Before I go on, I wanted to show you Sock Monkey in his new home. Here he is with Baby Ezra and Ezra's auntie. You can see why Ezra needed a sock monkey, can't you? Honestly, he is the sweetest baby. His mommy posts lots of pictures of him on Facebook, and I've never seen such a smiley baby. He has a big grin in every picture I see of him. Clearly, he's a happy guy. Having four sisters in the house can't be all bad for this little man.
Also, before I go on, I wanted to say more about Monday's guild meeting. I decided to join the guild, and now I'm in possession of this nifty Member's Handbook.
I got such a kick out of the woman who gave me this handbook. Apparently, it is her responsibility to publish the handbook, and she apologized that it wasn't in color. Instead, she gave me those two stickers to decorate it as I wish. So there you go. Very cool, and so original. And I was interested to know that the guild has been in existence since 1980!
Then, my newfound quilting buddy, Quilting Babcia, surprised me with a pile of vintage embroidery transfers she picked up. She has rightly pegged me as someone who enjoys this sort of thing. And just look at this cool stuff!
There was a crocheted apron pattern as a part of the mix, and some of these embroidery transfers look very similar to designs my grandmother did on her thousands and thousands and thousands of dresser scarves and pillow slips. Now, check out the postmark on this envelope:
I don't even think I'm old enough to remember when postage was one cent! (And believe me, that's saying something.) And check out this crib quilt:
Vintage embroidery transfers for the Three Little Pigs. You know...I seriously need a grandchild.
But this is my favorite of the whole bunch. It's a book featuring a collection of vintage advertisements in which cats were used to sell a product.
Such fun! And check out the dedication page. This touched me.
Here are some of the ads that caught my eye. This one was for Carter's Ink for your fountain pen. How long has it been since anyone used a fountain pen? But if you still use one, just know that Carter's Ink is as gentle as a kitten.
This clock for shoe repair:
I would kill for a clock like this.
How about this one for silk thread. Does not knot! And I have to say that my sewing room looks like this occasionally.
How about this one for Ivory soap. I can remember these ads where the Ivory soap was claimed to be so pure "it floats!" And I was never sure how purity and the ability to float were correlated. Maybe it has something to do with witch hunting and the Salem Witch Trials when women suspected of being witches were thrown into the lake. If they floated they were obviously witches. Those that didn't float...oh, sorry. Or maybe not.
Here's one advertising the "New Home Sewing Machine". Anybody heard of this brand?
Aren't these precious? I'm going to spend some more time with this book. I've always loved vintage advertisements. They are such a commentary on the time in which they were published, and to find this collection of cats is just wonderful. Thank you, Quilting Babcia.
So what about those triangles, you ask. Today I turned my attention to my "True Hope" quilt. This was my December 2012 NewFO project, and this is the first time I've worked on it since then. I did all the cutting back in December, and today I started sewing it together. I'd like to get that center panel finished.
The pattern comes from a Creative Machine Embroidery magazine, and the swallows on the center panels of the quilt are intended to be embroidered. I'm using fabric that has swallows on it.
So, I didn't actually work with this fabric today. Maybe tomorrow I will take it to that point. For today, I was making the blocks on the other center panels. The instructions were less than complete, but good enough to follow.
I started by making the four patches. There are 36 of these:
Next, I wanted to sew the bottom triangles onto the four patches. There are 72 of these red triangles all together.
So does anyone else besides me get their head all turned around when they work with triangles? Please say yes. I was chain piecing these and got three triangles into the group when something in me decided I needed to stop before going any further. I was sure there was something wrong with these, and even after staring at the diagram for a few minutes, I couldn't figure out why it seemed wrong.
Obviously, the triangle is too large for the block, but that wouldn't be the first time I'd trimmed a triangle to size.
Finally, I pressed it open and then it was obvious that I was sewing the wrong side to the four patch.
So I ripped out the three I'd done. Actually, I ripped out two and then spent ten minutes search for one that vanished into thin air. I finally found it behind my kleenex box, and who knows how it managed to make its way there. That's quilting for you. Do things vanish in your sewing room too? That nearly drove me crazy because I knew I'd done three, and I could only find two. Oy.
So anyway...then I sewed it together the right way.
There. Now that's more like it.
And just to be sure, I sewed the whole block together.
And I sewed and I sewed and I sewed, and I sewed all 36 blocks together, and then sewed the first strip of 12 blocks together. I need two more strips like this.
And then I was terribly tired of triangles on Tuesday. (Awesome alliteration.) I'll do more on this tomorrow. If I have time. Tomorrow will be a day of errands, so I'm only hoping to get some sewing in.
Any triangles trifling with you today?
