show.  Stunning, and now I don’t have to tell you about it.

Quilts, Quilts, and Rescue quilts

Some of the people in my house are retired, but my sister isn’t there, yet.  Still working.  Jan quilts for her Rolodex of customers.  She makes quilts for us.  We all have warm flannel winter quilts and pretty summer quilts for our beds.  She makes quilts to hang in the studio to give customers visuals of how she might quilt their quilts. 

Of course there are more.  The rescue quilts. 

Jan seldom meets an abandoned quilt top she does not love.  In all fairness, the maker probably did not abandon the quilt, but ran out of time to quilt it.  Heirs and assigns, not valuing the work, put it right in the estate sale, or send it straight off to a thrift shop or Goodwill.  So many unfinished quilts tops find their way into Jan’s studio she bought a separate cabinet to hold them.

Rescued tops, waiting...waiting...

Toby helping

As she has time she puts them together with a backing and batting, gets them quilted and bound.  Jan knows so much about old quilt patterns, old quilt fabrics, old quilt piecing styles, that when she’s done she says she can hear some one’s grandma in heaven, smiling and saying “Look, it’s done!  Someone can use that quilt, now.”

Jan has donated many of her rescue quilts to be raffled for charities.  Many of them have gone to TLC, the Transitional Living Center we make quilts for.  Her rule of thumb:  keep them until she has admired them enough, then let them go.  Still, they backed up on her.  There are a couple of tubs of finished rescue quilts in the studio.

On a recent trip to The Crooked River Herb Farm Shop Jan put her head together with Kathleen and they came up with the scheme to simultaneously fill an empty corner of Kathleen’s expanded shop and fund the purchase of more abandoned quilt tops by selling some in the shop.  That’s what Jan and I did today.

Kathleen watching

Jan displaying, customer watching

A quilt label

Display front

Display back

The Quilt Corner

Janice loves to quilt!

You know my sister quilts; I’ve said something about her and quilts from time to time.  Click on Janice over in labels and you’ll see how often!

Possibly in self defense, but more probably because she has a good deal to say about her art, Jan started her own blog.  I see where she’s headed now, explaining how she does things.  Little does she know…

Even before this country joined World War I, the international and American Red Cross organizations were involved as ambulance drivers, and hospital staff. Red Cross chapters raised money by making and raffling quilts, many with a red cross theme. 

One of Jan’s current methods involves making quilts from old shirt fabrics.  She and her friend Patty shop thrift stores for men’s shirts, and spend chatty evenings cutting them into useable parts.  There also is a steady stream of beautiful shirts from my son-in-law, who wears through the right elbow of his dress shirts in short order.

This quilt pattern has been around in one form or another as a tribute to Clara Barton and the Red Cross.  Jan made it from her salvaged shirt fabrics.

Give her a look: Janice loves to quilt. 

She thought about this all night--for two nights

Jan has been quilting for a couple of days on a customer's quilt featuring pine trees.  I happened by today and was struck down.

"Like those pine boughs?  I laid awake for two nights figuring them out."

 Her right brain isn't half of her brain, it's probably seven eights.  Wish I could do this justice with my camera. 

Here's a picture Jan put on her Facebook page: