Denim Rag Quilt

I made this denim rag quilt for my youngest grandson.  The denim is repurposed from old jeans and shirts and skirts.  The backing is fleece and the edging is cut from a cotton sheet set.

Progress on Sun Bonnet Sue Quilt

Progress report on the Sun Bonnet Sue quilt I am rebuilding for my friend, Lesley.  It is a quilt made by one of her grandmothers for her daughter when she was born.  The only thing that could be saved on the quilt was a few of the little Sun Bonnet Sue's.

I now have it all pinned and am ready to start the hand stitching, following the same patterns as Lesley's grandmother used.

Here is a series of pictures as I progressed through to the point of pinning the backing and batting to the topper. The hardest thing is to do quilting within the confines of a 28 foot 5th wheel RV, where 12 feet of that is a garage.  That doesn't leave me with much space to work, so I have to get creative.

Here I'm laying the Sun Bonnet Sue's on our bed in the RV, and looking at the pictures I'd taken of the quilt before I took it apart, so I could try to put it back together as closely as possible, to the original design.  In the below picture, you may notice that the two Sun Bonnet Sue's down the middle of the quilt were very similar.  That is how the original one was.  But since I had to rebuild some of the Sun Bonnet Sue's due to tears and stains, it through off the color balance a bit, so I rearranged slightly to balance, but still trying to stay true to the original intent. The rebuilt Sun Bonnet Sue's were done using two button down shirts, a blue one and a pink one, that had belonged to Lesley's father.  He died this last summer and when I offered to make Lesley a memory quilt, she asked me to rebuild this particular quilt instead.

The blue and pink Sun Bonnet Sue in the foreground was almost totally rebuilt, using a blue shirt that had belonged to my friend's father.  The pink sleeve, hand, and pink booties were saved from the original. With this particular blue Sun Bonnet Sue, I didn't put on the little left hand, which is a tiny detail of a hand that sticks out on the front side of the dress.  I can't remember if this one was missing a hand or not, but I chose to have it as my "mistake" to omit it.  

 Here is the Sun Bonnet Sue with the pink squares placed in between the Sun Bonnet Sue's.

Here I am sewing.  As you can see, I have a folding table set up alongside me in the center of what passes for our living room/dining room/kitchen.  Tight space.  I am so thankful for a husband who humors me while I take over all the living space in our RV.

This folding table doubles as an ironing board and work space for my sewing.  I store it underneath our bed.  My husband used to store it in one of the outside RV storage bins, but I wanted it close so I could get at it without dragging all his guys stuff out.   

Here is the Sun Bonnet Sue topper all pieced together, ironed with seams facing towards the pinks.

Here is the quilt pinned with the batting and backing.

As you can see, a corner of this quilt touches the floor.  Each day before I start sewing I vacuum the rugs and sweep and wash the floor.  Probably all fabric artists do the same, unless they have all kinds of table work space.  

I haven't progressed further than this yet because I switched to other projects. When living in the RV, I have to choose my project timing around what we are doing. For instance, if we are going to be stationary for a while and not having friends or family in, I can set up and take over the living space to do the cutting and measuring.  I get as many projects ready as possible for the hand stitching phase.  I can do those anywhere, such as while riding in the truck going places, or I can take them to family events and sit stitching as we talk.  So right now in the RV, I'm trying to take advantage of the stationary, non-visitor time to get as much measuring, cutting, and piecing as possible.  

Also, I'm trying to reduce bulk before we head south to Key West for the winter.  I'm "harvesting" old jeans by removing the pockets, cutting the fabric into squares, and cutting out the zippers.  I don't know what I am going to do for sure with all the zippers but stay tuned.  I have ideas bubbling up.  By cutting up the jeans like this, they take up much less space.  I can put the squares into Ziploc baggies and squeeze out the air.  They take up much less space that way, stay nice and  wrinkle-free, and are easy to find.  (I store most of my fabric supplies in the RV shower so initially it was difficult to find specific things without taking everything out.  But I've been evolving a system that is efficient and bagging separate things in Ziploc baggies is one of the things I've found that works for me.   

Denim Closet Fabric Panels with Pockets

Look what I made for my grandson!  It is denim, two panels, with pockets, for his toy closet.  I'd noticed during a visit a couple weeks ago that they'd taken the door off that closet, probably because it backed up to the entry way door to the room and got in the way.  Or maybe it was because of the overflowing toys...a good problem for a boy to have.

When I made these panels I used a bolt of denim fabric but sewed pockets on that I'd taken off of old jeans, either my own or donated to me by other family members or friends.  After I made it and hung it up in the RV to see what it looked like, my assessment was that it was too lightweight.  It didn't hang boldly enough.  It was missing something.  I'd purchased a couple of flat sheets, full size, that I was going to use as backing to a couple of twin size quilts I am getting ready to sew for this same grandson, so I got one out and chopped off a few strips to use as a border.  This is why I like to always have more fabric than I think I need for any given project.

This turned out really cute.

 And guess what?  It has a "secret" pocket on the back side of one of the panels.  I discreetly pointed it out to my grandson.  He immediately checked to see what was in it.  Dummy me!  I should have put some money in it, or a note or something.  In fact, my grandson checked each pocket to see if anything was in any of them.  So later, I went back in his room and put some pocket change in the secret pocket. I whispered to my daughter to do the same.

We'd all been in the living room watching the Raven's football game as I'd hemmed up the bottom of the panels.  Good fun.

Quilting: Woman's Labor of Love For Family & Friends

Over Labor Day weekend, I taught my dear friend, Lesley, how to quilt, or at least what I know about quilting. That took all of two days. I love that I learned to quilt in April, taught by one good friend and am already sharing what I know with another good friend.

The Zen of quilting. Quilting is such a wonderful womanly past time. It is so embedded in our feminine culture in the U.S. I used to think that quilting was old-lady work, done by women who had few choices in life but to sit at home and sew. And maybe that once was true, not the age part but the choice part. Today I celebrate that these women who had few opportunities outside their homes used their skills, vision and patience to make beautiful functional art to benefit family and friends.

Quilting is such a nurturing family thing too, and what better way to spend a life than to do the best you can by those you love? For generations, women made quilts for their families to stay warm under or to be sold for money to help feed their families. They gave gifted quilts to friends that they'd made with their own hands and time. These quilts were not made from brand new bolts of fabric purchased at Walmart or Jo-Anne's fabrics like many are today. They were made repurposing old curtains, sheets or clothing. Any scraps of fabrics that could be reused were kept and built into future quilts or other items of clothing. Not much got thrown away like it does today. Quilting makes the environmentalist in me happy. And as a woman with choices in life, I am glad that I can now celebrate skills such as quilting that have traditionally been woman's work.

A good problem to have. Both of Lesley's grandmothers were quilters, so she comes from good quilting genes and picked up on everything very quickly. And she has a good problem, especially as a new quilter. She has several quilt toppers that her grandmothers never finished. I'd learned from my quilting friend and teacher, Karen, that many quilters sew the toppers but never finish the process of sewing the batting and backing to them and then hand-stitching through the layers. You can sometimes find toppers at second hand stores or yard sales. If you are lucky enough to find them it saves you half the work, and as Karen says, she feels honored to finish the work that a "fore-mother" started. She wonders about their life, their thoughts, their goals and loves, as she finishes what they started. I like that idea too.  Lesley pulled out pictures of her grandmothers and set them up on the buffet next to the table as we got started with the topper. We studied the pictures. We honored them with our efforts.

Getting supplies. Of the unfinished toppers, Lesley and I picked the one that looked the simplest as a starter project, a version of the nine block square. Then we went to Jo-Anne's Fabrics armed with discount coupons. Les picked out the backing, batting and other basic quilting supplies such as a rotary cutter, mat, quilting needles, quilting pins, thread and thimble. When we got back to her house, we began laying out the layers: backing, batting and topper, and pinning them together, using the backing as side hems.

My friend, Les and I, laying out the quilt topper before pinning it to the backing and batting.

Rebuilding a special quilt. While at Jo-Anne's, Les also selected and purchased batting, backing and quilting thread for me to rebuild one of her quilts that was very worn, torn and stained. This project morphed out of an offer I had made this past summer to make a memory quilt for Les when her father died.

Instead of a memory quilt, Lesley had asked me if I could repair a pink and white quilt that one of her grandmothers had made for her oldest child, her only daughter, when she was born. This daughter is now an adult and has a daughter of her own who is just starting middle school. Neither of them know about this secret quilt project, which is half the fun for me in accepting this project.

Rebuilding this quilt is such a labor of love for my friend and her family, and such a wonderful project celebrating motherhood, grandmothers...and yes, fathers and grandfathers.  At my suggestion, Lesley kept a couple of her father's shirts which I am now using to rebuild parts of this quilt.

When I first examined the quilt, I saw that it was in very bad shape and would basically have to be rebuilt. The only parts that can be saved are the little girls with bonnets. Even with the little bonneted girls, a couple have to totally be remade and a couple more have to be partially remade. I am using the material from the two shirts of Lesley's dad to rebuild these little girls. Lesley's daughter was very close to her grandfather so she will cry when she sees this quilt finished. I know it.  I am so happy to do something that will have such an impact.

Stretching and Obsessing, in a good way. This project is stretching my skills, a good thing. It is the perfect project because I feel comfortable to figure it out, knowing that Lesley has faith in me. I am no professional, but I am dedicated, excited about the project, and am finding that once I start a quilt, I am obsessed with finishing it. I find myself spending time thinking about it when I'm not actually working on it. This is the way I was when I sewed each of the five memory quilts for my sister's kids when she died.  This is how I was when I sewed the two rag-denim quilts that I made, one for a niece and one for the top loft in our RV. And this is how I am with rebuilding the quilt for Lesley and her daughter. I think I will be finished long before winter is over.  I could even, conceivably, be finished before we leave for Key West in mid October.

Quilting on a beautiful day. While Lesley and I worked on the quilts, with beautiful sunlight streaming in the windows, we sang along to familiar oldies playing in the background. We gossiped a bit, we laughed a lot, and we caught up with each other lives, we shared secrets. 

Adding to the warmth of the ambiance, Lesley started making bread in the afternoon, multi-tasking between that and the quilting, and giving us wonderful smells.  I love when I'm working an artistic project and several of my senses are being fed. The fabric feels so good to my fingers.  The colors are gorgeous and delight my eyes.  The music was fun and singing together was even greater bonding for our friendship.  Then the smell of bread cooking, it just doesn't get any better than that. But yet it did. In looking out the glass doors to Lesley's backyard, I could see a few objects I'd given her from my backyard when we got ready to sell our house a couple years ago. It makes me happy that things I've loved are now loved by someone I love.

What a great couple of days working with Lesley on these quilts. 

Old Quilt TLC

I was helping my friend sort clothes at the Lutheran Church she attends.  The items are donated clothing, mostly, but occasionally bedding, toys or other things.  The volunteers are well organized, standing around two long rows of tables, pulling clothing out of bags that two other volunteers bring in from a truck outside, a few at time.  The camaraderie among the volunteers is great.  They joke about the strangest and grossest things they've found: a soiled bathing suit seemed to be the worst.

We examined each item, throwing anything too worn, torn or stained, into a pile that would be discarded or recycled.  The rest of it would all be laundered before being sent to their thrift store.

A quilt was examined and found to be too worn to be saved.  I asked if I could see it and wondered if I would be able to save parts of it.  Since they were just going to throw it away, they let me have it.

And so my journey begins, just like my master quilter friend in North Carolina, of finding and repairing or salvaging parts of old quilts.

As you can see in this up-close picture, it is in really bad shape so salvaging is probably what I'll have to do, and then to totally rebuild this quilt.

In this view, it doesn't look bad.  I've saved this view for rebuilding. 

I'm excited.  A winter project.  

My Friend's Quilts

My friend love's quilts.  She makes her own, she finds unfinished quilts in thrifts stores and finishes them if they are worthy, she finds old quilts and repairs them, she makes honor quilts and she makes memory quilts for people who have lost loved ones.  

A memory quilt for the parents of a young girl.

The quilt here is behind my man, hanging between the curtains. 

This one is made from sweet little hankies.

My Memories of Making Five Memory Quilts

I finished all five memory quilts, made from my sister's clothes. Her kids had divided them into five color and memory-coded groupings. The fabrics were everything from a white faux fur vest that each of the kids wanted used in their quilt, to good quilting cottons, to knits, to open-weave sweaters and jeans.

I worked on these quilts over many different states. Connecticut and Maryland are where I did all the cutting of my sister's clothes. North Carolina is were I started sewing the first quilt, learning how to do a traditional quilt. I  hand stitched as we drove from North Carolina to Kansas City and later north to South Dakota, then back through Kansas City to Memphis, then back north to Maryland. I sewed later in Maryland and Virginia, sitting on patios, beaches, alongside swimming pools, and on front porch steps, as well as in our RV. Those quilts went a lot of places with me. Mostly they stayed next to my heart.

I came to love those quilts. I wasn't sure how to do them when I started. I had just learned to do rag quilts with my daughter-in-law last December and thought I could do them all like that. Than a friend, a master quilter, taught me how to quilt the traditional way. So the quilts are a mix of the two styles.

Each quilt spoke to me. I spoke to my sister as I worked with her clothes. Though I loved those quilts,  I hated them too. They represented my sister's death. But we couldn't control that. We can't reverse that.  What I could control was to make something that would have a kinesthetic connection to my sister and to represent something beautiful - the memories and the immortality of love. I know particular articles of her clothing were tied to her kid's activities, interests, events. I also saw articles of her clothing that were tied to visits to me over the years, such as a couple of  crab T-shirts from Maryland. Many articles of clothing I worked with she had purchased when I'd taken her shopping to get clothes that fit her better as she lost weight. And there were even a couple of blouses I'd given her.

This the first quilt I finished, done in 4 inch squares, rag quilt style. The colors, kind of hard to tell from this picture, seemed to me to be predominantly pinks and browns, so I used a plain, brown cotton/felt/fleece-type material as the backing. It is the only one of the quilts that has a totally plain back, just squares with "X" sewed across each. It is warm and cozy.

  Here is a closer look.

And closer. 

This next quilt, obviously in a red theme, but with grays, blacks, and some blues, is also done in the rag quilt style, but with 6 inch squares because the 4 inch squares took forever and a day to cut, and they limited what could be seen of some of the logos and words. This time, I put my sister's clothes on to the "back" of the quilt. I mean, really, the front of the back is what we call it, right? I was learning as I was going and it occurred to me that the different logos would show up better if not folded over and clipped like the previous quilt.

 Here is a closeup.

Here is what normally would be the front on a rag quilt but is now the back, made from alternating thick gray fleece and a winter-weight gray cotton printed sheet. I love how the red from the opposite side shows up in the frayed seams.

And a closer look at the what normally would be the front of a rag quilt but is now the back on this one.

 

 And closer.

Here is a quilt in the traditional style, where my friend, the master quilter, helped me design and sew these front pieces together, helped me put the batting in the center, and line a backing on it, with black edge trim. Then she showed me how to "stitch in-the-ditch" - in the seams, by hand, with a quilting needle. She suggested I use buttons if I like, decoratively and to do double duty to help hold the layers together. She also suggested I stitch around words or designs and have fun with it. She told me to just let the quilt talk to me and tell me what it wants to do. I did that. And it did.

The color scheme is very eclectic but with lots or oranges, yellows and reds.

 You can see I stitched around the light layers of the lavender star behind the word, HOPE. I'd also stitched through each of the letters of the word HOPE.

And here, below, I used buttons that had lined the opening edges of a cardigan made of material too loose to try to use in the quilt. I stitched them around the border on what had been a black T-shirt, now surrounding a green Golf polo shirt logo. The buttons helped hold the fabric layers in place. Initially I'd done hand stitched square rectangles around the green rectangle on the black, but I didn't like how that looked so I took it all out, and just like my friend said, the idea came to me that those large, square and rectangular, shiny black buttons were supposed to be here.  

Here is the back, a bit puckered in places.  My first.

Here is another quilt, done in a rag quilt style, but with 12x6 rectangles, backed in denim with alternating shades.  As you can see, the color scheme here was primarily blues.

 Here is the back.

And here is the last one, done in the traditional method, with batting and backing and stitching in the ditch. I put T-shirt designs and a sweatshirt logo on the back of the quilt so that the front would all be in the wonderful color scheme of greens.

 Here is the back with the T-shirt designs and sweatshirt logo's.

Here is a closeup of the front.

Closeup of one of the T-shirt designs on the back.

I love these quilts. We mailed them off, UPS, last Tuesday. As of Wednesday, they've all arrived to my sister's children.

There were tears, I'm sure. As there were when I was making them.