Making my way back.....

I suppose everyone handles death differently. I'm not quite sure why this particular death has whacked me so hard. In November, a nephew on my DHs side committed suicide. His Dad, hospitalized with a hip replacement, had a heart attack and died. Maybe this one was overload. Whatever the reasons, I'm making my way back to the place I belong. I've been cutting scraps endlessly, which is a good thing. But, enough now...time to DO something. And I will. *VBS*The pictures today are sections of an rescued Orphan Blocks quilt. It was slowly coming to its end days in an old trunk in an old barn.
I brought it home, soaked it endlessly, washed and dried it and then took it apart. Some sections had been chewed through by mice. Once it was seperated and just "a top", I washed it again.
It lived at my house for many years, I always intended to quilt it. Good intentions are one of my failings. In the summer of 2007, I offered it up to anyone who wanted to email me. Sue, of Magpie Sue was the one person who did. I know of her chemical allergies, but was fairly confident the top was clean enough not to cause her any problems. I sent it off to her,quite sure she would love its oddities. Lots of fabrics in this one from somebodys scrapbag.

One more quilt...

that I haven't shown you. I did use it in a staged picture of my vintage boxes last year. Here is how it came to be...*VBS* As a new resident of a small town, I was invited to stitch with a group of older ladies. At one of the very first gathering, my hostess gave me a box of hexagons that were already cut in this size, 2" (unfinished). She had 6 hexs for each flower matched up with centers but no piecing done. Over the next meetings I hand pieced 20 flowers, but since I was in the process of my big hexagon Honeycomb quilt, I didn't really want to add diamonds or setting hexs to these flowers. So I laid them aside. Four years later, at another new job location, I was desperate for something to work on over the Christmas holiday period when the kids were all home. I cut out twenty squares of bleached muslin and appliqued the flowers on to the squares. When that was done, I joined up the blocks, and used a nice piece of 36" lavender(also from Irene), basted the top and began quilting. I generally use Mountain Mist batting, for the look I wanted, I used MM Light...a very thin batt. The quilt is about 36" X 45". The cross hatching is at 1". I had tried 2" but found it was too much space between the lines. The flower fabrics are the "real deal", fabrics from when Irene was a bride, back in the 1920's. She had always intended to make the quilt, but the babies started coming along and she never got around to doing it. I treasure this little "pass along" quilt and some pieces of her fabric stash that came to me after her death. She had left instructions for her fabric to be divided up amongst her stitching group..*VBS*

Stepping Stones..bridge over Troubled Waters

A day spent sewing strips for Bonnie's Trip around the World pattern. Soooo many scraps, sooooo many strips, sooooo much thread, and so many prayers and petitions. I find myself thinking of the quilters of the world, and not just us, as being a "bridge over troubled waters". We can't fix the problem or situation, but we can lend our ears and hearts and hands to help.

This is a quilt that I called Stepping Stones. I chose this one tonight as it keeps with the bridge over troubled waters idea. I belonged to a small quilting group. When it was your turn, each member would make you one or two blocks, depending. You provided the pattern to piece, and the fabric at one meeting, and the next month they meet at your house and assemble the top. I don't remember now how many were in the group at that time, but each person only had to make one block. A couple of close friends did also, so I could have their work in my quilt. I love "connecting" and connections..*VBS*

All the fabric is vintage or feedsack except the burgandy that formed the stepping stones. And as usual I had just exactly enough for the stones, as long as no one screwed up..LOL. So of course, a couple of people did. Before we finished we were sewing slivers of burgandy together to get one or two more 2.5" squares. It was my introduction to "making do". I think the block is a 64 patch. Seems like it took 8 rows of 8 to form the stones across. It's pretty amazing what can be "pieced" together.

Pieces of The Past, literally...

This minature, which I found in an older magazine is made from vintage orphan blocks. Machine pieced/hand quilted.