Hanky Panky

Yesterday I finished putting the borders on the Mom Cats quilt.

There was a good amount of "easing in" to get those spools and borders to match up end to end, which made my borders a little, shall we say, "ruffly". I think it will all quilt out in the end, but if not, I'm considering just quilting around the spools so that they puff out. If that doesn't look right, I might just make a little nickel-sized yo-yo to sew on each one...it would be cute.

So recall that in the original pattern, the Mom Cats are wearing aprons made from vintage hankies and doilies.

And when I decided to make this quilt, I was talking all tough about how I was going to use handkerchiefs, doilies, and/or dresser scarves made by my grandmother for the aprons. Here's what I said:

I'm going to dig through my cedar chest for some of the doilies and handkerchiefs handmade by my grandmother. I have literally hundreds of doilies, dresser scarves, and the like that haven't seen the light of day literally in decades. I'm going to use them in this quilt.

Since they haven't been out of the cedar chest for so long, it seemed silly to keep saving them for...what?!? It seemed an easy matter to just cut them up because, honestly, what value do they have to anyone when they're all packed away and never seen, right? Well...once I got them out, it turned out to be much harder than I anticipated to think about cutting them up. They are so precious, and frankly, rare in today's world. Look at this one, made from the most delicate linen:

And until I took these images off the camera, I didn't even realize that the photos above and below were taken from the wrong side!

Here's how it looks from the right side. She must have used the tiniest threads and needles to do this.

Look at how beautiful her satin stitch is on this one:

Here's how it looks from the back:

Would it surprise you to know that my satin stitch doesn't look this tidy when you flip it to the back?

And I'll just say that if you're surprised by that, then you have seriously overestimated my skill and patience.

This one was kind of interesting to me. This is another one made from a very thin and delicate linen.

I don't know how the "holes" end up there...if they are woven in that way or if she had a technique for removing the threads to make the design. Maybe one of you knows how this was done. In any case, she decorated it with this perfect delicate hand applique of the same linen fabric.

And while some of them are just too precious to cut up, this imperfection makes this one an easy choice.

And since there will be fabric left from this hankie, I'm thinking I can use the leftovers for the sheer curtains in these upper windows in the next block for the Doors of Ireland quilt.

Here's some more of her beautiful embroidery. 

I don't know about that little corner piece of lace. Did she stitch that, or did she buy it that way?

Since I am the last person left alive with any knowledge of these pieces, there is no one I can ask about them. Here's the same piece from the back:

Some of them are made from little scraps with store-bought lace sewn to the edges.

My grandmother must have thought it sacrilege to have a plain white hankie. She always did some sort of little crocheted edging around them.

Here's another one. She never used any sort of pattern. She just sat with her crochet hook (a tiny one) and her thread and went to town. 

While it doesn't show much in this image, this next hankie got washed with something dark blue at some point in time, and so it too is an easy choice for my quilt. I can so easily recall my mother using these as handkerchiefs.

Now, this next one is special. I won't be using it in the quilt, but I wanted to show it to you anyway. It is a hankie my grandmother carried when she married my grandfather in 1912. It was old then. I carried it as my "something old" when I married Mike in 1975. My mother liked to tell me that it was over 100 years old when I carried it. 

I don't know anything more of its origins, but my mother was also fond of telling me that the edge was tatted.

I'm going to put this project aside for a while because it will have to be sandwiched and quilted before I can add the little aprons, but I laid them out here just for grins.

The Mom Cats quilt is my project for the Let's Book It challenge on Sharon V.'s blog.

So next, I want to get to work on my Happy Campers quilt, and I'm kind of excited to be getting started on it.

Sue and I got very lucky on our walk yesterday. The sun was shining the entire time, and we even got to see a mother duck with her three ducklings. I would have taken a picture, but she was being very protective of them and left the area fairly quickly when we came on the scene. So, we had nice dry spring weather for our walk, but as I was driving home, the rain started. The universe smiled on us again.

Anyway...all of that to say that Sue gave me this little card left over from her husband's retirement party. Isn't this cute? 

The little trailer is a plastic button-type doodad, and so it's three-dimensional. I want to look for a little frame to put this in sans the glass. There isn't a lot of room for hanging things on the wall of the camper, but I'll find a spot for this.

It's dry outside right now, but we're expecting a showery day. My shoulder has been in spasm again, and I've been fairly miserable with it. It won't stop me from sewing...but it will definitely keep me from housework today. And, really, how bad can that be?