Cordless

I usually do not feel bad when this blog has been neglected for a while. I write when I feel I have something to say - and when the light is good for documenting and showing something. But when a small black cord has gone missing I am not granted the right to blog. That is how it feels. I cannot post images still in my - ehem our - camera. So here goes. I will try to find something in the folders in the machine and see what today's post will be about. Just give me a second...

Oh, yeah! This is my "Everybody's doing it"-post. In May last year I started what will be a long journey. I bought my copy Brenda Papadakis' book about Jane A. Stickle's quilt in May 2000. I did not think I would start making my own version, but after seeing the beautiful quilts out there popping up "everywhere" I started out too. I have no deadline to follow. I make blocks in random order, and when I feel the urge and for pure enjoyment. The blocks are made by hand, and I follow Jane's colorscheme. If I cannot find the exact color, I use what I have colorway wise. That way I feel I am making it my own.

The other blocks are some finished New Jersey triangles. After I had started making the blocks I was thrilled to find out they could be named thus, since New Jersey is the only state I have some real connection with. I spent some time there when I was 13 years old. The Jersey shore - yay!

My sweetie was just waiting to flip them off the flanell - and she did, I can tell you. Now where is that cord... argh...

Hobbyhorses and a crown

Our kindergarten princess needed a crown for a dress up party. Her father made her one.
Most of February was spent indoors in our family. We took turns at being sick. So a little fun had to be made. I still have to find a way to secure the body of the horse to its head... From this book.
Take care.

Calico Garden

I started my Calico Garden journey about nine years ago. The patterns were included in the wonderful book "Enduring Grace - Quilts From the Shelburne Museum" by Celia Y. Oliver. I just love the little quilt. I think when photocopying to enlarge the pattern sheets I made the copies a little bigger than prescribed for. I am not sure, but I think I did. It was one of my first attepts at applique work, so I suppose I made them a little easier to make by making them bigger. The quilt was made by Florence Peto. She used vintage fabrics, and so the quilt is a historian's dream for studying fabrics. Her idea was that by incorporating precious fabrics she would preserve them. Here's how she described the quilt in a letter to the Shelburne museum in 1951:
"It has always been my desire to preserve fascinating old fabrics. One time I bought up whole cartons of scraps - none of (which) were over two inches square! But they were charming, ... obviously handsome examples of early hand-blocking and early copperplates as well as English and French calicoes. Calico Garden was (made) to use up the tiny pieces. (All the little designs are original with me.) I made the little quilt first and later, from the rest of the fabrics, a large quilt. ... I called it a 'Mother and Daughter set' All the materials are old except the white broadcloth background and the small flowered yellow backing."

I can just dream of finding "cartons of scraps"...
I had not read the exerpt above too thoroughly. I had no idea there existed a bigger quilt. But just yesterday I found an image of the mother quilt here:

Here is also some online information:

And here are some lovely versions:

I think I will be using the greyish Jo Morton fabric as sashing, and just some simple square in a square corner blocks. Just thinking out loud...