Saturday, July 12, 2008

Day 89 - 100 days of quilts

Vintage baby quilt

This is a quilt that is near and dear, about 35 years old and made by my grandma Braun. Well...not exactly. The blocks are hand embroidered by her but the sashing was warn out. She had never quilted the blanket, it was a blanket cover made for me when I was a baby. My mom has not kept much of my baby stuff so a few years ago when I came across the blanket I was excited about it. I took it all apart, boiled the blocks, yep, you heard me. Boiling old linen's takes out stains and was a tip from Myra's mom. Then I searched out some thirties fabric in keeping with the old look of the blocks. I hand quilted around the embroidered motifs and cross hatched the sashing. Can you believe I had time to hand quilt??

I am glad that I have this quilt and my Grandma has long passed and she never knew that I would have an interest in quilting. I always say that it is because of my Grandma that I have this quilting thing in my blood. I used to play with her "scraps" box, play with her wooden spools and sit under her treadle sewing machine and pump the foot pedal as hard as I could. My mom has never sewn, so I am sticking to my story that it must come from my Dad's side of the family. There you have it...a little tidbit about me. Maybe you have a treasure somewhere that needs refurbishing?

~cori


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1 comment:

Jean said...

We did basically the same thing last year to a batch of signiture quilt blocks that my DH's grandma/friends made in around the 40's. My FIL/MIL had had some tough health issues and so his Uncle/Aunt came up to give us a bit of a reprieve. We took these blocks and put them into some sashing (that my MIL picked out) and had to make one more block to match... then I put all the kids names into the last block and a thank-you. My FIL remembered all the names and who the neighbors were that had signed it/made the blocks. Pretty good for a man of 84! They loved the quilt! And it was a joy to make!