MERRY CHRISTMAS

and a Happy New Year to my blogging friends!  Thank you so much for the kind words you have left in your comments.  The past three years I have chosen projects to make each month: doll quilts, aprons, and hope chest additions.  This year I don't plan to work on specific projects since it puts a lot of pressure on me to finish each month and sometimes it's almost impossible to meet a dead line. 

The final hope chest addition is a Christmas apron made like a vintage apron I have had for a long time.  The pattern was cut from brown paper, wrinkled and smudged.  I made a few changes to the shape of the skirt; rather than having points this one is straight across the bottom and I left off the holly leaves.

After tracing the drawing for the face with a hot transfer pencil, I ironed it onto white fabric, embroidered the features, then appliqued it with a blanket stitch to the skirt of the apron.  I made my apron from green fabric, thinking the read hat would be more visible.

This is the vintage apron.  Overall, I wasn't too pleased with my green apron.  First, the face seems too large for the skirt.  Second, I wish I had used a pattern for a full apron with no gathered skirt.  But, it does have a little holiday cheer to it; they can't all be winners!  (No pockets in this one either, Ernestine :)

Now I will focus on putting the flying geese units together and put them on the quilting frames for a winter's work ~ after Christmas.

Charlotte

A Delayed Hope Chest Addition

I'm afraid there's no finished item for the October addition to the hope chest.  But in between big chickens going out and getting baby chickens back in, freezing wonderful garden veggies, selling calves and wrapping up the last of the hay season, I do have something started:

paper pieced string blocks for a quilt.  Their finished size will be 4 1/2 inches, and I have estimated that I will need at least 300 of them to make a big quilt; I have 90 made.  When the chance to work on them happens, I try to piece 10 at a time, keeping them in numbered groups of ten so I'll know when I reach that goal of 300 (or more).

So, if they never get put together into a quilt by me, maybe the person who gets them will have the joy of finishing it or can give the blocks away.  It seems no matter how many strings I use, the pile never shrinks.

This morning came with a beautiful red sunrise.  The whole area was clothed in red.  We were up early to load the calves for market.

This afternoon I'm very, very sad, and SO angry!   Remember the baby calf I was feeding on the bottle?  She was growing, very healthy, and eating sweet feed and hay.  Right before noon, the neighbor's two big dogs attacked her; she was in a pen beside the barn eating grass.  The farmer saw them and ran them off, so there's no denying whose dogs they were.  Good thing the only weapon he had with him was a rock!  I took pictures, which I won't show here, but it's bad.  I know she must be in a lot of pain from the gashes.  Hopefully she will recover. 

I'll try to do better for the month of November; the weeks go by so quickly ----

Charlotte

September ~ Hope Chest

Did you give up on me?  It was very close, but finally finished on the last day of September!  So much has been going on here the past month: big chickens (which went out last week), more hay to bale and haul, garden harvest of tomatoes and peas, all of which I'm very thankful!  So I grabbed every spare minute to work on a crazy quilt.

"Crazy quilts, born of necessity, were made in an all-over design consisting of pieces of material, regardless of size or color...They were sewed together in crazy fashion, usually on an inner lining ..."  Marguerite  Ickis/The Standard book of Quilt Making and Collecting.

My fabric pieces were scraps given to me by my mother-in-law several years ago; most are large prints left from shirts, etc. she had made for her grandchildren in the 1980s.  I pieced the blocks on newspaper, then trimmed them to size.  A quilt with such a busy pattern needs no fancy quilting stitches, (as if I could!) therefore I simply quilted along each seam line, except in the solid red, where I did a melon-shaped pattern.

 The quilt measures approximately 52 1/2" x 62 1/2", a good size to throw over the foot of the bed on a cold night ~ or

as a lap quilt to snuggle under while reading or watching TV ~ or,

spread it on the ground for a picnic lunch.

And while we're talking crazy, how did this fella get to be in the middle of the quilt?  Perhaps the bowl of chips can be set over him. (Also, I see a seam I skipped :()  Now to come up with an October project!

Charlotte

August ~ Hope Chest Addition

When I started this project, I was sure it would take me until winter to finish it, but once I got started with a few stitches now and then, it went rather quickly.  I chose to make a pair of embroidered pillowcases:

The pattern was very old and I was almost certain it wouldn't transfer two times, so I cut around it and took it to the copy machine for a pattern I could use to transfer to tracing paper.

To transfer, I used a light box (an old gadget used to view x-rays which the farmer acquired while teaching Physics; a case of his trash becoming my treasure).  I slipped the pattern under tracing paper and marked the design with a transfer pencil.

The design was ready to be transferred to the pillowcases I had made.  Now it was time to choose thread colors.  I have a sweet little yellow rose whose petals are tinged with pink, and although a red or bright pink would have been a bolder color, I chose the yellow and by the time I had the first one finished, I knew something had to be done to make it more colorful.  I had read about using crayons with embroidered designs so I got out my Crayolas and filled in the larger areas.

The upper pillowcase is without coloring as compared to the lower one with coloring.  There are lots of good tutorials for this, but as is typical with me, I didn't look for them until after the fact.  Most of the tutorials tell one to color first then embroider; I did the opposite, but I guess it will be o.k.  The wax in the crayons is set, using a hot iron; but if the color fades it can be colored again.  Years ago a crayon got in the dryer with a set of my sheets and there are still traces of it.

What do you think?  Did I ruin the pillowcases by using crayons to fill in the design? 

Charlotte

June Addition to the Hope Chest

The June addition to the hope chest is a set of three embroidered dishtowels.  The towels, made from 100% cotton, with loops by which to hang them,  were purchased at Wal Mart.  I used a vintage pattern for the designs.  

Three things lead me to date the pattern in the late 1950s: 1)the style of clothing worn by the lady, 2)the sticker reads Ben Franklin Stores and the price is 15 cents, 3)my maiden name is written on the envelope and I was married in 1960.   From the back of the pattern: "Old kitchen friends come to life in these gay, easy-to-follow embroidery motifs designed to make your kitchen as inviting as your living room...and will bring a smile to your face as you go about your daily tasks."  Since there were three towels to the package, I chose these motifs to embroider:

The last design is my favorite; just look at the angst in the little vegetables' faces as the saucepan says, "Come with me."

Enjoy,

Charlotte

P.S.  I hate to do this, but I have put word verification back on for now.  I was getting so many spam comments.  Why can't some people leave an old woman, who minds her own business, with peace of mind!  Maybe it won't have to stay on for too long.

Hope Chest Item for May

You knew there'd be an apron for the hope chest, didn't you?  The body of the apron isn't as yellow as it looks.  I call this color, spring green, because it was the same color as the new leaves on our willow oak; a favorite color of mine.  (I tell you, there isn't a place in this entire house where I can take a good picture of anything!)

Did you have a good Mothers Day?  Our daughters, sons-in-law, and two grandchildren came for lunch with us.  One son-in-law cooked for us -- what a treat!  I think I'll make an apron for him!

Charlotte

April Hope Chest Addition

The hope chest addition for April is a quilted, patchwork table runner.

Just right for a country kitchen.

Charlotte

Not Again!!! and Hope Chest Item #Three

One morning last week, ahead of a cold front, this is how the sky looked.  I've heard of a "line drawn in the sand" but have never seen such a line between clouds and clear sky.  Now this next picture may make you want to scream, "Not again!  Not another snow picture!  Not in March!"  But, it's happened again!  Another blast of cold, cold air, with wind, sleet and snow came for us.  I've tried not to complain but this is getting to be enough already!  Our chickens are scheduled to go out in the morning and the farmer doesn't know how he'll get the doors open, for the catching crews to get inside, since they have ice holding them shut.  Maybe the sun will warm up the metal enough to melt it so he can use the BobCat to scrap it away.  I won't post another snow picture. :)

On to better topics ~ I have the third hope chest item to show today: a crocheted, pinwheel doily.  Do women still put doilies on end tables or dressers?  I use some in the kitchen to protect the counter top surfaces from being scratched by the stoneware pieces I use for sugar, salt, tea bags, etc.  This was fun to make, although it is hard for me to transition from a large hook to a tiny hook.

Ahh ~ if only I had a bouquet of spring flowers to sit on the doily....

I have been asked who the hope chest is for; I have four granddaughters and two grandsons.  Surely I can divide the things I have made between them (if they want the things) or some things may go as shower gifts.  Just something to keep my hands busy.  This winter I went through an "anxious" spell and crocheting seemed to calm me.

Now it's time for me to wrap up, slip the boots on, and go to the chicken houses.  I've been warned to be very careful on the ice.  Have a good day.

Charlotte

Hope Chest Addition ~ two

I can't think of anything more comforting on a cold night than a soft, warm pillow. The second addition to the hope chest is a pair of pillowcases made up in a soft-as-suede, 100% cotton flannel, purchased from Connecting Threads.  The color is called Honeysuckle, a cheerful, bright yellow.

I found this, "Easy Tube Pillowcase Tutorial", on YouTube:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrYWCma9wgm

They were very easy to make and are a good, generous size; most pillowcases that come with flannel sheet sets are so small I have trouble getting  pillows inside them.

Have you started a hope chest?  Are you making things to put inside?  I'd like to see them.

Think about it,

Charlotte

Hope Chest

From Wikipedia: A hope chest, dowry chest, cedar chest, or glory box is a chest used to collect items such as clothing and household linens, by unmarried young women in anticipation of married life.

I don't think I ever had a hope chest as such, but I'm sure I had a few things put back, with hopes; probably embroidered feed sack dishtowels and flour sack pillowcases.  Most chests would have been made by the girl's father or grandfather, or maybe passed down from mother or grandmother.  My daddy made chests for his five granddaughters; four were made from cedar, just regular rectangular chests, but the fifth one was made as a deacon's bench with a spindled back.

I doubt that many young women keep a hope chest now; it's easier for them to register at a store and more or less tell others what they want or need.  I'm happy to say, all my daughters learned sewing skills when they were young girls.

In 2012, I posted doll quilts, and in 2013, aprons were my projects.  For 2014 I plan to put something in a "hope chest" each month (not that I have any hope, lol).  This is my first entry, a set of embroidered, day-of-the-week dishtowels.  I ordered five yards of the toweling fabric from Nancy's Notions and the transfers came from an old copy of the little craft magazine, Workbasket, I think; they've been around so long I can't remember for sure, but they did transfer perfectly.  Then I used red floss to do the embroidery to match the border on the fabric.

wash on Monday,

iron on Tuesday,

sew on Wednesday,

shop on Thursday,

clean on Friday,

bake on Saturday,

worship on Sunday.

Did you have a hope chest, or do you have one started for a daughter or granddaughter?  I hope you'll follow me on this quest to find something new to add each month.

Charlotte