I wiped away the weeds & foam. / I fetched my sea-born treasures home... Ralph Waldo Emerson







Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Pink Quilt for Spring




Hi! Oh, brrr, the wind is howling outside my window here! March gales being lion-like. Bright sunshine though.  Despite making my bed this week with fluffy flannel sheets and fleece blankets, down comforter, I felt suddenly in the mood for a lighter brighter quilt on my bed. Often I use my Tiny Baskets quilts for spring but today I dug out my newly completed pink rescue quilt and used it instead.



I finished this quilt during the winter holidays and sort of hung it in the closet right away. It deserves better! You'll recall I found it one windy April day, maybe three or four years ago. It was a sad and neglected, and very soiled! top when discovered in a bin of rags under a dealer's table at the flea. I gingerly took it out and fell in love with the fabrics. Someone's scrap bag perhaps--a collection of tiny late 19th century bits and pieces. Mostly darks, maybe mourning prints, or simply scraps from the dresses and shirts of a practical family. Dark cloth doesn't show the dirt as much. And a nice variety of reds, indigo blues, and light ground shirtings make up the rest of 1 1/2" patches. The wide sashing is an adorable teeny tiny pink polka dot.
Each block is different, I can pore over the tiny squares for hours, loving the antique prints.






















I think I paid 30.oo for it, a couple of doll quilts[placemats?], and a set of white pillow cases with handmade lace.

I took it home. The quilt top was so dirty I had to gently hand wash it before I did anything else. Normally quilt tops are better left unwashed until they are quilted. But sometimes rules must be bent. Even if I'd been willing to handle this top, my quilter understandably would, I'm pretty sure, have refused. Plus I knew I needed to rework the top, and couldn't press it when soiled.

It washed well. I hung it up for a long time, thinking how to redo it. I finally found a sweet pink and white tiny print for additional sashing and borders. I picked the top apart and resewed the sashings, but I left the hand pieced Chimney Sweep blocks as is, in all their crooked imperfection: points cropped, biases wavy--fine.


My quilter did an excellent job with cotton batting and Baptist Fan allover quilts.



I bound the now finished quilt and gave it its real in-depth wash with a soak in Retayne, then a gentle ''exra rinse'' wash in All and Clorox 2. Dried in the dryer, it came out so beautiful and pink and pretty! Definitely the perfect quilt for Spring at the beach.


The doll quilt I made with the scraps is now listed on etsy and EBay. It was hard to give it up, but in the spirit of Lori's new doll quilt swap, I will let it go on to a new home, maybe.


As for the doll quilt swap [Humble Quilts], so far I've made three! 3! doll quilts to send to my person. It's fun but hard to know what might be ''just right''...



love

lizzy

gone to the beach.....












Easter pix: devilled eggs:


Mo's revenge...



Friday, March 25, 2016

Happy Easter Happy Spring

   

Springtime good wishes to everyone!

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Menu

devilled eggs/ celery & carrots
+++

Butter lettuce salad with lemon vinaigrette

Roast Pork loin with horseradish, sage, and pepper crust

gravy

roasted baby new potatoes

Asparagus with hollandaise sauce

rose or white wine

+++

chocolate cheesecake and Cadbury mini chocolate eggs.

Served on my grandmother's Haviland plates: white with sprigs of rose buds.

Enjoy!



love

lizzy

gone to the beach.....













Sunday, March 20, 2016

Welcome Spring! And Pokeberry is Done!


Yay, Pokeberry! 




But first things first, Happy Spring to everyone.




We are expecting snow here at the beach. Love the Alert's commentary:

The Equinoxes often bring stormy weather, and snow in late March is unfortunate but commonplace. One last chance to make hot chocolate and snuggle under the covers while the snow flies. I enjoy winter so I don't mind.
This week I finished my Pokeberry Quilt! Yay! Here's a link to my very first post about Pokeberry, back in June: click here  with credits and explanations, because as my friend Lisa pointed out, not everyone who visits here is a quilter!

















I had to piece the backing. I inserted a strip of the  robin's egg sawtooth fabric. The solid is a soft flannel, a very pretty violet/blue/grey. Nicer than the photos look.


The label will go under the line of sawtooths.



This is a label someone gave me, I've been saving it. It looks very Pokeberry-ish, I think.


I learned a new to me trick making this quilt. I love learning new skills, and never having taken a class I sometimes am not clued in to what everyone else knows. Like: how to make large amounts of sawtooths! My previous method was to piece long bias strips of the two colors then laboriously cut each HST [half square triangle, my non-quilter friends] with a template. Time consuming but very accurate. Not fun if you need about 150 hst's for a big border. Thank you, Jan Patek!



One last press and it's off to the quilter in the morning, depending on the snow accumulation, of course. I asked for allover Baptist Fans and I am sending black batting. My quilter agreed with  me that black batting was a good idea for this quilt. It's Hobb's Heirloom 80/20. I could not find 100% cotton batting in black. I'm petty excited that this project is done! And I still love the funny weeds, the pokeberries.



Next I went back to poor neglected Summertime. I quickly pieced the Four Patch /Nine Patch cornerstones. I had to sub yellow on some of the corners so that there was not pink on pink making an odd visual.



Because of this I suddenly last night realized these blocks are directional in an odd way. The navy squares slant off parallel instead of pointing to the center. I'm pretty sure I did the earlier cornerstones wrong! Oh well.


I hope the colors come together. They're not as ugly as the pix seem but a bit sad. My idea was "blueberries/ raspberries/ lemonade", very summery. Looks like a drought to me though.
The applique border will have brilliant rose red yoyo flowers and blue and yellow birds, on green stems and leaves. Perk things up?

I also remade my second block for Westering Women. I couldn't bear to use more of my beloved hoarded turquoise, so I subbed. The new block, on the right, is the correct size but to me it lacks the snap of version one.


...
Yesterday was Mo's birthday! He is two. Happy Birthday, Mo!





Have a great week.



love

lizzy

gone to the beach...





I love the sun rays here,
like a child's drawing