Vintage Quilt Update...

How much is that doggie in the window??

Here's a closer look!

Little Joey looks through the french door at the goings on...and wonders why he can't come in and be with us....poor Joey! (Joey is the sweetest dog EVER. But don't tell my dogs or the grandpuppies that I said that!)

I had told my good friend Shelley about my vintage quilt top I got from my sister and had her check it out on this blog the other day. She loved it and called me and asked me if I'd like to come to her house and tape down the quilt and get it pinned.

WOULD I?!
Oh, yes!

This job is always so much more pleasant to do with a friend!

We took our first quilting class together several years back and she has just taken off on it and has become a quilter extraordinaire! She thought she'd hate quilting and ended up getting so excited about it and being really good at it and she's done gorgeous work.

(Actually sometime I should take my camera over and just do a whole story on all her quilts and wall hangings. But I digress.)

I have an old house, and it might look like a big old house, but what is it really...?

This farmhouse is just a whole bunch of smallish rooms with tall ceilings, giving the illusion of big. The only floor that's hardwood with a big enough open space to lay out and tape and pin a big quilt is in a room where the PUPPIES LIVE. Ugh.

So, today we figured would be a good day. It was sunny and bright and a perfect day to get it done. I told her I'd be over around noon. While I was talking on the phone with her, going over everything I'd need to get the job done, I went in to the family room and found the puppies chewing on my son's Red Wing work boots.

I rushed in to save them from the pups and stubbed a toe on the coffee table leg. Not just a regular toe, the one next to the pinkie toe. Well, I growled to myself and kept on my morning routine so I could get my quilt stuff together and head over to Shelley's house.

But, this toe hurt unlike the other million and a half stubbed toes I've had in my lifetime. Every time I took a step, I felt and heard a distinctive crunching sound. That was not good, so I went and took some Advil. It wouldn't stop hurting and the pain was now radiating up into my foot. Hmm....this time I think I really did some damage. OH SNAP!!!!

I'm cursed with big feet. I am also in possession of very long toes. Add those two together and it's a terrible combination. I am always stubbing my poor toes and have probably broken them all at one time or another.

But this time was different. I called the doctor, and they sent me to an emergency clinic and so I got my quilt stuff loaded in the car and headed over.

To make a long story short, after some x-rays and an exam I learned that I've broke my toe AND the bones connected to it that go up into the foot and the break is in a spiral pattern. NICE!

So, the remedy? Be off my foot for a month.

What???

ME?

NO WAY!!!

I'm so very, very disappointed. Besides being a busy mom, I had really got back into walking on a very regular basis after I had gotten out of the habit over the holidays. I had finally worked my way up to fifteen miles this week, and next week I was going to shoot for 17 or 20.

So... now it looks like March is the next time I'll be earning my sanity while hooked up to my iTouch walking at the mall.

It was helping me sleep better, feel better and I just had more energy.
So...POOF! All that is OUT THE WINDOW.

But it could have been worse so I am going to try not to feel sorry for myself. Besides, I had already decided to HAND QUILT this vintage quilt top!

So guess what I'll be working on for the next month?!

I had decided after reading all of your advice yesterday to use muslin for the back and to hand quilt it. So this afternoon when I got done at the emergency clinic, I went to Shelley's and she helped her hopalong friend get this taped and pinned. I actually liked it more and more as we worked on it and I stopped to take a few pictures so you all could see it!

She's a beauty, even though the lady at the quilt shop called her "gaudy". (Sniff!)

I got some really wide muslin as the quilt top is larger than a full and just a hair smaller than a queen. I got the higher loft batting because it works better for hand-quilting.

Interestingly, the gal at the quilt shop told me that a quilt top that is old like this one has more value without being finished than it would have if I finished it with new fabric.

Since I'm not a collector, the value isn't anything I'm worried about. I want it to be a useful item so I'm finishing it.

I hope to show you soon the finished quilt. But that's a lot of hand stitchin' and I've got hobble upstairs to my sewing room and find my quilting thimble!

Wish me luck, my friends!

Wanting to see this through to finished may be the only thing to keep me off my feet for the next month!

Vintage Quilt Top! & A Few Questions? (HELP!!)

Look at this old quilt top my sis gave to me! She found it at a garage sale earlier this year! (It was marked 1930's. Who would sell something like that?!)

I'm so excited to get it finished, it's going to go in my "vintage toy" guest room once I get it done (this spring, I hope!!).

I have a white chenille bedspread I got at a garage sale for the bed and this quilt will look gorgeous folded and laid across the end of the bed.

I am looking for the right fabric for the back, but I thought I'd ask your input. On an old quilt like this, would they have used muslin? A calico print? Dark, light, white? Please help!

ALSO:

I plan to do cotton batting to keep the old look and will probably tie it off since I'm not a hand quilter and I think it would look strange to have it machine quilted?

What do you think, I'd appreciate any and all input, this will be a first for me, finishing off a vintage quilt! I'm excited, but a little scared, too, because I really don't want to ruin it.

I think this fan-pattern quilt top will look mighty happy with all the vintage toys and games I have saved for my kids. The bright yellow is, to me, FISHER PRICE yellow....and the other colors are bright and cheerful, just like kids toys.

Speaking of old quilts, have you seen the latest issue of MARYJANE'S FARM?


(I'm a new subscriber to her magazine, and so far I really like it. It's the only magazine I now subscribe to, since all the other "country mags" have either gone out of business or stupidly gone the way of cheap, Ikea, thin, Pottery Barn, quick, citified and UGLY!!!!!!)

In this issue is a really nice spread on ideas for vintage quilts and quilt blocks. I know my daughter just bought a bag of quilt blocks at an antique store and there are just some of the cutest projects in this issue.

If you'd like to see a magazine before subscribing, you can pick up an issue in Tractor Supply Co. and check it out and if you like it, just take one of their subscription postcards while you're there and put the magazine right back on the rack!

I am full of questions today.....I have another!

In addition to your input on the quilt top, I would like to ask:

Have any of you had a digital camera stop recognizing the memory card?

My old stand-by and trusted friend the Kodak has stopped reading the memory card I had. So I went and got a new one and I still get the same message: "Memory card is not formatted. Please format the memory card." So, I hit continue, and it won't format?!? I checked my lock, made sure that wasn't on and it still wouldn't format the memory card. What the heck?

HELP! I really miss my favorite little workhorse camera. Today I wanted to shoot video, ran to grab the camera and suddenly remembered, it won't work!

I hope you are all warm and cozy tonight, it's mighty cold here all of a sudden after our week long January thaw. Tonight sounds like the perfect time to sit and read MaryJane's Farm from cover to cover!