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Well, I am being edited right now, huzzah! I know I will have a bit more work on it before it can be sent away to the advisor because i wrote this chapter in little bits and now i have to find an order for them. But it is 26 pages, so I am happy, and so are my editors (mom and dad :D)

To gear up for my sewing exploits which have probably been postponed till tomorrow because leaving this house seems like a better idea right now, I thought I would show you two of the things that make me happy whenever i see them, and that is all the time because they live right here in my room.

The first one is a pillow I had to make for Fashion Design class in highschool in grade ten. I designed the applique myself, and then once i started it quickly realised that appliqueing those sun rays on was hell. There was no freezer paper or fusible web used in this project, i tucked all those edges in by hand because nothing else worked. I embroidered the face and some stars on the moon side to even it out, and then quilted it by stiching around the edge. Its faded now, it used to be a bright royal blue, but i still love it, even though it makes me think of all the work that went into it!

Now this is the best quilt ever! My Grandma Lou made it, and I love it the best of all of the ones she made (which i will likely show you more of in the future). It is very similar to the stacked coin quilt in Last Minute Quilted and Patchwork Gifts, but with a bunch of short stacks whose ladder ends don't quite match up.

My Grandma did not have very much money, and being a child of the Depression, was very good at working with what she had. I am pretty sure all of the fabric for this quilt was thrifted, she bought most things at garage sales and bazaars. The quilt is mostly solids and ginghams with some very random patterned pieces. alot of the pieces have a seam down the middle, which she may have put in, but equally likely, it was there in the original piece.


See the random thriftiness? The pink striped fabric with the blue flowers will be recognizable to some as pillow ticking (with the seam down the middle) from the feather pillows that everyone in my family seems to have owned at some point. The brown patterned fabric beside it is a miniature toile de jouy pattern, with little trees and pagodas.

She quilted almost all of her quilts by hand with a simple scallop design in lines about 3 inches apart. My Grandfather actually cut her a board with the scallop design on it for easy tracing. I wish I knew where that board ended up, but i think she gave it to a friend.

well, hope you enjoyed them!