Finishing up the doll quilt and a weather change

We awoke Saturday morning to a lovely change in the weather--beautiful deep blue skies and temperatures in the high seventies and low eighties.  I spend a large part of the day on the screened porch finishing up the hand quilting on the doll quilt.

The quilting is finished and the continuous bias binding is all machine sewn.  Now I just have to bring it around to the back and hand sew it down.  The tag has my name and the washing instructions on the reverse side.

Here's the lovely little lady who will soon be covering her babies with the quilt.  Dan took this photo of Zoe at Anna and Matty's wedding.

A doll-sized version of the African Striped Baby Quilt

One of the little girls for whom I made a baby quilt is now an active toddler who loves to take care of her dolls.  She is particularly fond of tucking them in for naps.  When I discovered this, I determined that I had to make a doll quilt for her upcoming birthday.  Using Kaffe Fassett's African Striped Baby quilt as an inspiration, I cut the basic block size down by an inch and came up with the perfect measurements. (Click on the tags at the right to see previous quilts from this pattern.)

These are the fabrics I chose from the back, binding, and the two borders.  My palette for the striped fabric was pink, brown, cream, and yellow.

Here are the striped fabrics.

The top comes together.

The center is quilted and I'm working my way around the edges now.  This has been great fun.

Influences on me as an artist: My Great Aunt Eileen

This wonderful old picture is my Great Uncle King and Great Aunt Eileen. It was taken in 1923. I love his bowtie and boater and her fabulous hat and peek-a-boo sleeve dress. They were always snappy dressers. They never had children, but treated my dad and his sister and brothers more like grandchildren than nieces and nephews. He was always called Uncle King, in the English tradition of calling an Uncle by his last name, rather than Uncle Lester. Aunt Eileen always called him King, too. Her real name was Dora, which she loathed, so when she reached 18, she chose a new name for herself and was henceforth, Eileen. They lived in Buffalo, New York where Uncle King worked for Remington Rand. He was always very good with money, and so they were able to retire early and build a house in St. Petersburg, Florida where he and Aunt Eileen moved in the early 1950's. (This is the house in which my parents now live.) He was a woodworker and Aunt Eileen was a great hand with the sewing machine.


This picture, from 1967, is Aunt Eileen with my grandfather Warner. They were brother and sister. Their mother (my Great Grandmother Warner) was the only quilter in my family. I blogged about her here. Aunt Eileen really looked like her mother.



This is one of the only examples I have of Aunt Eileen's work. When I was little, I had a Ginny doll that was my most prized possession. In those pre-Barbie days, there was no real doll furniture for this type of doll, so one Christmas, Uncle King made me a bed and a wardrobe for my Ginny doll. Aunt Eileen made all the bedclothes for the bed. She made a mattress, sheets, pillow in a pillow case, a brocade spread, and this gorgeous little quilt. It's a postage stamp setting and contains some old feed sack fabrics as well as some of the decorator fabrics Aunt Eileen used to make curtains and cushion covers.

Aunt Eileen lived long enough to meet our son Danny and she knew I was expecting Anna. She was so pleased that I liked to sew and she loved embroidery work, so I always made her an embroidered wall hanging or a pillow for Christmas each year since her eyesight wouldn't allow her to embroider at the end of her life. My mom has carefully preserved all of these in the house in Florida. Aunt Eileen was my inspiration for home decorative sewing, as well as fine embroidery. Thanks, Aunt Eye.

Really I don't dislike to cook, but what you cook is eaten so quickly. When you sew, you have something that will last to show for your efforts. ~Elizabeth Travis Johnson