Quilt Memories

 I'm lucky to have several family quilts, although my family disagrees about who made the quilts!

My mom insists the quilts were made by her maternal grandmother, Bertha Juliana Hoffman Sommerfield.  My mom's family lived with Grandmother Sommerfield for many years during her childhood, but she doesn't remember quilting being done during those years.  Mom thinks the quilts were made later, when Grandmother Sommerfield (my great-grandmother) was living on her own.

My mom's sister insists all the quilts were made by their mother, Norma Gerke Sommerfield.  Their mom worked full time most of her life, not retiring until the early 1970s.  

As a child, I was lucky to be able to spend plenty of time with both my great-grandmother and grandmother, but I don't remember either of them sewing, quilting, or even having quilts on display.  OK, I was only two in this picture, but my Great-grandmother Sommerfield was around for many more years.  The lady on the right is another great-grandmother, Myrtle Ludeking Gerke.

All the quilts passed on to me contain mostly feed sack-type fabrics, and use the patterns and colors typical of quilts from the 1930s and 1940s.  I blogged about two of them here and here.

I've always wondered if the quilts were made from kits, as I don't think either grandmother would have had a scrap basket with so many different fabrics.

The remaining two quilts have seen heavy use. 

Yes, this Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt ~is~ that faded!

I had this quilt on my bed during my teenage years, and dragged it off to nursing school when I left home.  It was washed regularly.  Some of the fabrics are beginning to shred, and the binding is coming loose, but otherwise, the quilt is in pretty good shape.

I have always enjoyed examining all the different fabrics in the quilt!

The backing is solid pink.  The long edges of the quilt were turned in following the scallops and slip-stitched; the short edges have applied binding.  The quilt measures approximately 82 inches by 74 inches.  Hand quilted inside each hexagon.

I rescued this Dresden Plate quilt from the back of my dad's truck.  Prior to that, it had spent years on my sister's bed.  

The fabrics are quite faded, and in some cases, shredded.

Regular washing and hanging to dry in the Florida sunshine will definitely fade fabrics over time!

The quilt back is a soft blue and white print.  This one was also hand quilted.  Approximate size: 75 inches by 68 inches.

I love having these tangible memories of my grandmothers, regardless of who made the quilts!

Rainy Sunday Stitching

I've missed linking up with Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching for a few weeks.  It's not that I've not been enjoying any slow stitching, it's that I haven't been doing much of it on Sundays.  Today is a perfect slow stitching day though, it's raining and the forecast is for rain for the next two or three days.  I'm about to plant myself in front of the TV and stitch to my heart's content.

 

First up is completing the binding on this Trip Around the World quilt.  I've been hand-stitching the binding on this baby f o r e v e r - 10 yards of binding!  I'm excited about finishing this quilt, for sure.

 

Once the binding is finished, I can get back to making and stitching hexies on this quilt.   It's a great go-to project for rainy Sunday stitching.

I hope everyone else has a great Slow Sunday Stitching day!

 

Slow Stitching Football Sunday

It's that time of year:  American football season is in full swing!  That means some slow Sunday stitching as I watch football games all afternoon and into the evening.

I didn't grow up as a fan of football, but I became one in self-defense when my two sons developed an interest in the game and even played for a short time.  My youngest son went on to choose sports journalism as a career and he has covered professional football since graduating from college.  On top of that, watching New Orleans Saints games - in person or via TV - is a de rigueur community activity here!

 

These Grandmother's Flower Garden hexies have been my football Sunday stitching project for a couple of years now.  I haven't made as much progress as I'd like, so this year I'll have to stay focused and try to make more measurable progress.  Part of what slows me up is prepping the green hexies for stitching.  These aren't paper-pieced hexies, they're just marked, cut and stitched.  You can read the back story here, if you're interested.  It's good to remind myself how long I've been working on this quilt!

 

I'd like to press all the pieced hexie parts before I start sewing this afternoon, but my ironing board is out of commission for now.  I'm not sure what I was thinking, but I tossed my ironing board cover in the washer last night, planning to wash out all the built-up starch residue.  This is what happened - the batting attached to the cover completely shredded in the wash.  Duh - uncovered, un-quilted poly batting is not going to survive even the gentlest wash cycle!  I think I can salvage the cover by trimming off all the batting.  I have stacks of old mattress pads that I save to cut up for padding in various projects, so I should be good to go with just a little work.  If not, it's a good thing Target is open on Sunday!

I hope everyone enjoys their Slow Sunday Stitching!  I'm linking up with other slow Sunday stitchers over at Kathy's Quilts.

Slow Sunday Stitching: Slow Progess

Grandmother's Flower Garden is one of those designs that goes slowly when hand-pieced. When I remind myself I'm piecing something started by my grandmother I don't know how many years ago, my snail's pace piecing doesn't seem to matter much.

 

I know it doesn't look like much, but in the past two weeks I've hand-pieced most of the green connector hexies seen here.  Between (American) football games and the World Series (Dear Husband is from Kansas City), there have been plenty of hand-piecing evenings to enjoy.  More American football today, plus the first winter-like temps of the season, led to great hand-piecing opportunities!

 

I did some serious work with spray starch and a hot iron today.  I thought I'd give you an idea in the difference between my grandmother's piecing and mine.  My grandmother pieced the hexies without marking any type of seam allowance, used doubled thread and large knots to help anchor her thread.  I need to ask my mom and aunt for more information about when these blocks were pieced - was my grandmother losing her sight or was this her usual method of piecing?  I own several other quilts made by my grandmother, but I've never taken them apart to look at the style of hand-piecing.

 

My style of hand-piecing is a little different.  I don't use knots, just back stitching.  I use fine 100% cotton thread (Aurifil is my current favorite), a small sharps needle and I mark my stitching lines with a pencil.  I confess my stitching is kind of slow, but enjoying the process is all part of the experience!

I'm linking up with more slow stitchers who enjoy the process via Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts.

 

Slow Sunday: Stich 'n Knit

Last week I shared my vintage hexie trials - unstitching a hexie flower to get the seams to be more consistent.  I was a little dismayed that it took me all week to get the outermost border of hexies stitched together.  I was stitching for short periods of time every evening, but I still didn't finish until this afternoon.  That's OK, most of the other hexie flowers have been stitched with an appropriate seam allowance, so I won't have to re-stitch ALL of them!

 

Have I mentioned the hexie flowers are 12 inches in diameter? 

 

Some of my hand stitching time has also been taken up with this project:  Nae, a shawl by Anat Rodan.  I haven't done any knitting in about two years, but I saw this shawl on Pinterest and knew it was exactly the type of knitting I enjoy.  It is a simple pattern, so I can knit while watching TV or listening to an Audiobook.  I have a loooong way to go yet, but I'm very happy with the results thus far.  It doesn't hurt that I found a wonderful yarn in my favorite color - purple!

It's been a slow Sunday in many ways and I've enjoyed every minute - especially the stitching!  I'm linking up with the other slow stitchers over at Kathy's Quilts, and looking forward to enjoying everyone else's slow stitching as well!

Slow Sunday UN-Stitching

I had high hopes for making some good progress on assembling my vintage Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt today.

 

I pinned all my various pieces on the design wall so I could have a visual guide for attaching all the flowers and green borders in the correct order.  

When I was ready to start sewing this morning, I started with the blue flower in the upper left corner.  I planned to add 3 green hexies so I could then attach the bordering red flower. 

As I have discovered so often with these blocks, the original piecing is very inconsistent.  There was no way the blue flower was going to fit together with the green border hexies without lots of tucks.  Out came the scissors and soon the block was completely disassembled.

  

I pressed all the old seam allowances carefully to avoid distorting the edges.  Then I gave everything a good shot of starch and pressed again for stability.

 

I had purchased a 1 1/2" acrylic hexie template to help me draw seamlines on the blocks.  The holes in this hexie illustrate how inconsistent the original seams were.  Most of the other hexies work very nicely with the 1 1/2" template, but this yellow one (and all the blue ones) were way off.

 

Once I had the hexies pressed and seamlines marked, it was smooth sailing to begin re-assembling the block.  

 

I'm hopeful I can get the blue and white print hexies attached this evening as I watch some Major League Baseball with Dear Husband and Dear Son.

I'm also hopeful Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching will help keep me motivated to continue working on this quilt!

 

 

Grandmother's Flower Garden: Still Stitching Vintage Hexies

I inherited an unfinished Grandmother's Flower Garden project several years ago.  I have worked on it off and on for years but have yet to get anywhere close to completing it.  I see it has been just over a year since I last brought it out to play!

 

Today was dreary and rainy, and Dear Husband wanted company while he watched football (American football/NFL) and tracked the progress of his fantasy football team.  A perfect excuse for relaxing with some hand stitching!

 

I'm at the point where the hexie flowers need to be joined together.  I've been experimenting with different approaches for streamlining the process, but I'm not sure I've discovered the best method yet.   That's OK, I'm enjoying the relaxation that is inherent in hand stitching!

I'm glad to have the opportunity for some Slow Sunday Stitching again, and linking up with others who appreciate this tradition over at Kathy's Quilts!

 

A Cure for Hexie Fever?

I have been sorely tempted by all the hexie stitching to be found throughout Blogland.  So many stitchers have been sharing their hexie projects, it's been hard to resist beginning a project of my own.  But why would I want to resist, you ask?

Because I have an inherited hexie Project That Must Be Finished before I start another!

I was gifted with a bag of partially completed hexagon flowers begun by my maternal grandmother.  She made a number of Grandmother's Flower Garden quilts - I happen to have a completed one - but this one was never finished.  For some reason, she free-pieced the seams on these; no marked seam lines, no English Paper Piecing.  That made the blocks a little wonky to start, so I did some judicious ripping and re-sewing to get the flowers to lay flat.  This was a take-along project that went with me to many of my boys' sporting events, and having something to do with my hands was always a blessing!

Eventually the flower sections were done and I had to start connecting all the flowers together.  That makes the project much less portable, so it became my football (NFL/American football) watching project.  Somewhere along the line it got tidied up and put away and ignored for newer, sassier projects.  Until a recent Hexie Queen blog post inspired me to get going on this project again!

Don't get me wrong, I'm excited about finishing this quilt!  I love the idea of finishing something my grandmother started AND I love the prints she was using.  It's just not at the easiest stage for stitching now.  However, football season starts tonight and runs through February, so if I persevere, maybe I'll have a finished top in time to celebrate the Superbowl!