A Quilt Repair While I Was On Vacation

 I went to visit my parents for a month and while I was there I repaired a quilt.

Sorry the image is not very good, it was taken with my phone and I'm still trying to figure out how to use it.  This Drunkard's Path quilt was the last one my Nana made.  Started in the 70's, the top was finished in the 90's and sent to someone else for quilting as Nana could not quilt anymore.

I cut out the pieces that needed replacing - they had holes that looked like a mouse chewed on them.

This is the whole quilt laid out on the floor.  If you look closely you will see some darker pieces in the center area, these were the ones I replaced already when I took this photo.  Thankfully we still had some of the blue fabric so that made it easy.  I still have some of that fabric for just in case.

I did not get a photo of the completed project, we got too busy with other things.  

Meet Dottie! My New/Old Sewing Machine

Meet my new sewing machine Dottie. 

She's a 1940 model with a very heavy wood cabinet, which needs a little love on the outside. 

She needs new wires that actually have a covering, yikes! 

But she moves freely when I spin the wheel and has 4 boxes of attachments. 

Best of all I got her for $20 at a yard sale. 

She's not the treadle machine I wanted but she will do what I need her to do after rewiring and a bit more cleaning. Refinishing the cabinet will come later.

Completed Repaired Quilt

I finished the quilt repair and here are the final photos.

The replacement fabrics in this photo are the yellow and the pink floral just above Elma's name.

In this photo you can see the quilt is twin sized.  I replaced 14 of the original triangle pieces.  One was not really bad enough but the original maker had matched the fabric on facing squares so I followed that pattern.

I left the original fabric below the appliqued new pieces and tried to match the colorations as best I could.  The backing was in wonderful condition so when I did the quilting on the new pieces I only sewed through the top and the batting, not going all the way through the back.  That way the original quilting is still there and the new pieces are still quilted in the same pattern as the old.  On a few places all I needed to to was to insert a tiny piece of fabric and do a buttonhole stitch around the hole.

The owner was very happy with it!

Repairing An Antique Quilt

My upstairs neighbor asked if I knew how to fix an old quilt that her grandmother made.  

As you can see, some of the fabrics are in shreds with the cotton batting poking out.

I explained how I repair quilts, I applique over the damaged area, leaving the original fabric for posterity, then requilt following the same stitching.

The polka dot fabric is a piece of the new fabric.  I usually use the wrong side out so that the colors are not so bright that it looks odd.  I can rarely find fabrics in the right tint to match old and faded colors.

I like how the strips between the clover shaped squares have embroidered signatures and quite a few have year dates.  The earliest is this one from 1934 and the others are dated through 1937.

I love quilts like these, true treasures and so worth saving for future generations no matter how bad the condition is.  

I'll post next week when I am finished with the quilting and will try to get a shot of the full quilt, it's a twin size.

A Few More Buildings for the Train Layout

I made some more buildings for the train layout, this time a portion of a town backed up to what will be the side of a mountain.

Just ignore all the cardboard stuff, everything is still in the planning stage as far as topography.

The base is a piece of cardboard and I covered it with felt and used some craft paint to vary the color.

Here's another angle.  I used some old track that I cut apart and glued down for the wood sidewalks, and painted it gray for weathering.  The detail on these paper buildings is great.

I did do a little kit bashing to make it work for what I wanted and I add cereal box pasteboard to the insides for stability as these are printed on cardstock.

I will be adding some real rocks and weedy bushes at some point, it will make it look more real.  And we definitely need to start adding some model people.  For scale, the large buildings are 1.5" x 3.5".  The printed paper is much easier on my eyes that scratch built buildings.

And if anyone is looking for N scale or Z scale models, here is the link to the Etsy store: CustomZScales

A New Station Office for the Train Layout

I ordered some pre-printed buildings for the man's train layout.  I really like how they go together and the printing on the cardstock is excellent.

He opted to use this 1st one I built as a station office and put it next to the 2 story warehouse I built from scratch.

The warehouse looks huge next to the little office but the top of the train fits just under the roof when it goes by.

That's his new engine, still has some of the packing in place - the white stuff.

And the caboose!

Upcycled Tote Bag

I've been doing a lot of reading the past few weeks with some small clothing repairs thrown in, all hand sewing as I have no machine at this time.  Then I came up with this project....

This started out as a an old Trader Joe's bag that someone was going to throw out.  It was still sturdy but looked really tacky with the printing on the outside peeling off.

I had a bag of scraps someone was getting rid of so I cut 5" squares and made strips of 6 squares.  I covered the handles and started sewing the strips to the bag in a diagonal line.  Then I covered the bottom and used 1 row to line the inside top.

I also added a pocket inside with leftover squares.

A very sturdy tote bag to carry stuff for our Thursday craft nights, whenever they resume.