Thrifting for "Bitty" and "Blue Baskets"

Happy Monday! I hope you put out your flag in remembrance of 9/11, and if you forgot this year, please consider doing so next year. This event changed our country and our world. Do you know the attacks are not universally taught in US schools now, or taught only as a global overview. The excuse is that the attacks occurred before most students were born.  If we can remember Pearl Harbor---or the Signing of the Declaration of Independence, and we do!---surely this day of infamy must be taught and remembered too.

...

 A few weeks ago my friend B [Bea] visited and of course we went out thrifting! She always finds really good clothes!  I didn't have much of a list, more a wait and see kind of attitude.

At least this time I didn't come home empty handed.

Blue, grey, and purple shirts for my free form throw and for Bitty and Blue Baskets*.

I love these Ralph Lauren plaid shirts! The grey is for the Bitty stems that aren't blue.

(*Blue Baskets and Free Form are just ideas at the moment! Blue Baskets will have their main bowl areas made with pieced plaid strips.. I don't know if the ground will be cheddar, handles blue, or ground will be my current fave Basic Grey Distressed muslin "Grunge" HERE, with cheddar handles. I'm hoping for a snowy winter to sit and sew the plaid textiles.) btw, check out the other Grunge ''solids''...I am crazy about the saturated but distressed colors !
And Bitty may need borders. I'll get back to her after I show you what else I found.

Lovely 100% linen tea towels, red and white. set of 8. If I keep them they will be used for Christmas Eve napkins. I love the Nordic look of red and white for Christmas. Or I might put them in my etsy Christmas shop.

Also a single blue and white check linen tea towel. Useful as is or adorable for etsy hearts?

Small sweet sepia polychrome transferware plate.

Unmarked, not terribly old. Prob Johnson Bros.

I love the details, see the acorns and fall berries?

And so sweet, a small tape dispenser.

Silly but I saw those ladybugs and had to have! In all my years of many collections and enthusiasms, I think Ladybugs was my first must-have, from when I was a tiny child. My grandma had a Dresden ladybug, porcelain, oh I loved it so much! Age 3 or 4? I still have it, yes she finally caved and gave it to me.And now all these years later, I still love a piece of ladybug decorated china.  Nice for my work desk, instead of an ugly scotch tape green plastic thing, right?

.....
Now about Bitty. Bitty has issues.

This weekend I removed all the crooked pointy lollipop flowers that I had sewed on the previous week on the beach, in a gale wind. You'd think after sewing 366 Dotty circles I could sew a decent circle but no. The quilt is too small to hide mistakes and bad sewing. I will redo the lollipop flowers the old-fashioned way, cardboard templates, gathers, starch, iron, remove template = smooth pretty curves.

I removed Bitty's too sugar-sweety wing for now and I moved some of the leaves and second heart around, because they just looked wrong.

Now to me, Bitty is a someday baby quilt, like for my grandma hope chest or a gift to a good friend. It's big enough for a cradle or stroller for a newborn but just barely. I think I will be adding a border, not sure.
I sketched blue [plaid] scallops

or simple swags.

But then, I have this out on my clip board for a little fun Fall treat:

and I noticed it has a really nice prim border design. [by Cheri Payne.] So I'll see how things go.

This week [-end] it has been too buggy to sit outside on the deck. Unusual for us to have no wind, and the flies were biting. Last night I had to run inside, shower and take a Benedryl! The flies even bit poor little Mo!

He had to play inside.

So no Bitty progress! I think I have 4 tiny birds and 3 leaves left to sew, then the stems, then the circle flowers and buds. A couple days' sewing. Instead I made the first Star blocks for Silent Night. Aren't they pretty! I am hoping to recapture my piecing mojo and do nice work on them. I'll piece the lower section of the quilt so that I can applique the snowman scene.

But today...oh! I was well, seduced! By Lori of Humble Quilts new little quilt sewalong. HERE

I hate mystery projects! I always say I won't make another! But I have never been disappointed in a Lori project, always so fun. So I scurried home from Trader Joe's [no mums! but Tempura Cauli! mmm...] and cut out my hundred 2" squares.

I am not good at ''low volume'' which means all pale tones, and so I  cut extras. Then I auditioned my fave 100 squares.

I wonder what little Palmateer Point Quilt will look like? It's never at all what I imagine, but always a joy.

have a good week!

love

lizzy 

gone to the beach....

September 11, 2001

 Never Forget~

[photos from local source here]

On the Beach at Night  

by Walt Whitman

[to be engraved on a memorial here]

On the beach at night, 

Stands a child with her father, 

Watching the east, the autumn sky. 

Up through the darkness, 

While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading, 

Lower sullen and fast athwart and down the sky, 

Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east, 

Ascends large and calm the lord-star Jupiter, 

And nigh at hand, only a very little above, 

Swim the delicate sisters the Pleiades. 

From the beach the child holding the hand of her father, 

Those burial-clouds that lower victorious soon to devour all, 

Watching, silently weeps....