CQJP 2012- Finished

The Wednesday Quilters

In memory of my mother & her sisters:

Gladys Fields

Peggy Singley

Nell Miller

Emma Hughes

Polly Morris

Ella Mae Hawkins

The sisters met on Wednesdays at Gladys's house where she had her quilting frames set up on her back porch.  I quit working full time after my first daughter was born and Allison and I became regulars. A few years later Elizabeth came along. Two of my cousins had joined the group and it became an old fashioned sewing bee - quilting, sewing, embroidering - and lots of coffee and good things to eat and conversation. The gatherings continued until the sisters had to move from their homes of 50 or more years. They had lived in the neighborhood since the 1930's, and all but one sister built their homes there after they married. 

I have many very happy memories of those days and I'm happy to have this to pass on to my daughters to remember these good strong women.

Remembering Mom

Eight years ago, on New Year's Day, my mother died after a long battle with Alzheimer's Disease.

I miss her every day.

Love you Mom.

A Small Problem...

...which has been corrected.

Here is the preliminary layout of the entire quilt (disregarding extraneous photo in the middle). This is the back of my design board. I had something else on the other side and I've just never switched these over. The other side is much nicer looking.

This is the sixth and final "aunt" block. It should be in the lower right hand corner, chronologically. But I realized after stitching my mother's block that hers should have been the middle block, with the two linen pieces pointing up. That was my first screw up. So I decided, what the heck, this is for me/my daughters and we know who came first. And if anyone doesn't know, does that really matter that much? No.

Then I started block 6, Aunt Peggy (bottom pic) and stitched the basket (lower right). Pointing those linen pieces in the right direction will make the basket upside down. So I pulled out the pics, which I had really just tacked down. This will be the first block in the second row-as you can see in the top picture. I'll have to do another one for Peggy, bottom middle, with the correct placement of linens and pictures.

Eventually, I will be doing something to soften those hard edges and angles created by the linens. They're too stark for the overall effect that I want.

This will probably work out better anyway, since one of Peggy's photos is a little large, and I can make a larger space to put it, and place it so it is balanced and fits in with the other blocks' photo placement.

I've got to start thinking about the middle block and how it's going to look.

I hope you followed that. It's very early and I'm probably not making sense.

CQJP - Daily Detail

I was finally inspired, after receiving & pouring over Allie Aller's book,   with so many ideas for treating Mom's photo - this is what I wound up doing:

I love the vintage buttons here. This seems perfect to me, and I'm very happy with it.

Work on this block is going very slowly, not sure why. Allie's book really recharged my thought processes, though so I'm sure I will get a lot done this weekend...if I can stay off this computer!

Today is such a lovely day, very sunny but cool and breezy. I have the windows open, reminds me of home somehow. 

I would love to hear your thoughts.

Oh, and do stop by the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative June Auction to day - my quilt is up for auction - "For Aunt Mae".

Happy stitching!

CQJP Update - May Block

I'm still plugging away on the CQJP for May. It's not finished but I've made some progress in the past few days.

I found a use for the little piece of rick rack I bought in Savannah - part of a small package of "vintage" scraps of ribbon and other goodies. 

This is my favorite. I like how it turned out.

This block is my mother's - this photo was taken when she was in her early twenties, I believe. I haven't decided what else to do here - probably use some narrow ribbon and beads as I have on other photos.

It's slow go with hand embroidery. Now I think I should have made smaller blocks!