Several readers suggested that I tie the little Flower Garden quilt, and that idea really appealed to me. I’ve never made a tied doll quilt before, and I thought it would be fun to try.

The top, backing and binding are vintage fabrics — the batting is an old flannel sheet. Although I’m fond of the backing fabric, I wish I could have found a piece with a smaller print. The ties are 3 strands of embroidery floss.

I fondly remember all the utility quilts made by my Grandmother Dellasega (Grandma Dell). They were extremely heavy, so I suspect she may have used worn quilts or blankets as batting, which made them very warm and cozy. The patterns were simple and I don’t remember them as being particularly pretty, but I loved them just the same. One of the things that struck me about her quilts was how closely tied they were. The yarn colors never matched the quilt, so they stood out — I’m sure she used whatever yarn she had on hand. I never saw her make a quilt, but as a child I remember thinking that it would take a person a really long time to tie all those knots.

In homage to her, I tied this little quilt in Grandma Dell style. I think she’d like it.

Grandmother’s Flower Garden Doll Quilt
Martha Dellasega Gray, 2010
hand pieced, hand tied
16″ x 20″

I hope everyone has a wonderful August — I will be back in September.

Apparently I have been watching too much HGTV, because our rooms are all looking old and tired. The kitchen remodel (which I love) also had the unfortunate effect of making everything else look worse. So, I am on an upholstery binge which I kicked off this morning by re-doing the ugly office chairs in my sewing/computer room. Once I figured out how to take the chairs apart, it didn’t take much time at all. I used some vintage bark cloth pieces — the first one of which I accidentally placed upside down. The second bark cloth chair is pretty cool with its martinis, hors d’oeuvres and cigarettes. The middle chair is a piece of vintage glazed chintz that is one of my favorites.

My next project is going to be the living room couch, which is a big step up from these little chairs. I have re-upholstered a small couch in our family room a couple of times (it’s the dog’s couch), but never anything this large or complicated.  It’s going to take a long time and I’m sure it will be challenging — good thing my sister, Sally, is an accomplished, self-taught upholsterer, so I know I’ll have help if I run into trouble.

The top is done and I think it looks pretty cute. There are puckers in some of the white path pieces, but I can live with that. It’s tricky sewing the rows together since the pieces are so tiny — the flowers were easier to stitch.

I wasn’t going to post a photo of this quilt until it was finished. The quilting was almost done when I stepped back to take a look and realized I didn’t like it at all. I had quilted concentric hexagons in and around each of the flowers, avoiding the intersections where the fabric is thick. I probably wouldn’t quilt through the middle of a hexagon on a normal sized quilt, but this doll size presents a real challenge since it’s hard to make tiny stitches through all those seams. I ripped out all of the quilting, and hopefully I’ll come up with another idea soon.

The top measures 17″ x 21″. Instead of a penny for scale, I used my little sewing ruler which has inches and centimeters. Steffi pointed out to me that she didn’t know the size of an American penny until she happened to find one when she was visiting Denmark.

Here is a photo of the back.

When I read Ann Champion’s post about her scrappy Antique One Patch, I told her I would take it apart and remake it. It reminded me of a quilt top I purchased that was very similar — 1 1/2″ squares with the same types of fabrics (indigo, shirting, homespun, mourning), random placement and rather crude construction. The big difference was that mine had a lot more red in it and fewer of the lighter fabrics. I wish I had a photo of the original top, but I have managed to misplace that flashcard.

I decided to take my own advice and cut that baby up — and I did cut it as opposed to picking it apart, because it was machine sewn with those tiny stitches that destroy the fabric and are practically impossible to remove. Once again, I soaked, starched, re-drew and cut the pieces in preparation for their new pattern. The top was so large that I have enough patches left to make another quilt.

I wanted to do another 9-patch and Snowball because, although I love my original scrappy version, I have always been a little disappointed that I set it on point. At the time, I thought putting blocks on point always made them more interesting, and it wasn’t until the top was completely finished that I realized all the Snowball blocks were lined up horizontally and vertically. When the pattern is set straight, the Snowball blocks are offset, which I think looks better. I added the outside row to complete the star-like look of the Snowball triangles.

The maker of my One Patch quilt top used lots of some fabrics and not so much of others. If you look closely, you can probably tell that I had to make quite a few fabric substitutions. The double-pink in the Snowball blocks is from a different antique quilt top, and the off-white is a vintage muslin sheet. This quilt is smallish because I wanted some throws to put in our family room. We try to keep the heat down in the winter, and it suddenly seemed stupid to me that we were using fleece throws when there is a perfectly good quilter living here.

9-Patch and Snowball Quilt Top
Martha Dellasega Gray, 2010
machine pieced
60″ x 66″

Most of the blocks in this quilt were purchased on ebay, and I made an additional 20 blocks to complete the top. The fabrics are all vintage 1930s dress percales in typical colors and floral prints. The neatest thing about this quilt, in my opinion, is the careful fussy cutting on many of the floral prints (some of which are pretty large). I loathe to fussy cut vintage fabric because there is so much waste involved. I love the technique, though, and am always pleased to purchase fussy cut blocks or pieces.

Of course, I took all the blocks apart — soaked, starched, re-cut and re-stitched — replacing the dingy muslin with a new fabric. I kept her blocks intact with the same prints and solids that she used. I think she did a fabulous job with the colors, and I tried to match her blocks as much as possible when making my own.

Cactus Basket Quilt Top
Martha Dellasega Gray, 2005
machine pieced
75″ x 75″ (without border)

Today I worked on the border for this top. I thought this would be a great pattern, since it mimics the diamond pieces in the blocks, but now I’m not sure because I think it might be too busy. What do you think?

After hearing some of the comments, I decided to try and show how the whole top would look with the border (with and without the extra solid border).  Please excuse how primitive this looks (my poor Photoshop skills).  Now that I see it like this, I definitely like the addition of the solid border –  I might  just add the solid border and a floral binding and forget about the pieced border.

Okay….now I get it.  Ann at Nifty Needle just sent me a photo with her idea for a border and I love it!  So….this is the final plan for the top — THANKS, ANN!!

When my sisters and I were growing up, each of us had one special doll. I don’t remember the name of Jean Ann’s doll (she is 12 years older than I), but I vividly remember Sally’s Toni doll, my Miss Revlon doll, and Mary’s Shirley Temple doll. Sally made wonderful doll clothes for all three of these dolls, which were the envy of all our neighborhood friends (even the ones who were spoiled and generally had nicer toys than us, like Anna Marie McGonigle).

My Revlon doll was lost in the panic of my parents’ move to Seattle when my dad became ill. Sally kept her Toni doll for a long time, but eventually tossed it because it was in pretty bad shape. Mary, who is crazy for dolls, managed to hold on to her beloved Shirley Temple doll and all of her clothes.

Several years ago I got it in my head that I wanted to fix up Mary’s doll so she could be displayed. Her Shirley is a 1957 Ideal 19″ “Twinkle Eyes” model with Saran hair and an unusual blue version of the “Stand Up and Cheer” dress. The doll was very dirty, her hair was a mess (although intact), and her original dress was totally unrepairable. It took almost a year to find the fabric for a new dress — a vintage white cotton organdy with a blue flocked coin dot.  I was ecstatic because it was exactly the same fabric as the original. I purchased a copy of the Simplicity pattern that Sally used, and adapted the short dress pattern to make her original outfit. I’m very happy with the way this turned out.

I found the solution for the rooted Saran hair on a blog somewhere. First I cleaned her hair by spraying it with 409.  Then I rinsed it, rolled up the curls on pieces of plastic straws, and fastened them to her head with straight pins. Next I wrapped her rolled-up hair in cheesecloth and dipped it (avoiding the face) into a pan of near boiling water for a few seconds. Finally, I placed her on a towel and let her hair dry completely before removing the straw rollers, which took a couple of days. I wish I had a photo of the “before” hair, but I do have the “before” dress.

Now here is the updated Shirley — all cleaned up with her new hairdo and her new clothes which I made from the same pattern.

This is a picture I stitched for Gordon’s parents when Elliott was born. Gordon, Sr. (“Big G”) just turned 89 and Gail was 81 on the 4th of July. Big G continues to play golf every week, and Gail works part time at the Bellevue Square Mall information booth. We just celebrated their 60th Wedding Anniversary. I hope I am as healthy and active as they are when I’m in my eighties.

Back to the cross-stitch….I used 18 count Aida with DMC floss. The design is a combination of motifs from two different DMC Library Leisure Booklets (Small Figures and Garlands) published in the late seventies. These are such cute booklets, and although they are no longer in print, you can still find them on ebay.

I feel a little guilty about this picture, because I never made anything similar for Emily. I also finished an Elliott birth sampler on linen which is very sweet, but I never framed it. Emily did get her own stitched ABC Book, but no cross-stitch from me, although my mother cross-stitched a cute baby blanket for her. I guess that’s the way it is with the second child.

This is the last of the Lenski nursery rhyme pictures, and there were a couple of rhymes here I didn’t know.

This one is very sweet….

Bossy-Cow, Bossy-Cow

Bossy-cow, bossy.cow, where do you lie?
In the green meadow under the sky.

Billy-horse, billy-horse, where do you lie?
Out in the stable with nobody nigh.

Birdies bright, birdies sweet, where do you lie?
Up in the tree-tops, –oh, ever so high!

Baby dear, baby love, where do you lie?
In my warm crib, with Mama close by.

And this one is very strange….

There Was a Man In Our Town

There was a man in our town,
And he was wondrous wise;
He jumped into a bramble bush,
And scratched out both his eyes;

And when he saw his eyes were out,
With all high might and main,
He jumped into another bush,
And scratched them in again.

When I started this blog….

I only knew a couple of quilters — their quilts and methods were very different from mine.

My sisters were the only other people I knew who did hand embroidery.

When I shopped at the local quilt store for binding or backing fabric, the staff would make comments like “Why would you want to hand stitch a quilt?” or “I can’t believe you are using that old fabric.”

I didn’t know anyone who made quilts by hand, or shared my love of vintage fabric…….

but now I do, and it’s so nice.

Thank you, everyone.

Martha

Happy Animals’ ABC, 1946