Nostalgia Quilt – The Story and the Reveal

Over the past several days I’ve been sharing pictures of some of the embroidery in my Mom’s Nostalgia Quilt. I think that this is the quilt she loves most because it has a story that is close to her heart. I asked her to share that story with my readers and this is what she had to say:

“My love of growing flowers started in northern Alberta in the early 1920s. I was about six years old when I was allowed to go visit with Miss Davis who lived on a farm 1½ miles away. She came to Canada after WWI and settled there but was homesick. Friends and family in England sent her seeds so she could make an English flower garden. I couldn’t stop looking at the beautiful plants so she offered me some seeds. Needless to say I ran all the way home so that Mom could help me make my own garden.

It was many years later and we moved several times and so have my flowers. I ended up in Scarborough, Ontario and I spread my lovely flowers throughout the neighbourhood. That was my passion for flowers.

 
While living in Alberta we had a one room school. The teacher lived in a cottage that we called "the teacher’s shack". She lived in the cottage through the week and went home to St. Paul on the weekend. Our winters then were long and cold. Mrs. Grace Labovcane, our teacher, found the nights long and lonely so she asked three of us senior girls (12 years old) if we would like to learn embroidery so with washed and bleached sugar and flour sacks we learned the basic stitches which to this day I am enjoying.

Mrs. Labovcane was an unusual teacher. One day she decided that the whole class should learn darning. If you had a torn mitten or sock that was fine. If not she would cut a hole and teach you how to mend it!

 

 

 

I shall never forget these two wonderful ladies. My Nostalgia quilt is a tribute to both of them.

 

Anne H”

Yellow Wallflowers

Queen Anne's Lace

Honeysuckle

Bluebells and buttercups

 

Here are some close-ups of the hand quilting in the corners of the quilt

 

Butterfly

Wild Rose

Yikes - a spider spins its web!

A heart

 

 

 

I hope you've enjoyed Mom's Nostalgia quilt and her inspiration. She is very excited that the world will see and enjoy this quilt. I would be so appreciative of any comments you leave and she will be thrilled to know that in sharing her quilt she has spread little seeds of pleasure! This is certainly a quilt to be treasured.

 

If have time to pop on over to Quilting Gallery's Show and Tell. I've entered Flora and Fauna. There are lots of beautiful applique quilts and you can vote here.

 

 

Well that’s it for today. I still have lots of reverse sewing to do, the Baskets and Nine Patches pattern and I might just baste a quilt for a friend of mine. So much to do so I had better get cracking!

Until I post again, happy sewing!

Nostalgia Quilt and New Quilting Gallery Show and Tell

It is a short post today because I want to work on Alex’s quilt that I wrote about yesterday. I've run into big problems (the backing is not smooth) so I've going to have to take out all of the quilting I've done. ARGGGHHH! I hate reverse sewing!  I think I'll take a break and instead work on writing up the instructions for making Baskets and Nine Patches!

 

Close-up of Flora and Fauna

 

The Quilting Gallery’s Show and Tell theme this weekend is applique. I entered Flora and Fauna, Parts of the Garden. I posted close-ups of the quilt under the tab Flora and Fauna, Parts of the Garden at the top of this page. There are so many of beautiful applique quilts entered in the Show and Tell. Voting is open until Monday at 6:00pm EDT. This time are three votes per URL. To see all of the quilts and vote for your favourite here!

Today I’ve got a few more pictures of my Mom’s Nostalgia quilt. This weekend I’ll post her story about this quilt, a few more close-up picutres and the quilt.

 

 

 

Until I post again, happy sewing!

Baskets and Nine Patch (the final stretch), test sandwiches and more from the Nostalgia quilt

I’m in the final stretch of the Baskets and Nine Patch quilt. I’ve decided to use gold The Bottom Line thread by Superior to quilt little circles (also called pebbles) inside the feathered square wreathes. The fabric includes some metallic gold lines so the thread accentuates the metallic. This is one of my first attempts at circles so while they aren’t perfect, they’ll do!

Each time I sit down to quilt I have a routine I follow to make sure that everything is in tip top shape including me. One of the things that I do is warm up my quilting on a practice sandwich. If I’m trying out different techniques or motifs the sandwich takes on the appearance of a sampler. Here is one of my test sandwiches and it is getting filled up although there’s still a little more space. I was thinking it would be interesting to apply some colour and beading to this piece….maybe even a little applique. Could make an interesting little wall hanging!

 

And now a few more close-ups of the embroidery in my Mom’s quilt Nostalgia. Many of the flowers and bugs are found in her garden. The first picture has a bit of a story. Mom and my brother are both avid gardeners. He is always bringing her interesting seeds and plants. Since orange flowers are not as common as other colours, when he came across some seeds that promised lovely orange flowers he snapped them up and gave them tom Mom. She planted them thinking that they would be a lovely little plant with a pop of orange. The seeds sprouted and started growing, and growing and growing! By late summer the plant was more than 8’ tall! They didn’t plant those seeds again!

Crazy, big, orange plant!

Sampler

 Sampler

Violets

 

The theme for Quilting Gallery’s Show and Tell starting Friday, May 3 is applique so I’ve entered Floraand Fauna, Parts of the Garden. The voting will open on Friday morning. I’ll post a link so you can view all of the entries and vote for your favourites!
 
Until I post again, happy sewing!

Baskets and Nine Patches, very old curios and more pictures of the Nostalgia quilt!

I’m making progress on Baskets and Nine Patches but it is slow. Quilting melon wedges on those nine patches is time consuming but worth the effort….well I think it is worth the effort! I like a flat quilt so this one will be very flat! In the first picture all of the nine patches are quilted and in the second the bottom nine patch is not yet quilted.

 

 I’ve looked at the baskets and the bases are going to need some quilting so I’ll have to think about what to do there.

I’ve always had an interest in fossils and rocks. My desk at work is covered with them! They are a great conversation starter because people always want to know what they are and more importantly, why I have them on my desk. I have them because I like them. And they are beautiful! This is a group of little bivalves that I found at Bridal Veil Falls in Kagawong on Manitoulin Island. If you sort through the clay you can find whole fossilized bivalves completely free of any rock. It is so exciting to find them!

 

This “fossil” is a frog, Latin name Rana. While the rock is from Manitoulin Island, the frog is not. It was a rainy day and there was going to be no rock hounding I got creative! I used acrylic paints to make my own fossil! I had a fossil identification book so the image is more or less accurate. I’ve fooled a lot of people with this one!

 

My brother really liked my fossil paintings so when he renovated his bathroom he asked me to paint tiles for him. He purchased tiles that looked like sandstone; I pulled out the tile paints and the fossil identification guides and got started! Once the tiles were painted they were baked in a warm oven so that the paint would bond to the tile. He has the tiles in the bathroom and the shower enclosure and many years later they still look like new! It is a man cave for sure!

  

 

 

 

And lastly, a few more pictures from Mom’s Nostalgia quilt!

Lady's Slipper (they'll be blooming soon!)

Sampler

Foxglove

Blue butterfly

Until I post again, happy sewing!

Label your quilt, the importance of good customer service, more Nostalgia quilt close-ups and Hexagreens!

Do you label your quilts? I do but I’ve heard stories of quilts being stolen. A label can easily be removed and replaced (or not) so what to do to indentify your work? I’ve quilted initials and date in the corner of quilts for my Mom and I think I’m going to do it with all of my quilts. If I want it to be innocuous I’ll use a thread colour to match the fabric and if I want it to be a “trademark” I’ll do it with a contrasting colour. I'll continue to make lovely labels to stitch to the back but I'm also going to quilt my initials and the year. I’m going to add this to my “to do” list and go back and quilt my initials and date on all of my quilts. I did this sample very quickly on my machine to give you a visual - think it would be really nice in red!

If you don't want to do that, why not hide your initials or name and date in stippling? It can be your little secret! This is a test piece of initials and date that I did for a quilt for my Mom. When I did it on the quilt I completed the A and the O.

There is nothing better than good customer service and nothing worse than bad customer service. I was having problem with a thread from Superior Threads and my Janome machines. I wasn't sure whether it was the thread or the machine so I email Superior and Janome and I explained the issue and how I’ve tried to resolve it. I've heard not a peep from Janome – not even an acknowledgement of receipt of my email! Superior Threads on the other hand emailed AND phoned the very next business day. I spoke with Josh and he was more than helpful. He walked me through the problem and made suggestions. He also said Superior’s goal was to ensure that I am a happy customer. Josh was going to be unavailable for the rest of the week so he gave me some contact names at Superior so that if the problem wasn’t resolved I could speak with them. He then followed up with another email and sent me some articles about thread and tension. I was hooked on Superior Thread and its products before and now they just cemented that relationship. I will sing their praises henceforth! As far as Janome goes.....I'll let you know if I get a response but I'm not holding my breath!

And now for a few more pictures of the embroidery in my Mom’s quilt “Nostalgia”.

Floral Sampler 

Butterflies

Honeysuckle

Trilliums

I'll try to get the whole story of the Nostalgia quilt this week and post it for your reading enjoyment!

I'll end with a close-up of a pretty little hexagon from my quilt "Hexagreens"!

Until I post again, happy sewing!