My Grandmother's Quilts

 

On a quick trip back home, I was excited to see some of the quilts of my grandmothers. Both grandmother's have passed but wrapping up in their quilts made me feel still protected in their love. It made me happy to think I'm carrying along their tradition if even a little bit. 

 Grandma McElyea's quilts were obviously made out of feedsacks. the colors are all over the board but appear to be along the 1930's color spectrum with lots of pastels in various patterns.

  

I love the electric orange she chose for so many of the fans.

In others she choose to put in fabric that was the same as the background. These fans just appear to "float on the background.

They are placed randomly so they show up, where they "show up".

 I don't know why but I just love this random yellow fan. It's just kind of there all of the sudden. There's no other pattern so it just shows up as bars.

  

When you look at the back or even around the fan you can see how it was very much stitched by hand. This is a big quilt so it had to take forever.

Great Grandma Wren and that little guy is my father!

Grandma Wren's quilt was a lot more utilitarian. It was made with my Great Grandfather's cast off shirts. It has minimal quilting but was obviously well used. 

With four kids and a man with a big appetite, Grandma spent more time in the kitchen than sewing... although I'm sure that she spent a fair amount of time mending...

Just the basics here. Just enough to keep it together. It held up pretty well when you figure this was probably made in the 1930's or 1940's. Maybe even earlier.

It is showing it's age though. The fabric is literally falling apart. When you figure this is the second life for this fabric... first a shirt then a quilt. 










These quilts make me wonder how many generations of my family slept under them. How many times did these get rung thorough Grandma's old fashioned washtub? How many times did they end up on the line to dry? 

I'm sure that both Grandmothers were making these because they needed them for their families but I'm sure that there was a sense of accomplishment and joy when they were finished. Both grandmothers had four children  each so I'm sure that many quilts were made to cover their children and then their children's children and finally down to their Great, great, great grandson. It's a heritage and a love that far surpasses one lifetime.

This. That. & a Little Bit Patchwork

Man has it been cold.

Like bitter.




March is always so cold. We always get our surprise snowstorms in March.









I've probably worked from home more this year than ever.


                                    Which is always interesting to all involved.



What'cha doing mom?

So news...






My son turned 18 this year. When did this happen? My baby is a young man.











And today, got his braces off! Bonus.
















4 years of braces. He looks so handsome now.

My husband ended up in the hospital the beginning of the year which was VERY scary. He decided to have his gallbladder removed after 8 days of being in the hospital with pancreatitis. He's feeling much better now.









We adopted a new family member in February. I'll probably never get over the loss of my beautiful Mr. Mittens (he was only five years old), but it was time to open our home to another tuxedo cat. We've never not had one and Veronica aka Ronny Two Toes joined us. She's still got a lot of trust issues and sometimes growls which has also earned her the name "Growly Girl" but with time I think she'll come around.








I've been doing a lot of patchwork. We are getting ready to visit my parents soon and I'm making a quilt with all my family's signatures on one side, and the other side will be all my husband's family. I'm using my best fabrics as this is the quilt I know will get passed down. It always feels funny knowing that you are making something with the idea that it will outlast you. Just started the blocks. Which one is your favorite?

Lovely Little Christmas Trees

Never did I think that I would love to work with jelly rolls, charm packs etc. but recently I have changed my ways!



Jelly rolls, charm packs, etc. are such timesavers. Because the fabric is supposed to be so good, there is no need to wash, dry, iron and then cut like you do with traditional yardage. Instead, you simply open up the package, cut the precut standard size (squares or strips) if your pattern requires it, and wa la! you are ready to sew. You can get a quilt done in record time and with several fabrics that are designed to correspond with each other so your quilt looks fabulous when you are finished.

Needless to say, I'm a convert.

I have been wanting to create Eleanor Burn's Pine Tree quilt for many years but did not relish the idea of cutting all those strips out, after all, there are at least six different sizes for each block and at least 16 blocks for a small quilt! So as soon as I saw my new fav Missouri Quilt Company, having their Christmas clearance/sale last year on these 2 1/2" strips, I thought I would try my hand on them. It was a game changer.

I simply picked out several strips I liked and cut them to the size indicated for each strip and it's corresponding background strips.

The background strips and laid perpendicular to the printed fabric, right sides together. Stitch from the center outward on each strip and don't cut until you've verified it's a triangle shape on the front. It it looks like it is, cut the corner off and press. I suggest assembly line sewing all one side then the next to speed up the process. To do this just lay down all your fabric matches and keep sewing straight!







When you have done it for each layer, I recommend safety pinning them together. Many of these layers are very close in size so its very easy to mix them out. I created one tree that had six layers instead of five!

I did not include the stump although it is part of the pattern. I think it looks more "modern" without it... (and I actually forgot to put it in). I also did not add the star that is an option for this block.

I had some lovely sashing material and debated whether to add sashing between each block but when I finished them all I preferred the trees to be "floating". I added the sashing around the entire center block and then a Christmas red around the sashing. When cutting sashing out of a printed block, remember to cut 1/4" away from the printed border on each side as you will lose this to the seaming when you join this to quilt. If you cut right on the border line, it will cut into your border. I did have some that was not quite perfect as you may see in this close up but overall I'm happy with the effect.

I'm thrilled with the way this turned out. This is going to be a great surprise gift for someone in my family and this year I actually get to see them open it!  Happy Holidays All!

Update: Because I'm a glutton for punishment, I decided to make everyone in my family tree skirts/table toppers for Christmas. They turned out cute I think: