Late Night With Jesica's Grandma

I burned the midnight oil last night.  I got 4 hours of uninterrupted sewing room time!  In a family of five that's very rare.  I worked on the ground of Mandy's Magical Tree, and stitched on all the leaves!

What's left?  Just some embellishment!  I do wish the tree was dark, but I had specific fabrics to work with:  beige, sage green, dark blue, and rainbow.  Still, I think I made it come together pretty well!  Then I can put on a binding and a hanging sleeve.  (Want to learn more?  I have a tutorial for each now over on the sidebar.)

I also started on my next commission.  Jesica has been waiting a LONG time for this.  ; )  Last year she asked if I could take her late grandmother's fabric stash and make a bit white quilt full of triangles.  I've had this bag some time now, but only opened it up last night.  WOW what a range!  hehehe  Jesica wasn't kidding.

There is everything from PJ's to curtains were in there. Most fabrics are very thin polyesters, but everything needs to be in this quilt.  Some things I'll reinforce with thin interfacing I think.  (Any ideas here?)  I got it all pressed and sliced into 2.5 inch strips.

I learned a lot about Grandma and her time.  As I steam pressed all of the fabrics, the room filled with the smell of soap.  Everything stored in all those old bread bags were washed and folded.

There were odd shapes from sections of blouses and dresses, and lots of long long 6 inch strips.  Everything was kept.  Everything was important and everything was reusable.  In this day and age, quilters are SO spoiled to load all this strong new designer fabric onto credit cards and toss big scraps in the trash, hey!??

Did you know:  I watched a popular quilting show on TV the other day and saw how they laughed and threw huge pieces in the garbage, chuckling, 'We'll just never use this again!  So we don't keep.  Into the trash it goes!".  My jaw hit the floor.  I have yet to write into that show and offer those women that I will pay shipping if they send me all their 'garbage'.  gag.  I have yet to do that, and I WILL.  And I will let you know what becomes of it.  GOSH.  They could at least donate it to charity.

WHEW!  Off my high horse...

I also did manage to cut all the white strips I will need too!  These are the repurposed choir gowns from my stash.  I thought using second hand all around would make sense.  No, I don't use recycled everything, but this fabric is excellent quality and was very well maintained.  I only needed two gowns for the whole quilt.  These gowns are gigantic!

So check this out!  I came across some of Grandma's precut diamonds.  Sweet fabric, hey?!!  Her template was there - something else that was recycled / repurposed.

fabulous fabric!  and an ink-stained cardboard template she kept

And then I flipped the waxy, worn cardboard over to reveal it's origin.  Check it out!  It was the side of a milk carton...

Isn't that great!?  If you cannot make it all out, it reads:

Doctors prescribe Milk
for children: 1 quart
for adults: one pint a day
Drink lots of milk
BUT safe milk
(Only pastuerized milk is safe milk)
Sanitation, Saskatchewan Dept of Public Health

Blast from the past!  Thanks for the lesson Grandma.  ; )  Now back to my 1200 half square triangles!  At least that's how many I calculated I will need for Jesica's Memory Quilt.

~Monika