Slow Stitching All Week Long

Normally, I think this slow Sunday stitching is supposed to mean that we slow down our frantic weekday paces on Sunday, take needle and thread in hand, and recharge our bodies, our creative juices and find peace and solitude in a slow, more methodical pace.

This past week, however, I have done more slow stitching than anything else. I think I've already written that I picked up the Sunbonnet Sue quilt on Tuesday. I spent part of Wednesday through Saturday hand stitching the binding. It was pleasant work, and I truly enjoyed the slower pace.

The compromise, for me at least, was to have the quilting done in a "modern" way - by a long-arm quilter, and then I would hand stitch the binding. My customer selected a beautiful print and I loved working with both it and the antique quilt top. I delivered the quilt last evening and she - the customer - was thrilled with the result. I have to say I am, too. I just loved examining these little sues while I stitched.

This last shot shows more of the backing. I don't recall the line of fabric; I have thrown out all selvages, apparently.  Still, I know it's a relatively current line, yet it works so well with the vintage fabrics in the top. Love, love, love everything about this darling quilt.

Kathy, my customer, says that the birthday party is coming up in September and that not only will her mother be surprised, but so, too, will various other members of the family, as she has told no one that she has had this quilted. I hope she will take a few pictures and send them my way; if she does, I will follow up with what could be quite an awesome little story.

Hope you have some slow Sunday stitching! I am linking up with Kathy's Quilts.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Binding Sunbonnet Sue

The Sunbonnet Sue quilt is in the binding stage. You read about how I acquired this quilt top in this post, and now I am enjoying some quiet time with needle and thread in hand. As I said in that earlier post, I felt confident that hand-stitching the binding would be the proper way to finish this quilt, and I am glad to be doing it. I've taken the shortcut on most all my quilts, large and small, by using the machine for all my quilts this past year. The last one I did by hand was the 6-pointed stars that I took to the fair last year.

Let's look at the pretty Sunbonnet Sue quilt. I won't have her long, as I hope to deliver it tomorrow.

Quilted; no binding. Terry did a wonderful job with the quilting. It was such a delicate old quilt top, and she was very mindful of that as she quilted. Is it an outrage to take an old, hand-pieced quilt top and put long-arm stippling on it? I figure at least it is quilted, and will be more likely to be cared for in this condition than to be left as a flimsy. Purists might be outraged, but in being practical, I am certain this is fine.

Using my clippies to secure the binding.

One stretch of the top and side finished.
Sue is inspecting my workmanship.

I love these girls' print dresses and matching bonnets.

I have been absent from blog-land the last couple of days. That generally means it's book club time, and I am frantically working to finish my reading. The meeting was yesterday morning (I love our brunch meetings!), and I had to do some serious skimming to finish The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson. It was quite the enjoyable read, and I wish I'd given myself more time to soak it all in more leisurely. Here's the Goodreads link to details.

At our meeting, we planned the next year's worth of books; maybe a post listing those for you readers out there would be of interest??

Still need to finish that t-shirt quilt; what a champion procrastinator I am!! Goodness. That could have been done 10 days ago, easily. (shaking my head in shame)

I am linking up with Kelly at My Quilt Infatuation/Needle and Thread Thursday (even though it's Friday).

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Playing Middle Man

Word of mouth seems to bring me customers from out of the blue. After delivering Elizabeth's t-shirt and memory quilt about 3 weeks ago, I received a call from a woman who knew that family, but that I did not know at all. She'd seen Elizabeth's quilt and wondered if I could be of help to her in getting her antique Sunbonnet Sue quilt top quilted with the goal of gifting it to her 91-year-old mother. (I hope you can follow that convoluted introduction!)

I am in a rush this morning to get to a lunch date with a high school friend, so all I have time for is to share this picture of the quilt top. I will fill in further details when I slow down. *grin*

I have already stay-stitched the outer edge, prepped the backing and delivered it to Terry for long-arm quilting. When I get it back, I will put the binding on, and I am pretty sure I will do it by hand rather than by machine. It just seems fitting for such an old quilt so lovingly appliqued.

More later!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Repairs Needed

That mystery Sunbonnet Sue quilt that I found stored in my guest room was most certainly given to me by my grandmother, although neither of us remembers anything about it. I am making conjectures from this point, just to let you know. I do think I can safely guess the following:

Grandma occasionally took in quilts to repair. She didn't advertise that she would do this, but if people knew she quilted, she was approached from time to time by people hoping to save a family heirloom or some such.

Since I am already certain that Grandma did not make this quilt, I can only guess that she was asked to fix one of the dresses on the quilt - a green one. And I have evidence that will back me up on this.

Tucked inside the bag with the quilt were these pattern pieces and the piece of green fabric. I believe that Grandma was going to fix that shredding dress. Now would she have done this? Would she have picked out all the quilting and removed both the arm and the dress? Or would she have just removed the arm and cover over the old dress? Or would she have had some other plan? With all that quilting across the arm, I think I would prefer covering the old, and just requilt that one part after replacing the arm. It's tricky. I wonder what a professional quilt restorer would recommend?

Pretty little Sues, don't you think? I find that the way each one is quilted is just a bit odd, with all that unquilted space around the bonnet and under the dress.

This little green girl is the only one showing signs of fraying. The other green dresses are made with this same fabric, but they are in good condition.

So even though I know none of the above for certain, I think I am on the right track. I've definitely got a fair number of mysteries surrounding this quilt. Who the quilt originally belonged to is anyone's guess. How long it's been in my possession is a mystery not nearly as old as who made it or who owned it. I suppose this is a screaming example of why every quilt we make needs to have a label attached to it. 

I am late getting a blog up for today. I have finished quilting Long Road Home. Yes, you read that correctly. *smile*  I have sewn the binding on, also. I plan to hand stitch it down. Just because. I will show you all that tomorrow.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

A Discovery

Archaeology has always fascinated me, and I think it's quite possible that I experienced the same feeling of unexpected thrill and excitement that an archaeologist feels when he or she has unearthed an amazing discovery. Under the guest room bed, the one you see in nearly every quilt I photograph for this blog, an old quilt was stored away in a tub, and I do not remember it at all. I don't remember when it was given to me; I don't remember putting it in the storage tub; I don't remember sliding it under the guest bed.

Is this not a beauty!?! I still cannot believe I had a quilt stored under the bed which I'd forgotten about. Mostly, I thought tubs of photographs (from the pre-digital era) were stored there. I was on a mission to find pictures of a particular person that a former student had requested. Instead of finding any such pictures, I found this!

I've removed the lid obviously, but would you not squeal with delight at seeing this peeking at you from the corner?

I studied this quilt a bit and I've determined that my grandmother did not make it. Several details brought me to this conclusion. First, while she did make lots of Sunbonnet Sue quilts, I'd never seen any of hers that were outline stitched with black floss. Second, the quilting design looks nothing like any of the others I've seen on Grandma's quilts. And finally, the quilting stitches are not to her standard of neatness. My grandmother made neat and tidy stitches, and while the quilting on this is very tiny, the stitches are somewhat haphazard.

I took the quilt with me to Grandma's last evening when we visited. Her health has failed so much in the last 6-8 months, and her memory has suffered as well. I hoped that if she saw this quilt she would remember it and tell me who it belonged to and why she'd given it to me. (Based on other items in the tub, I knew it had come from her.) Alas, she couldn't recall it. She did, though, confirm that she hadn't made it, and cited the same things I mentioned above - the outlining and the quilting - as different from her own.

This quilter-turned-archaeologist has some lingering questions, and I fear that the answers will never come. In tomorrow's post, I will show you some of the other things I uncovered in this "dig."

Happy Quilting, Friends!

A Final Sue Post

While away on vacation, I have been posting these details about Grandma's Sunbonnet Sue quilts. These were easy enough to write up and schedule throughout the week.

Today I want to show you the SS's that Grandma made for my two girls when they were little.

Erin was given a pillow with an enlarged Sunbonnet Sue appliqued onto it.  Grandma did just the applique - no quilting on this. She did the embroidered name, too.

Emma has a doll quilt with a regular-sized Sue appliqued onto it. This is more typical of the Sues she made over the years.

The second block in the doll quilt has a Sue looking the opposite direction. Fun. Have you noticed the embroidered flowers on the hats? That was a standard feature.

Well, this is the last of the posts until I get home from vacation.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

A Sunbonnet Follow-Up

This is really special. I showed you the Sunbonnet Sue quilt in yesterday's post, and today I want to show you the actual templates that Grandma used to make those darling Sues.

This is made from lined paper. Faint written instructions are visible.

Here are two cardboard hat templates, also with faintly drawn instructions and markings.

One dress template. I can't make much of the writing on it; just scribblings, I guess.

Several arms and feet; I wonder just how old some of these are?

In a different box of Grandma's treasures, I found these dresses stacked
and ready for the next Sunbonnet Sue. So colorful!

That's all for today. I will have one more installment of Sunbonnet Sue for you tomorrow.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Way-Back Wednesday - 4

For this week's installment of Way-Back Wednesday, I would like to share a darling Sunbonnet Sue quilt that my grandmother made. It is most likely 50 or 60 years old.

This is a long twin-size quilt that was either made for my mother or one of her sisters. The fabric used in all these dresses were leftovers from the dresses Grandma made for Mom, Aunt Nancy and Aunt Margaret. And, too, for little Becky, who died at age 2 from pneumonia.

The Sunbonnet Sue is another of Grandma's specialties. (I mentioned in last week's Way-Back Wednesday installment that the Lemoyne Star was a specialty.) She made all the great-granddaughters either a pillow or a wall-hanging with a Sunbonnet Sue. She also has made her share of Overall Bills, as well; each of the great-grandsons has a Bill pillow.

This little Sue has on a dress made from fabric that is very old. I recognize it from one of the quilts in Grandma's old trunk. (See tab at top of page labeled 'Grandma's Quilts.') When she could, Grandma would buy fabric of the same pattern in different colors for Aunt Nancy and my mother, the two oldest children. This is one of those fabrics, making it somewhere in the vicinity of 75 years old - the fabric, not the quilt.

This Sue's dress fabric is even older. This fabric was also used in other quilts (see same tab). Grandma pointed it out as the very first dress she made for Aunt Nancy when she was a baby. It has held up well!

Are you noticing Grandma's fabulous quilting? She is masterful with the needle and thread! Those stitches are always small and even. I have heard her remark several times over the years that she wouldn't make a quilt that wasn't done well. She took a lot of pride in her work, that's for sure. She has intimated that her mother-in-law's quilting was a lot less than desirable; I think Grandma took great pains to always quilt as perfectly as she could.

Sweet, aren't they? I am glad Grandma gave me this quilt, and I am glad that it has remained in such good condition. It is definitely a treasure!

Happy Quilting, Friends!