Sunbonnet Sue Revisited.

She is one of the most recognized quilt blocks in the world. she has a love/hate relationship with quilters (google "the demise of Sunbonnet Sue), and she was the first quilt my mother made.

  This is a true 1960's quilt, my mom hand appliqued - with a black embroidery floss running stitch - and hand quilted this quilt in about 1967-68.  This was the first quilt in a series of four that my mom did for her daughters.  I am the oldest and this quilt became mine.

  I remember my mom coming in the house one spring afternoon and enlisting my help for a project.  She had spotted a Sunbonnet Sue quilt hanging on an elderly neighbor's cloths line.  We went with a sheet of notebook paper, pencil, and clipboard and while I held the clipboard behind the quilt she traced this Sunbonnet Sue pattern while the quilt was hanging on the clothesline. 
Mom only purchased the white fabric for the backgrounds and the light blue for the borders.  With four daughters she sewed most of our clothing and these Sue's were made out of the scraps from our sundresses, shorts, and shirts.

 It is interesting to me because looking closely at the fabrics some of the them look very current with today's fabrics.

 I can not remember any of us girls wearing the leopard print, but it was the 60s :)


I was taking a closer look at this quilt because I recently made a  little Sunbonnet Sue quilt for a friend.  She wanted a dolly blanket/quilt for her granddaughter.

 These little Sues are 5 inch blocks and made with Aunt Gracie reproduction fabrics.  I machine appliqued the blocks with a black blanket stitch.  The back is minkie fabric, I did very little quilting on it and  did not use any batting so it is nice and "drapey" and hug able.  Easy to wrap a baby doll in.  

Happy Stitching!
Cheri

Rainy Weekend = Lots of Quilting

Cool and and wet here in Nebraska this long holiday weekend. I have been in the sewing room alot. I finished the little vintage embroidery block (pattern from Liberty Homestead) doll quilt. I have not made prairie points in so long I almost did not remember how. It was a good oportunity to use Aunt Gracie conversation prints.

The rest of the weekend I worked on building Home Tweet Home blocks (McKenna Ryan)

Maybe it will keep raining tomorrow and I can work on the little four patches to go inbetween the applique blocks.


If not I will have to go outside and work on this...I don't care how we prep the pool in the fall, in the spring it is always green. The black spot is a group of leaves that we managed to drop in the pool while removing the cover. Lots of vacuuming, pool chemicals, more vacuuming, and cold wet clothes.

Happy Stitching,

Cheri

A Trip Into Vintage

I was in the Kansas City area last weekend with some friends for a little quilt shopping. Boy did I ever fall off the wagon for not starting any new projects and concentrating on UFOs.

One of our most fun stops was a special visit to Glenda Sha of Liberty Homestead. http://www.libertyhomestead.com/. Glenda and her husband are vendors at a lot of the quilt shows around the country but they have a home in Kingsville, MO. with a separate building for their shop and where they host retreats. We called ahead to see if they would be in town last weekend and if we could come by to see their shop. Glenda dyes much of her fabrics, she has such a special style, lots of use of wools, reproduction fabrics, and 30's fabrics. Her quilts and patterns have a very vintage feel that reminds me of my Grandma.

I have started embroidering the little hand dyed pastels in my header picture for a little baby quilt, these little bunnies, rabbits, squirrels and sheep are so much fun, and the hand dyed fabric is just so soft and rich in color. It will be finished with little Aunt Grace fabric prairie points around the edge. Glenda and her husband made us feel so welcome, she gave us a little tour of what they call the bunk house for retreat use.

Glenda is on the far right in this picture.

Some bunk house, wouldn't this be just the best sleep over with a bunch of your quilting friends? Vintage Heaven.

In this season of Hope, Christ is Risen!

Happy Easter,

Happy Spring,

Happy Stitching,

Cheri

Aunt Gracie Room

Long ago, when I first started quilting, my quilts were made from muslin and calicoes (my mom and grandma used muslin and clothing scraps and feed sacks). Aunt Grace reproduction fabrics are a favorite of mine and to this day a muslin and small scale calico just says "Quilt" to me. I have made a lot of quilts using 30s reproduction fabrics and decided to turn my guest bedroom into an Aunt Gracie room and display those quilts. So this is a little quilt show for you and a few of the Aunt Gracie quilts from the past few years.The quilt on the bed is one of my few hand quilted ones, I am more of a machine quilter. It is from the book Favorite Scrap Quilts, I am an appliquer at heart and used an applique techinique to make the drunkards path blocks for this quilt.

I do not remember the name and designer of this quilt, the embroidered blocks are herbs.

The baby quilt is a bow tie block and the name of the quilt is Buttons and Bows. I had traced circles on the white corners of the bowtie blocks and then stipple quilted the negative space and it ended up looking like buttons. This quilt won a blue ribbon in my local guild show.

I used the treadle from an old singer sewing machine cabinet for the TV stand in this bedroom.

My son made the jelly cabinet with the tin punched Ohio Star pattern inserts in a high school wood making class, it fits right in this quilty guest bedroom.

One more wall and one more Aunt Grace quilt, this is a hand applique and again I do not remember the pattern designer.

Happy Stitching All,

Cheri