Repairing and Patching an Old String Quilt

My daughter-in-law asked if I could patch up her Great Grandmother's quilt.  The quilt is in pretty bad shape with lots of holes (some big ones!) and stitches coming out all over the place.   Her request was that I just fix it so the damage wouldn't get any worse.

From a distance its a great scrap quilt:

This quilt is the perfect example of a REAL scrap quilt.  It contains every kind of fabric you can think of.  I'm pretty sure there are flour sacks in it, along with scraps from clothing.  Looks to me like nothing she had went to waste.  I love it!

Some of the different fabrics up close:

However, due to the age of the fabrics in the quilt, they are disintegrating in places.  The seams are coming apart in lots of places.  There is no way to restore the quilt, so patching and hand sewing loose seams was the only thing I could do.

The first thing I did was sit with this quilt in my lap while watching TV, and go over it bit by bit, clipping loose threads and strings of fabric that had frayed.  Any seams I could repair with needle and thread, I repaired.  Where there were big holes, I trimmed up the area and  repaired what I could, so that I could hand sew a patch over them.

A couple of the holes after I had trimmed them up in preparation for the patches:

There are a lot of red fabrics in the quilt, so I felt that the patches should be in red.  I found some muted red fabric in my stash.  I also used some beige calico fabric that I felt would would go with the vintage fabrics in the quilt.

A few of the patched areas:

The calico patch!

I love the pattern in this quilt and in fact, I made a small Christmas quilt in the same pattern many years ago.  The one I made is small and I use it as a tree skirt, or put in on display.  I would love to make more quilts like this.  This is the one I made:

Scrap quilts are my favorite and so repairing the old scrap quilt for my daughter-in-law was a labor of love.

Happy Thanksgiving Week!

I had this idea to make "Thankful" pictures for Thanksgiving week from some of the pictures I've taken lately.  My plan was to share one on Facebook each day this week leading up to Thanksgiving.  I'm not a big Facebook fan.  I'm more of a Blog girl! LOL

I love photography as much as my other hobbies of sewing, quilting, gardening, crocheting, etc.  So, I thought I'd share some of the pictures I came up with here to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving.

My thanks go to my husband for the use of his hands in this picture.  The beautiful yellow Fall leaves came from the mountains of Tennessee last week.

These toes belong to my youngest granddaughter, Victoria. Love those little toes!

This food is takeout from the Redneck BBQ Lab in Benson, N. C.  If you are ever traveling on I-40 near McGee's Crossroads, you should definitely stop.  They have won so many awards, its crazy.  The occasion for this food was my sister's 70th birthday.  We stopped on the way to her house for a little celebration.  The food is really good!

The Blessing words do not all show up too well, but it is the traditional Blessing my Mama always said before meals when I was growing up.

My sister's cake:

So there you have it.  My "Happy Thanksgiving" to you!

Chalkboard Messages

I recently bought this little 2 sided chalkboard on Amazon to use as a photo prop with my grandchildren.    In addition to its use as a photo prop, I discovered that I really like writing different things on it.  It sits on the kitchen counter where we see it all the time.  I am really enjoying it.

Here I used it as a photo prop:

I used it here for my granddaughter's 2 month pictures.  I will be using it for this purpose a lot in the future.

Here I wanted to surprise my husband with a compliment!  He didn't notice it at first, so I took a picture and texted it to him.  He thinks I'm kind of crazy. LOL

It will be great for different seasons.  Fall, Winter, Christmas, Valentines, Spring, Summer, 4th of July and birthdays, etc. will be showing up on it.

One favorite way to use it is for Bible verses or Christian quotes
.

I'm not a chalkboard artist, but I can write and draw a simple sunshine, flower or heart!  Also there are all kinds of ideas on pinterest.

The frame is natural wood, but I'm thinking of painting it.  Just not sure what color.

If anyone is interested, my Amazon referral link for the chalkboard is below:

Glimpses of Home = Cleaning and Fall Decorating.

I spent some time working around the house on Labor Day.  This included some decluttering, detail cleaning, reorganizing and fall decorating.  Here are a few glimpses.

Of course, coffee first!

I got an early start.

I cleaned high and low!  For example I moved some small things like the bench that sits in the dining room under the window, and cleaned the dust boards and floor with a Flylady "purple rag".    I decluttered some scraggly plants and dusted some of the plants' leaves.

I used my static duster to clean under heavier things, such as the china cabinet.  There was a petrified piece of a tortilla "scoop" and lots of dust bunnies.  After I pulled stuff out with the duster I vacuumed it up.  I also dusted on top of the taller pieces of furniture that don't get a lot of attention.  Out of sight, out of mind.

Cleaning makes a mess when you are in the process. haha 

I pulled my fall decor from storage.

The kitchen table with a little bit of a fall touch.

This is on the china cabinet.  Almost all my fall decor came from Dollar General. 

I like to rotate my quilts according to the seasons, so this is my fall one.  I really should work on another fall quilt!  I would love to do that!  Also possibly a new runner with the maple leaf block.

In the mudroom at the back door.

Its funny that my Christmas china is behind the Fall potholder!

A reminder note to keep moving the laundry along!

I recently bought this chalkboard to use in a photo shoot.  I'm also going to write different messages on it and use it in this spot in the kitchen.  I can put messages that suit the season, or occasion, such as a birthday.    I removed some things from the counter that I don't use on a daily basis.  It looks so much cleaner with less stuff sitting out.

As for our house,

Its going to be in the mid 90s today, so its hard to think about fall, but in my house, its fall! 

Jake's Reversible Dinosaur/Tractor Quilt

I finished a quilt just in time for Jake, my grandson's, 4th birthday. Its a reversible dinosaur/tractor quilt.  He loves dinosaurs the most, but I thought he'd like both.  The center main fabrics are all one piece.  I added the borders so there would be enough width for a twin size bed.

The tractor side:

The dinosaur side:

I was almost afraid the dinosaurs on this fabric would be a too scary for him, but he wasn't afraid one bit.

His daddy has a John Deere tractor, so the tractor side is appreciated too.

The green and blue borders are 5 inches and the yellow border is 2 inches.   All of the border fabrics and the binding fabric were already in my stash.

This picture is blurry, but here is a matching pillowcase that I made.

It was an easy quilt to make, but at least I finished one quilt this summer! 

She's Here! Victoria!

Its been an exciting week! Victoria arrived on Monday and I kept her brother for 3 days. Only bad thing is that today I am home from work with Strep Throat! Antibiotics are good things, that's all I know. I've had strep throat so many times in my life and I have to say my throat has never hurt this bad. Here are a few glimpses of our beautiful baby girl:

Have a great weekend!