Handkerchief {Memory Quilt}

"A gentleman carries a handkerchief, not for himself, but in case a lady needs one."

A box filled with 33 handkerchiefs and an unfinished quilt top arrived on my doorstop the summer of 2016 from a previous client's mother.  The letter that accompanied it, explained that they were gifts from her grandson. Her daughter-in-law gave them to her from her grandson over the years.  The family custom is that they were to be made into a quilt for his bride-to-be.  The grandson had finally found the young lady who he thought qualified for the title.  Over the years, she thought she would eventually learn to quilt, however, at the time, she was 79 and said she knew it just wouldn't happen.

The first challenge was to choose fabrics.  She had sent me a book she had bought and I gathered from it that she wanted me to stick to a traditional layout.  That meant sashing was needed.  I offered a few choices even though I really wanted her to pick a beautiful natural linen.  She really wanted this icy blue called Kona Cloud.  You always do what will make the clients happy!

As I was about to work on it before Christmas, when I had it scheduled, she emailed me and let me know that the engagement was sadly called off and that there wasn't a rush. She told me to take my time.  One of the WORST things you can say to me!!  I had a bunch of other obligations and I had wanted to make some family gifts, so I postponed it for the New Year.

I blinked and my new year rapidly filled and since there didn't seem to be a rush to have it since there wasn't an engagement, I took my sweet old time, here and there. Maybe too long.  I will say the appliqueing process was a bit tedious.  Since all of the handkerchiefs were different sizes, I decided to make a consistent block size and use a Kona White fabric foundation for each block. 

Some of the handkerchiefs were quite delicate, so I took my time. I used a straight stitch close to the edge of the colored rolled edges.  On the more plain rolled edges, I first did a straight stitch to tack them down and then did a blanket stitch to give them a bit of interest.

I will admit.  I reqlly didn’t feel ansense of urgency since she kept assuring me there wasn't a rush.
I also was very indecisive about the layout of the blocks.  There were an odd number of handkerchiefs and two were actually rectangles.  After a few days, I had an "aha" moment" and decided instead of using plain white fabric side set triangles and corners, I would use the handkerchiefs! I took two of the smaller lace-only handkerchiefs and cut them in half. And used four others cut in half for the side set triangles.

I ended up deconstructing the rectangle handkerchiefs and folded them in a special way to make triangles.  If you look super close you can see a seam where I hand stitched the edges together to make the pretty rolled edge.

You can hardly see the seams after I quilted it!

 After I finished all the applique, I had my layout and sashing put together.  Summer hit and I put it aside for some family issues and traveling I had to do. When the boys got back to school, I pulled it out to get ready to shop for some backing and decide on my quilting plan.

Hurricane Harvey hit.  Her daughter announced on Facebook that her mother's home, my client's, had been flooded.  I messaged to her that I still had the finished quilt (I had been planning to send it the next week) and the handkerchief quilt was still in progress. I would wait to hear where they settled before I sent both.  I thanked the lord that I hadn't sent the first to be lost forever!

At the end of October, my client emailed me her new address for her apartment and the fact that her grandson was re-engaged with the same young lady.  She needed the quilt! I sent her the finished quilt and told her I was going to speed up work on the handkerchief quilt!

When I received her thank you for the scrappy quilt I about cried!  That was the only thing she had left of all the projects she had made her children and grandchildren through the years.  That one sweet scrappy quilt!!!
 I was so excited to find the backing and make a quilting plan!

I chose an organic crosshatch for the handkerchiefs so it didn't overwhelm the tiny flowers.
On the corners with the lace edged corners and side set triangles,
Ole Betsy the longarm insisted on a few swirls.

The binding was a happy marriage of the white handkerchiefs, lighter blue sashing, and the darker backing from Kate Spain's Aria line.

The client really wanted her grandson's favorite color, navy blue as a backing.
I chose a very subtle tone-on-tone feathery navy fabric so it didn't argue with such a floral and delicate front.

I loved how the quilting made a great design on the back!

Quilt Stats:

Measures: 82" x 82" square

Pattern: Basic on point squares with sashing

Fabrics: Kona White, Kona Cloud, Aria by Moda, Navy blue backing from Joann Fabrics.

Quilted: Free motion organic crosshatch, swirls, and fillers on Handiquilter Avante

I sent it right after Thanksgiving, just in time for the holidays.  The thank you note I received from her was absolutely lovely, made me cry again, and was worth every bit of work I put into it.  If you are wondering, I could NOT bear to charge her for my work on either quilt.  My husband and I both agreed that it would be our personal donation to a sweet family that lost everything during Hurricane Harvey.  

It ended up being a glorious labor of love.

Tree Quilt {School Auction Quilt}

"Like branches of a tree our lives might grow in different directions, yet our roots remain as one"

This quilt started out super easy but ended up being the most time consuming "little" quilt I quite possibly have ever made. 

I was approached by the auction chair from Button's school to see if I could take all the fabric that the kids tissued dyed and make a tree quilt.  The fourth graders dyed theirs very multicolored and the kindergartners and preschoolers did greens, blues and yellows. 

She envisioned a tree with birds and leaves with their names on them. I told her it would be "easy" to design bird and leaf appliqués in my embroidery software. I may now regret that word choice. 

I, first, pulled out my trusty ole freezer paper and started sketching a tree. I ironed it on back of some textured brown fabric that I had in my stash. I then, awkwardly, cut it out and appliquéd it on some Kona white background. 

And then. It hit me. What I thought were only a handful of green fabrics were more going to be more leaves than my spindly tree could handle. There were 20-ish pre-k 3 and 4 year olds, but 30 kindergartners!!!!!

Thankfully, I quickly came up with the idea that I could use the Kindergarten green blocks as border and started piecing them. 

Then I laid out my paper samples of birds and leaves laid out for size and placement.

 I embroidered. And embroidered. And hooped. And unhooped. And embroidered. And snipped stabilizer. Hooped. And embroidered. Not to mention a few thread color changes. 

What I thought would be a few hours slowly and excruciatingly became....

36 hours. 

Thirty-six. 

HOURS. 

  After that?  Quilting was easy peasy. I used a flannel plaid green from my stash for backing since it was a wall hanging.  

Quilting in negative space white what is now one of my favorite fillers. I happened to have some old green dyed muslin in my stash for binding.  The fabric was from my JJ's pre-K4 class auction quilt I made in 2006. 

How's that for a full circle?

Leaf quilting in the border seemed appropriate and is one of the first free motion quilting patterns I perfected on my domestic machine. 

I had to do some fun wood grain quilting on the tree trunk and branches. 

And of course, I'm a firm believer in labels. I made a label that I printed.

 I love putting clip art that reflects the top and a good quote or poem. 

Quilt Stats:

Measures: 36"x 48"

Pattern: none

Fabric:  Brown, kona white, tissue dyed by kids

Thread: Omnithread Bright White, So Fine Variegated Green by Superior Threads

Quilted: Freemotion on HQ Avante

**important note: this quilt cannot be washed!  The dye WILL disappear!***

 Despite the incredible amount of time it took, it was worth all the work. Stewardship isn't just about money, but time and talents. And I'm always eager to share all three with my boys' Catholic schools. 

Lots of Love {Quilt Restoration}

Who doesn't love a challenge?

This quilt was made by my husband's great grandmother, Theresa Grohs.

She has an INCREDIBLE quilting/sewing history.  It's not very often that when you visit the National of Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C., you can look up at the Spirit of St. Louis, and say to your kids "Your great, great-grandmother helped with construction on that airplane!"  She had incredible upholstery experience from her family business and was a seamstress, for Ryan Airlines, sewing the fabric coverings, usually a canvas duck-cloth, for their planes. 

Can you imagine the thrill she must have gotten when she worked on the custom plane ordered by Charles Lindberg?

Photo source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_of_St._Louis

 I first must say, my husband has one of the MANY quilts made by her.  She was very talented as a quilter and the family does have some exceptionally preserved quilts that she made.  However, this one....this one has a bit of a story that will probably make most of us quilters wince.

This particular quilt was found in my father-in-law's garage.  He used it often as a blanket to lay upon while working on his automobiles or boats.  And as my sister-in-law, who was this quilt's savior, put it...there were just soooo many quilts made by her, it never occurred to anyone to not use it?

To start.  This quilt started out MUCH larger.  I do not know its original size.  I just know that my sister-in-law, who was not a quilter at the time, decided to remove all the bad blocks that had irremovable grease and dirt.  Sight unseen, she asked me if I would be willing to repair it.  And it arrived like this.

 Two spare blocks and a strange tetris-like block. 
If you look closely, you can see that there isn't remnant binding on the right side or bottom, so I suspect that this quilt, based on the other quilts made by her in our possession, was probably more like a 5x6 block configuration.

And here you can see where my sister-in-law had cut along the seams. *wince*.

 If anyone is reading this now and has a quilt they want restored, my first words will be STOP!  Please leave the quilt in all of its entirety to allow the quilter assess what she can preserve!!
However, no worries! This quilt had a happy ending!

Here is a good picture of the binding edge damage. This certainly could have been removed, but I'm glad she left it.  It was actually the binding technique where you use the backing and wrap to the front for the binding.

If you are thinking about doing a restoration, I highly recommend using the internet and read!  I spent a good amount of time learning so much!!!

The other thing I recommend is to sit and map out a plan.

My plan? 

After sitting down and examining all the edges and laying the parts on top of each other? I decided I would cut out the sashing from the loose blocks and "inset" the blocks with sashing from the main part of quilt.  And when I say "cut out", I say that VERY loosely.  Hang tight to see my process.

First step?  Fabrics and thread were purchased.  I knew I was going to need new binding, no matter what.  I took the quilt with me and matched up the burgundy backing and binding to a very thin cotton I found.  I decided on the "thin" fabric because the original fabrics were all thinning and wanted it to "match" as best as could be expected. 

Ironically, the original binding was NOT a purple burgundy, but a much more red burgundy!
  When I folded back seams and such, the real non-faded colors appeared!

Next step?  The sashing and cornerstones were removed from the two loose blocks.  VERY carefully.  Instead of just cutting, I peeled back to the original seams and unpicked them. 
Can you see that orange-ish red?  The original sashing color wasn't a pale pink!

Important! I did not toss the leftover parts, they were saved for later!

I left the backing from the loose blocks, but did remove the batting up to the edge of the blocks.
It also gave me a better idea of the "red" that the backing actually was!

To explain the plan, here is the loose block butted up against sashing of the main portion of the quilting. 

The backing I left remaining is under the backing of the of the main portion because my sister-in-law had cut the backing on the main portion.  The sashing of the main portion would overlap the front of the loose blocks.

I basically nested the parts together.

 I love how you can see the delineation at the seam where the fabric faded overtime. This was actually helpful in the restorations!

Next, I removed the hand quilting on the sashing. I know, I know, it sounds awful, but it was the only way! 

After that,   I removed the small bits of fabric from the blocks cut away from the quilt.
Again, unpicking seams carefully!

This part always gives me a thrill!  

You can see the original machine stitching on the seams on her Singer 1930 Model 20!!

When I started doing my ladder stitches of the sashing onto the blocks, I might have finally settled in that my plan was going to work!

And here is that faded seam line I spoke about earlier.  You can use it as a guide!

After stitching the front, I flipped it to the backside.  Instead of cutting the backing, I just folded the edges of the remaining fabric over because it was terribly thin, and did a ladder stitch again.

 You can see that once the quilting was added later, the repair was a bit more hidden.

Some of the cornerstones were utterly faded, thin, and extremely fragile to touch.  Instead of removing them, I found that it was recommended by the restoration experts that it was better to just cover up that sort of damage.

 Remember those parts I said I saved from the loose blocks?  I unpicked one of the yellow cornerstones from it and just layered it right on top of the damaged one!

 I appliqued the new cornerstone square with simple hidden ladder stitches to the surrounding sashing.

 Can you see my repairs? I might have patted myself on the back when the family couldn't discern which blocks were added to the whole.

After all the repairs, I went back and hand quilted.
Again, using the un-faded color spots and holes (seen above) as a guide for the new quilting!

I was tickled pink that hubby couldn't see any difference between mine and hers, even though I felt like mine may have been a bit more uniform than hers.

I machine quilted the binding to the front....VERY SLOWLY and CAREFULLY.
 I figured I wasn't taking anything away from the integrity of the original quilt since she had  machine stitched her blocks together?

Then, I hand stiched the binding to the back like I always do myself.

 I added a hanging quilt sleeve using a scrap light pink from my stash that matched the original faded "pink" sashing.

A rather large quilt label was added to the back.  I had emailed my father-in-law some questions and he gave me a very detailed and lengthy story about the quilt and the quilter.  Since it wouldn't be used as a "cuddle" quilt, I thought it would be fine to print the entire story out.  Hindsight, I should have used a label with a QRC code.  But oh well!

Of course....I forgot to take a professional picture before I mailed it off.  I was soooo excited to get it back to her in time for her birthday!  She had been asking me that week if I was ever going to  have time to work on it with my busy schedule. 
I *may* have tried to ignore her email because I had just shipped it to her! I ended up sending her a very unclear email back that left her confused, until it arrived on her doorstep!
  This is a photo she took!

Luckily, I DO have close-ups I took!

I love the double stitching of color that coordinated with the blocks and the quilting stitches.

I could not find any pattern that matched it on my internet searches when I researched it,
so I decided to name it Lots of Love.  No one knows if it's her original pattern or one she found.

Quilt Stats:

Measures: 40" square

Pattern: Four appliquéd hearts around a circle in the center and appliquéd curved corners.  

Sashing with cornerstones
Fabrics/Thread: Cotton (Circa early 1900s).  Pieced by machine, quilted by hand.
Restoration: by Heidi Grohs (2014)  Original quilt much larger.  Pieced two salvaged blocks on bottom two corners and added new binding  February 27, 2014.

 Additions: Sleeves added for display and label added for record.

 I learned so much and would not ever hesitate to do another restoration after this one!