Tag: red

Linen Luxuries

I went shopping and brought home some linen treasures.  They are all glorious to look at.  I can’t wait to stitch on them, piece with them, and maybe dip one in the dye pot.  The textures, the colors, the glorious weaves inspire me.  

Yesterday’s haul included four linen tea towels from India, a vintage French tea towel (the checked fabric in the photo), a white on white woven towel, and a pristine square linen tablecloth.

I can’t know all their stories.  But I can imagine…

Some have memories of India in those huge indigo vats where they dip linen to get this rich vibrant color.  These textiles are new.  Woven and dyed to sell to someone.  How many middle men shared in my money before I got them home? I don’t know, but I know I love all the hands that brought them to me.  And I can’t wait to stitch on them.

Those indigo tea towels were so gorgeous, I bought all four that the store had to offer. I hung three of them in the kitchen so that I can just enjoy their beauty before cutting and sewing with them…I might even use them as tea towels…

One has memories of France.  In whose kitchen did this towel do its work?  I can imagine it hanging on a wire hook against a stone wall in a kitchen with a brick floor and copper pots all about.  This is the kind of textile that inspires the French General collection of fabrics from Moda.  I’ve loved making things with those reproduction fabrics, but there’s nothing like the real thing to stir my soul.

I couldn’t resist pairing the “new to me” French towel with some other things already in my stash…awaiting the right companion.
This bit of wool applique (from a Maggie Bonanomi pattern) is waiting for more companions to make a new quilt…it’s coming together with this new acquisition.

And a woven textile of white on white – I’m not sure of its origin.  It has stains to show it’s been a worker, but the beauty of the weave caught my eye.  I might have been hesitant at the price until I saw the “S” monogram.  Yep, it came home with me.  This one might get a bath in a dye pot.  The stains would disappear, and the weave would become more pronounced.

I love imagining the places these fibers have been.  And I love imagining the possibilities of what they may become in my hands.  I’m not certain of those outcomes yet, but I do know that when I see them, or parts of them, I will remember a glorious day of strolling, shopping, browsing, antiquing, lunching, languishing over coffee with my soulmate.  There’s nothing more beautiful than that.

Is it a coincidence that the fabrics I bought yesterday are red, white, and blue?  I think so…but it’s certainly a good time to share them.  Another red/white/blue story is here…and some of the Moda French General fabrics are in the quilt here.  The blue and tan quilt in the background of some photos is described in more detail here.

Yoko’s Garden

I’m still in a red mode with Valentine’s Day on the horizon.  

Lately I’ve been finishing some projects that have been in progress for a while…I miss playing with art quilts and story quilts, but finishing some of these has been satisfying.

The one that I finished yesterday is Yoko’s Garden.  Several years ago I was inspired by some deliberately irregular polygons that Yoko Saito had appliquéd in one of her quilt books.  

I cut some freehand hexagons from a collection of Japanese woven fabrics I had in shades of taupe and appliquéd them to a remnant of an old linen sheet.  I love the soft neutral palette, but felt it needed a zinger, so I added a flower using a bit of a red cashmere coat I had felted.  For several years, this piece has been spilling out of baskets here and there when I needed a touch of red.  

This year in December I needed something to stitch with red in it.  I picked up this piece, layered it on a bit of wool (not wool batting, but a piece of felted wool) and began hand quilting.  I enjoyed that process through lots of tv time in December and January, added a binding and label, and I have a finished piece.  The final piece measures 15” x 20”.

Hearts were cut freeform and positioned randomly.

Progress on red hearts is going well.  Here, on the 8th day of February, you see the first 8 hearts.  These are scattered over the linen tablecloth.  I’ll fill in with more small hearts and add some embellishments, too.

I’m enjoying planning embellishments keeping in this beige/brown/red color scheme.

And let me just say, stitching on linen is so delicious!

Red Hearts on a 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 toile heart is posing on the linen tablecloth I plan to use as my background fabric. See the red border already in place?

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 suspended this favorite February pendant of mine over the back of a quilt with red in it. I’m liking this kind of play with the camera.

Christmas Reds

I love to work on textile projects with the colors of the season.  That means that I now need to stitch on red.

I have a couple of big projects in progress, but they aren’t red.  So to soothe my soul, I reached back for this piece and began hand quilting it.  During the Christmas season, this has been a glorious practice for me.  I’m revisiting a piece I made several years ago – improvisationally stitching some Japanese fabrics in freeform hexagons on a linen remnant.  It needed color, I thought, so I added the red wool flower. 

I’ve learned that a piece doesn’t have to be finished to be enjoyed. This piece has been no exception… it’s hung about on chairs and falling out of baskets for several years when I needed an accent of red. Here you see it in a basket on top of a clock in the breakfast room.
The block from 52 Tuesdays proves how long this has been in the works…and my plan for quilting around the hexagons. This piece, still untitled, was appliquéd in 2015.

A couple of weeks ago, I layered it on a bit of felted wool and began stitching.  Two layers of fabric, a needle and beautifully smooth thread, and I am content.  The top layer is thin linen (used and washed again and again in its past life); the bottom is a lovely gray wool.  There’s nothing like pulling a needle and thread through delicious buttery wool. (I’m using Aurifil #12 and loving it!)

Ahh… Stitching peace in this season.

Another example of display yet unfinished is this holly on wool. Here it is draped over another quilt on the ladder in the den (the backside of Tree Farm). This is one of Maggie Bonanomi’s designs.

And yet another wool appliqué posing atop something else. Just to add a splash of red to the dining room wall during Christmas. Again, the wool pattern is from Maggie Bonanomi.

Red Hearts

Everyone knows I love my blue fabrics, but this time of year, red always shows up in something. As Valentine’s Day approaches, red is on my mind.

I began making red hearts before Christmas this past year. This small bowl held the first grouping. As is the case with many explorations, I couldn’t stop until I played with more and more fabric combinations…so the little bowl grew, too.

No self-respecting lover of vintage linens can ignore the beauties that are red. The collection above includes tickings, vintage woven pieces, and a lovely cross-stitched tablecloth.

My shelves that hold commercial fabrics has plenty of red, too. I especially love the reds from French General. ( I used this collection almost exclusively in Miss Lily’s Baskets.)

Hearts are a favorite motif of mine, so there are hearts made of things other than fabric around the house, too. Above are a compressed wool one, an enameled bit of jewelry, a metal one, and a pottery heart.

In the photos above, you see the two sides of the collection of hearts. The usual “fronts” on the left, the “backsides” on the right.

Remember GBI Blues? This stack of delightful reds makes me think I need to work on a companion, GBI Reds. Uh-oh, we all see where this is going, don’t we?

I’ve written about hearts many times before. WordPress has changed some ways to label things, so I’ve added a category for “hearts”. If you click on that word in the category list on the right, you’ll see a listing of all posts about that topic. (I haven’t updated everything yet, but “hearts” and “red” are current.)

Pomegranates and Poinsettias


For many years I decorated for Christmas using my Grandmother’s basket quilt she made in 1890 (that story is  here).  When I started quilting, I longed to make my own holiday quilt.  Now one of the first steps in decorating our house for Christmas is to swap out the fall quilts for red and green ones.

I love to sew with red and green fabrics during this time of the year so I often start a new project for my sewing serenity during the season.  In the days of Christmas 2008, I began work on what became  Pomegranates and Poinsettias.  I was spending quite a bit of time with my mother-in-law, Sadie, during a time of failing health for her.

She loved helping me decide which red fabric should be used for a particular bloom, which green should be used for stems and leaves.  She loved the sampler background (as does everyone else who sees this quilt), and when I decided to add buttons for the berries, she giggled like a little girl.  Imagine, putting BUTTONS on a quilt.
That was something her mother had never done!  This piece was finished in June 2009 and has been the focal point on a wall in our house every Christmas since.  It is based the Holly Threads pattern by Need’l Love.  Mine finishes at 44″ square.