New Meaning To The Word "Crazy"!

Yeah, that would be me! Can one of you, my dear readers, explain to me what the BLEEP I was thinking when I bought this quilt and decided to restore it? Ha, ha, ha!

My intention yesterday afternoon, was to replace 2 damaged patches on my quilt and then move on to working on Maxine's quilt. It didn't quite work out that way:



I was going to replace the red stripe and then the patch with the little victorian boot on it. I did my usual thing of snapping a photo with the digi, tracing the outline of the 2 patches onto tracing paper and then I tore out those 2 bad areas. While looking at it, I realized that the navy blue patch with the work boot on it needed to be replaced as well. Yikes! It was a little scary to have 3 pieces off at the same time! Since they all ran together, I didn't have a choice.



The boot repairs were the same as the first one that I did over the weekend. I had to cut into the foundation. Unfortunately, I found (in this area) that the muslin foundation is deteriorating. I also found that this quilt suffered some serious water damage before the backing and binding were put on. After reading this article titled, "Crazy Quilts In America Then & Now" by Patricia Cummings, I may have the reason for the deteriorating muslin.

I'm sure you're now thinking "why"? Well, fabric in the old days was not measured by the yard like it is today. Instead, it was measured by weight. To make fabric "weigh more", merchants soaked it in salt of one type or another. We all know what salt does to things! And in cheating the customer of the day, these merchants also cheated many future generations from having these beautiful heirloom works of art in good condition.

Back to my rotting muslin issue, I suspect that since the quilt got wet at one time, any residue salt on the fancy fabrics, soaked into the cotton foundation and therefore has rotted that as well. So far, most of the foundation fabric is fine. But this area is an exception.

I spoke with my mom about this and she told me that it's a good thing there so much that needs to be replaced. Since I'm stitching through everything that's here, the front, the flannel layer and the back, it should hold everything together just fine. Whew!

Ok, so onto my repairs:



I was a little freaked out over having 3 patches off at one time and as you can see, I didn't quite get them back on right. I really need to not stress over this so much! In some areas, there are 5 and 6 pieces all in a section that will need to be replaced and I know that I just have to do the best I can.

I'm sure you noticed that my stitching is a bit different than what was there. The red herringbone stitch to the right of the ladies victorian boot was intentional. I wanted more stitching on that area to make sure it was all held together well.

My stitches under the work boot are a bit different because I couldn't quite see what was there in my photo on the tiny little screen on my camera and I was just too lazy to get up off my butt, come in here to the computer and transfer the image!

Anyway, this area does look much better now and I still feel good that I have the ability to save Evelyn's quilt even if I don't get it exactly the way she had it.

I'm wondering now too if the 3 boots on this quilt represent something. Perhaps 3 family members? Mom, Dad and child? I may never know for sure but it's a gut feeling that I have. Do take a moment and read the article by Patricia Cummings. It's facinating!

Ok, now I would like to ask your opinion on something. I'm going to stop at Michael's Craft Store tomorrow to pick up the gold toned handles for my Mozart purse so I can get that assembled and use it! I was wondering what ya'll think of this trim:



I like it but wonder if it's too heavy? Or does it work? Please let me know you're opinion. I have gobs and gobs of this but if you think It's too much, I'll go with something else.

A New Counted Cross Stitch Design!

I spent yesterday afternoon working on Maxine's quilt. There isn't anything all that exciting about the process on that one at the moment. All I'm doing is cutting away the deteriorated patches and appliquéing new patches on in their place. I'm not even worried about replacing the stitches at the moment since I will be doing some insane embellishing on it.

So for today, I thought you would enjoy seeing one my newest counted cross stitch designs just released in the June 2007 issue of The Cross Stitcher magazine:



The Christmas Cat appears on page 40:



This design is based on a gorgeous kitty named, "Miss Lily" who belongs to Vicki, one of my fellow bloggers. Vicki's blog is Turkey Feathers and what a great blog it is! Do check it out if you have time.

Vicki had posted a photo of Miss Lily on her blog about a year ago and I absolutely fell in love with her. I emailed Vicki and asked for her permission to use Miss Lily as a model for a cross design. The Christmas Cat is that design!

I have an extra copy of this issue of The Cross Stitcher. If anyone wants it, I'll gladly send it out to the first person who emails me with a request for it.

Making It Up As I Go Along.....

Repairing this antique quilt isn't all that different from embellishing a new piece. Each repair requires a different approach.

I started yesterday by replacing these damaged fabrics on the corner:



Here's the "after" photo:



Ok, so my herringbone stitch is a bit smaller! Ya'll know that the herringbone is not one of my favorite stitches! At least I was able to match the color!

The next repair was a bit of a challenge:



I love this little boot but I needed to replace the background fabric. The boot was appliquéd onto the quilt so it was attached to the muslin foundation. I only had one choice here, cut into the foundation fabric. Because this quilt has a backing and I'm stitching through that, cutting into the foundation was not a big deal. I did find that this quilt has a middle layer of gray flannel!

Anyway, I cut the boot off, removed the rest of the damaged fabric and replaced it with a new piece. I then cut the excess fabric away from the boot, as close to the stitching as I could and then appliqued it back onto the new patch. Here's what it looks like now:



My next repair was to deal with this spiderweb:



I'm trying to keep as much of "Evelyn's" work here as possible. Several of the threads on the web were damaged but overall, it was in pretty good shape. Rather than re-stitch the entire web, I decided to simply couch all the threads to the quilt using one strand of sewing thread in a matching color.

Here's what it looks like now:



After that repair, I replaced the stitches on several seams.

So that's what I have to share with you today! A very interesting process isn't it? There's still a long way to go on my quilt but for today, I'll be putting it to the side and focusing on repairing Maxine's quilt which doesn't have nearly as much damage as mine.

Stash!

I didn't get in any stitching time yesterday. When my husband came home from work, he asked me if I would like to go see Johnny Depp in the new Pirates movie. No need to twist my arm there! I have a thing for Johnny Depp!

I had a lovely time but I must say, now that I've seen the 3rd one, the first is definitely my favorite. I don't want to spoil it for anyone so all I'll say is that I thought the ending was totally stupid. I'll leave it at that.

On to stitching, I received some wonderful stash yesterday! My mom, was at Hobby Lobby the other day and bought me some fabrics that she thought might work on my antique Crazy Quilt:



There are several areas on my quilt where the fabric is totally gone leaving me with nothing to clue me in on what was there. In those cases, I'll just have to pick something that I like and that works and use that. These should work nicely.

Several patches are a blue & cream silk stripe fabric and several others are a red & cream stripe silk. Those are in pretty bad shape so I'll be replacing them. You can see in the photo what I'll be using to replace them. I'll most likely "age" the blue stripe with some fabric dye. It's not an exact match, but it's close enough.

More stash arrived in the mail yesterday from Lynne. In the past, I've always felt a bit embarrassed when fellow stitcher's blogged about stash that I've sent to them so I've never really shared photos of gifts here on my blog that I've received. And there have been many wonderful gifts and I truly treasure them.

After thinking about it, I realized that it was my problem and I decided that anyone who takes the time to think of me and to send me gifts deserves a public "thank you" so from now on, I will make a point to share photos of the beautiful things that I receive.

This is what arrived from Lynne in yesterday's mail:



Aren't these beautiful?!!! Lovely fabrics, lace and a very beautiful & delicate dragonfly pin! Thank you so very much Lynne for your kind and very generous gift!

Today, I would like to work some more on my quilt and I really need to get going on Maxine's quilt. I have some ideas for that one that I think will combine what she wants me to do with it along with my need to at least keep it antique looking.

I plan to do a lot of appliqué on it. Lot's of velvet yo-yo's, velvet pansies, meandering vines with couched stems and I have this really cool idea for sunflowers! I want to head over to Cartwrights Sequins & Beads and order some sequins in vintage colors. Browns, golds, dark reds and such. The ones that have the pearly finish on them rather than the bright metallic colors. This should add the sparkle that Maxine asked me for without it being gaudy. Oh, it needs butterflies too!

More tomorrow.....

More Repair On My Quilt

I hope I'm not confusing anyone, working on 2 antique Crazy Quilts at the same time. From now on, I'll refer to these as either "My Quilt" or "Maxine's Quilt".

This one is my quilt:



Here you can see the damaged area that I worked on yesterday. I only replaced one fabric patch and then focused on replacing some of the damaged stitching in the area around it. In the case of this patch, I wasn't really sure what stitch was used directly on this patch. I think it was the Feather Stitch so that's what I did.

Here is a photo of the repaired area:



I do hope you all find this interesting and not boring. I plan to take a break from these projects here and there to do some of my insane, extremely embellished things. I'm not sure why I feel so compelled to repair this quilt. I'm assuming it's due to my appreciation of handmade things as well as my love of historical textiles. Because this is dated 1888, has the stitchers name on it as well as references to the location in which "I think" it was made, it called to me when I saw it at the flea market and it's almost as if I have to do this. It's kind of a strange feeling but there's something so wonderful about having the ability to save this quilt.

It's not my intention though, to replace every teeny tiny bit of damage. I want to keep the integrity and aged look of this quilt. I only want to replace what absolutely needs to be replaced to keep it from further deterioration.

I promised to share some historical facts with you in relationship to this quilt. My friends Susan and Bennie shared this information with me. The following is quote from Bennie's email to me:

"Seems like the souvenir ribbon was from the presidential campaign of Grover Cleveland & his running mate Allen Thurman. Actually, they lost the election that year, so maybe that makes your quilt more valuable? I'm not sure what the auxiliary stock exchange referred to - the stock market wasn't established until 1892. Maybe it was just a group of men who invested in stocks. I'm sure you are right that the quilt was made in NY - since Grover Cleveland was raised in upstate NY."

Very interesting, huh? Here's a photo of one of the 4 souvenir ribbons dated 1888:



Well, that's it for today. I want to work on this one some more later and I want to work on Maxine's quilt as well. I think you'll find that one very interesting as Maxine wants me to not only repair it, but further embellish it. And not in the traditional antique style but in my "insane Pam Kellogg" style. This will be a challenge as my heart & mind are resisting. Scott told me that I can't look at it as "defacing" it but instead, I have to look at it as "making it better". I already have a couple of cool ideas but first I have to replace the damaged fabrics.