Ladies of the World quilt

In my ton of Aunt Sophie inheritance fabrics i found some painted ladies. 24 of them. remember paint in a tube? somewhere in the 60s or 70s. they had home parties like Avon or Tupperware and you could buy paints and all the supplies to go with them...and things to paint, too. Aunt Sophie got me interested in this back then. .... hahaha....she got me into a lot of craft things. either she or her daughter, Pat, painted these ladies. here are a few of them.

I decided they needed to be a quilt. the fabric the ladies are painted on is a stiff sort of pellon fabric but it quilted up without a problem. the needle just sounded a bit clunky going through it.

It got to be 75 x 90".

I love all the colorful costumes.

And the painting is done really well.

The ladies have 'shading' in the fabrics. so when you painted over it....it automatically shaded the things you were painting.

The paints in a tube were fun but could get messy if they decided to leak. you had a little pair of pliers that you could unscrew the tip and put in a new one. the tip was like a ball tip on a pen.

I had a little bucket with dozens of paints in it. the lid of the bucket was your painting 'board'. and there was an embroidery hoop that went over it to hold the fabric taut.

Do you recognize the border map fabric? i used it in my Tokoyo Subway Map Quilt.

The back was pieced....the last bit of map fabric, surrounded by a gold print and dark brown on top and bottom. i managed to get it pretty centered when quilting it.

I'm gonna miss this map fabric...it was pretty cool.

I used my Quiltazoid large clamshell boards to quilt this up....only took a couple hours. Gold Glide thread on the top and brown So Fine in the bobbin. Warm and natural batting.

I'm going to throw this in the washing machine and then dry it and see how the ladies survive. perhaps i should have done that to the top before i quilted it...but you know i don't plan well. we'll see what happens and i'll let you know...

Later

Aunt Sophie's Fruit Blocks

This is another Aunt Sophie project. she had these fruit blocks in her stash and i put them together. they are rather old fashioned and not my style but it will be a donation quilt. aunt sophie will like that it was finished.

I did a large loop the loop quilting on it...very fast.

Although the fabrics were blue and red...i used a dark green thread...it seemed to work the best.

I pieced some floral fabrics for the back...more stash busting.

Two different prints.

This was just a quickie project for a Sunday afternoon. probably less than 3 hours start to finish...counting piecing the back.

The rest of the quilt tops in the to-be-quilted cabinet are ones that will need custom quilting. i have taken care of all the quickies.

I've been thinking of strip quilts lately.....i have a huge tub of strips....perhaps i can play with some of that

Later

Ladies of the World and a sneak peek

While doing some excavation in my studio closet I came across some blocks from the Aunt Sophie inheritance. They are probably from the 60s.  Aunt Sophie might have painted them....but it is more likely that her daughter, Pat, painted them for her. Pat did a lot of the painting and embroidery to help keep the production line going. LOL

The fabric is sort of a stiff fabric...like you would use for lining a bag...these were made to be painted with tube paints. I used to have some and painted lots of stuff back then in my other life. LOL  I believe Aunt Sophie got me started in this.

They had paint parties....like today's tupperware parties or jewelry parties. There was a little case with an insert that had holes that held the paints upright. And you had a small kind of pliers. you could replace the tips of the tube paints if they clogged up or started to leak.

You used the top of the case for the surface to paint on. it had a ring around the outside like an embroidery hoop. my goodness, memories....LOL  You could buy dresser scarfs and doilies and quilt blocks and other stuff...all to paint. 

I used my map fabric to border the little blocks and then used the last of the dark brown with spots for sashing. and then another border of map fabric. only have about a yard of that left. may use it for binding.

There were 24 of the ladies so this is queen size. here are a few more.

I didn't take pictures of all of them...but you get the idea. I will keep this after it is quilted so i can remember Aunt Sophie and the tube paints. I think it is quite adorable.

Yesterday my friend Brenda came by with a project that i helped her with. She wanted me to embroider some designs for her. I can't show you all of it yet because she reads my blog and i don't want her to see this piece. she has seen the other two...but they were sort of plain. this piece is super...here's a sneak peek.

I think Brenda will like it and i hope the recipient likes it, too.  this whole piece took over 3 hours to embroidery. so i am done with that for today...will finish up tomorrow, i think.

Gonna go chill out for a bit before making homemade pizza for dinner.

Later

Aunt Sophie's Summer Sunflowers

This is my monochromatic (green) challenge quilt for September. naturally it has selvages. it's about 96x106".  it's going to live on my couch.

I have lots and lots of sunflower fabrics....courtesy of Aunt Sophie. so in this quilt i tried to use those up .... hahahahahahaha.....there are still yards left. but i used sunflowers in the triangles in all the blocks; in the sashings and cornerstones; in the border; and, in the binding...5 different sunflower fabrics.  everything else is selvages.  

I still have many, many more green selvages so there will be more greeen selvage quilts some day. and another sunflower quilt one day, too.

Aunt Sophie grew sunflowers in her yard so i am assuming that is why she bought this fabric. perhaps she was going to make herself a quilt with it.

Come to think of it....i don't think Aunt Sophie had a quilt on her own bed that she made....she was too busy making for everyone else.

The back is a muslin. i used a Quiltazoid pattern to quilt it. Glide olivey green thread for the top and a light spring green for the bottom.

And, contrary to my usual practice....this time i even made a label. the quilt said it had to have one. i know Aunt Sophie would have been quite amused at the selvage idea. she never cut the selvages off of her quilts....you see them in her blocks...little holes and sometimes the white part. LOL

I think Aunt Sophie would have liked it.