A Beekeeper's Daughter
On this glorious February 14, we spent the day celebrating things and places we love. We did some antiquing near Fayettevile and in Woodbury, traveled backroads all the way, had lunch at The Blackbird Cafe.
Vignettes with hearts were on display everywhere, whetting my appetite for things I’d like to do next year.
I found a few treasures to inspire me…most of them blue and brown. No surprise there. Brought home a few of them, you see.
I hope your heart day was wonderful, too.
Today is the last day of February, time to report on my heart project.
I did not stitch just one heart per day….nearly fifty are on this piece now. One stage of the process is complete now…the appliqué. Well, it’s complete until I decide to add something.
I do plan to add some buttons and to quilt it at some point. But for now, it’s a linen tablecloth with some hearts appliquéd on it.
I did stitch a heart on the backside of the ragged spot and stitched around it on the front. It may be left this way. Or not.
I’ve been asked about the size of the piece. It is now……33″ x 47”. The original tablecloth measured 33” x 84”, a runner for a French farmhouse. I removed one end and reattached it to make it a size that works for me.
I will let this project incubate for a while as I work on other projects. At some point, it will be quilted. I enjoyed the stitching on linen so much that I may decide to hand quilt this one. Time will tell.
You know when we head out the door with a picnic lunch and cameras I grab some quilts, just in case a photo op appears.
Recently, we had several of those days – bright sunshine, moderate temperatures, no other obligations. Since it’s February, I brought quilts with hearts on them…and then I thought, I could bring some of my stuffed hearts, too.
Here are some images for your Valentine’s Day.
I’ve embedded some links to details of quilts in the photo captions above, but if you want more, you can type “hearts” in the search box, or click on the “hearts” category in the sidebar.
And…an update on the hearts on linen quilt….
If it’s February, then I need to stitch hearts.
Somehow, every year, the second page of the calendar sends me to needles and thread with hearts in mind.
This is not the time of year for me to be taking great nature photos to use in my Good Morning Girls text messages. Yes, I’m still doing that…today is day 665, by my count. During December, I sent photos of Christmas ornaments, our Santa collection, and amaryllis blooms. This January had warm days with some still blooming plants in our yard, but things are a bit bleak outdoors now. A few daffodils are up, but I needed a photo scheme for February.
I’ve wanted to learn more about photographing indoor vignettes…some “sewing still lifes”, I guess you could call them. So yesterday, I pulled some hearts out to shoot. I found some jewelry, some buttons, and some fabric hearts I had made.
As I played with the red hearts and the companion fabrics I pulled to use as background, I began a plan for a heart quilt.
I made a blue one a few years ago, Loving Blues , by stitching hearts on blocks, then assembling them.
This time, my plan is to start with a linen tablecloth from Europe. It has a red border woven in, so that’s convenient…and I won’t have to assemble blocks when I’m done with the hearts.
I’m planning some appliqué, some embroidery, and some who-knows-what for the hearts. I’ll use many of my vintage fabrics, but I have some nice commercial prints that I’ll likely include. I’m thinking one heart per day in February…but these plans may change. They often do. I won’t bore you every day, but I will keep you posted.
And I’ve begun with a heart made from my sister’s red and pink toile drapes that she moved with her from house to house over some 40 years.
I have a friend Paul who has a way with words. He peppers daily conversation with phrases that keep you on your toes. When I get an email from him, I savor it because I can revisit the conversation with him without strugglng to remember exactly how he “put it”.
Paul gave me permission to share a recent email message. You can see what I mean.
Sandy,
For reasons I don’t fully remember, I’ve refused to buy Jean a Valentine gift. I’ve insisted on making something and have persisted doing so for several decades. These gifts are often something which might make a grade schooler’s mom roll her eyes. Roll them enough to hurt. Carved pennies, personalized mini-street signs, repainted toy horses and many efforts I can no longer recall. It can be surprising difficult to get inspiration and that solution often comes at the last moment.
Several weeks ago, a valentine’s themed dishtowel at Ingle’s found its way into my cart. I had no thought of how to use it.
On Valentine’s eve, when I should have been working, I noticed A Beekeeper’s Daughter among my favorites. Loving Hearts quickly made this year’s solution clear. A trip to the local Walmart provided the needed supplies. It also created several “deer in the head lights” experiences as small children rounded corners at top speed, stomped past the thread display far too close to my recently operated on foot and disappeared around the next aisle before I could think of something mean to yell at them. They knew what they were doing. I froze in terror with no clue which way to run.
At the end of the next work day I hand stitched my version of a Loving Heart. Jean seemed satisfied.
Thank you for the last minute inspiration.
Paul
Here are photos of some of Paul’s heart projects.
And, if you are wondering, yes, my Loving Hearts quilt is finished. Once I attach the label, a blog with photos will be posted.
So the obsession for blue hearts outgrew the bowl. Bowls, actually; several are full.
It seemed the natural thing to do was to make more of those hearts to put in a quilt. I continued using bits of vintage linens, remnants of old clothing filled with memories, and remnants of overdyed linens.
I cut free-form hearts and stitched them to bits of background fabric and placed them on the design wall. Then a couple of days of trimming and filling in blank spaces with other beloved blue fabrics, and a quilt top was born.
Now it’s pin basted together, ready to quilt.
One of the old remnants I used included dozens of hearts like these and at least 40 of these birds. I found this gorgeous tablecloth last summer when I wrote about tattered treasures here. I didn’t appreciate the work some woman had done until I cut it up and stitched through the fabric myself.
It is a heavy cotton fabric, densely woven; what my mother would describe as “tough as pig iron” to stitch through. I realize now that the phrase makes no sense regarding stitching, but that’s what she said.
The woman who stitched all these crosses must have had sore fingers. Maybe she was a friend of Margene‘s, devoted to needlework, determined to finish.
The tablecloth was used, though. I know because of the stains and holes I found in it. That’s a good thing. I love stains and holes because I feel less guilty about cutting the piece apart and reusing the decorative stitching. And, I like knowing that the piece has stories embedded in the threads.
There are other stories in this collection of threads, as well. I bought some indigo and white homespun fabric at Elco Antique Market more than 30 years ago. My mother used it to make a dress for me. Now parts of it are in this quilt. Some of Jim’s shirts and some of mine have found their way here too.
And, those of you who make quilts are wondering about those blue dots and straight pins. I’m trying something new here, pin basting without having to close and then reopen safety pins. I like the pinning part. I’ll report on the removal process once the quilting is done.
A later post has been added with photos of the finished quilt and my verdict on the pinning dilemma. It’s here.
This is the month to see hearts everywhere, and I LOVE it!
Hearts have long been one of my favorite motifs and they often show up in my quilts. My quilt guild, (Heart of Georgia is its name – coincidence you think?) has themes for some of our Show and Tell sessions this year.
We always bring new quilts we’ve recently finished, but the themes let us revisit favorite old quilts that we haven’t shared in a while. Show and Tell is always inspiring and this variation allows new members to our group to see some past works they missed.
So I’ve been thinking about hearts in older quilts of mine, looking around the house at older pieces.
One I found was this one Hearts and Ribbons– a project I made in the first appliqué class I took. Anita Shackelford was the teacher. An excellent designer and teacher, she guided me through the intricacies of needle turn appliqué. Though some of my work is more casual these days, I owe her all the credit for my beginning stitches in this technique.
This piece features hearts that were made and stuffed, then hand quilted. Later, they were attached to the background including other appliquéd elements.
The stuffed berries and delicate embroidery just add to the rich details of the piece.
This was one of my first efforts at free motion machine quilting, too. I think I used an invisible thread and cotton batting.
I don’t suppose anyone is surprised that the featured color here is blue.
