art quilts

This is a very cool book for inspiration...


Masters: Art Quilts: Major Works by Leading Artists, Lark Books/Sterling Publishing, New York/London ©2008

I discovered it on my last trip to the library and I'm drooling over the gorgeous art quilts. These are not your typical patchwork quilts—they're more like paintings or sculptures. Experimentation is key and the use of non-traditional techniques is common—untraditional shapes, fabric manipulation, collage (layered fabric and found objects), surface decoration (hand and machine embroidery), and the use of photographic imagery.

I particularly love the work of Jane Burch Cochran whose quilts are heavily embellished with paint, embroidery, beads, buttons, and found objects (gloves feature prominently) all sewn to a free-form strip-pieced base.

"My quilts are considered narrative because some of the imagery is recognizable. The quilt does not usually tell a particular story—it's left to viewers to see and translate what they will. My quilts are highly embellished with beads, buttons, and paint to enhance the narrative with a unique and personal texture."


Moonlight, 2007, 77 x 61 inches. Photo by Pam Monfort.

I'm terribly neat with my work—perhaps too much so—and viewing quilts like these lets me now that it's OK to be get a little crazy sometimes. I do need to work on breaking out of the box a little more :)

the best for last

This is by far my best find at last weekend's show. I had picked up some fabric and aprons and was waiting for the vendor to finish with some other customers when I spotted a box on the table with some patchwork peeking out. Opening it, I discovered the makings of a patchwork quilt. Some blocks were done, some were combined into rows. There were envelopes of templates, the original printed patterns, and lots of cut out pieces. At the bottom there was even extra yardage of each fabric.



My heart skipped a beat. Then I thought, "no way will I be able to afford this." But it never hurts to ask, right? So I did. $35. Can you believe it! I saw the person standing next to me ear's perk up and I grabbed that box so fast it wasn't funny.


A completed block


Four blocks combined

On further inspection, everything seems to be there to make a good-sized quilt. What's done so far is hand-sewn. And everything is really clean and just about perfect.


such neat hand-stitching


A closeup of the print

The only problem is that I can't figure out the pattern. I've looked in all my quilt books and I'm coming up with nothing. I know that some creative quilters designed their own patterns but this appears to be a commercial one. And not one that appeared in a newspaper—there's nothing on the backs of the patterns. I'd love to know what the pattern is called so I can do some research to determine how old this is. Can any of you quilters help me out?


The block pattern


The diagram for arranging the blocks

another find

It's not so much that this vintage children's hanky is in perfect shape—it isn't. The fabric is thin and almost worn through in a couple of places near the edge. But the colors are still bright and the motifs are super cute so I had to buy it. And it was only $3.

The words in the center read: On Monday I wash my little dolly's clothes—How she gets them so dirty—Goodness knows!



There are tiny washboards and boxes of soap flakes and little blue soap bubbles scattered around. And the little girl with her braid and blue bow is super cute!







I'm thinking of turning this design into an embroidery pattern! Or perhaps a fabric design.

Road Trip: Madison-Bouckville Antique Show

After a two-hour drive, half of it through dense fog (hate that) along Route 81N in Pennsylvania we finally arrived at the show. We got a great parking spot (completely by accident since you have to park where they tell you to) just a few rows over from the south gate! Then we headed to the back so we could hit the tents first. The tents can get so crowded later on that it's almost impossible to move or look at anything and there were a couple of vendors that I specifically wanted to visit. That done, we circled around the back and up and down the rows and by lunchtime managed to hit everywhere except the front section. We figured we'd have lunch and then go back. We were just packing up the lunch stuff when the raindrops started. One look at the sky (a sickish green-gray color) and the fact that lightening and thunder had already started convinced us that waiting it out wasn't going to work. Much as I hated to do it, we left.

So, for the first time ever, I didn't spend all the cash I'd budgeted for this show. But I got plenty of great stuff in the morning. And who knows, maybe I wouldn't have found anything else even if we had gone back. At least that's what I tell myself :)

It was a vintage fabric kind of day and I got lots of great prints. Like this floral that looks like barkcloth but isn't. The background is the prettiest peachy-pink color—


I also found a fun design with black line birdcages and orange, dark red, and avocado green birds—


And I love the colors on this Waverly Bonded Glosheen fabric—aqua geraniums with lime green flowers and lavender sprays—


Some of my favorite vendors didn't have any buttons this year so these are the only buttons I bought—


I'm starting to love these cute little beaded coin purses and found two —


I also love appliqued things and found this great towel of a woman washing and hanging clothes—


Here's a closeup of the appliqued pantaloons hanging on the clothesline—aren't the embroidered clothespins great?


I got a few aprons, including another with chicken scratch embroidery. I'm seeing that everywhere these days!


I'm going to save my best finds for future posts—both deserve more attention since they're so cool. Stay tuned :)

Don't forget the Madison-Bouckville Outdoor Antiques Show this weekend. If you've been reading my blog for a while you'll know that I've gone to this show every year for the past three years. It's a very big, very tiring-to-walk-through show (90 acres! 1000 dealers!!) but I always find great stuff and I wouldn't miss it for anything.

If you've just started reading, here are my 2007 and 2006 posts about it. I guess I didn't write one for 2005.

I've been so good this year — not attending many shows and generally cutting back by not buying things I don't need. This show is my weakness so I may be bad this weekend :)

Rather than battle the lines at the food stands or try to find a restaurant in a nearby town for lunch we're bringing a picnic basket this year. We usually make a few trips back to the car anyway, so we'll plan one around lunch time. Not sure what that basket will contain just yet — except for the fresh peaches I got at the farmer's market a few days ago!

Will let you know how it went next week, hopefully with lots of great pictures of my finds :)

pansy

I showed you an embroidered quilt block of a violet last week and this is another block from that same set. You're probably wondering why I chose such unpansy-like colors for the embroidery. I'll show you why in a minute.



I found a vintage pansy border-print pillowcase at a flea market earlier this year and I was immediately attracted to the colors. This is a closeup of the edge. Not traditional at all but what a great combination—I love the soft gray with the pink and red and green.



So, when the flower blocks arrived I thought "what a great pillow the pansy block would make combined with that pillowcase." And I embroidered it to match. I'm still considering the buttons—the ones in the picture matched perfectly in my studio but not when I took everything out into the daylight to be photographed. I may change my mind.



You can find a free traceable pattern for the pansy here and the entire set of patterns (pansy, violet, wild rose, ox-eye daisy, poppy, and buttercup) for sale on my website here.

unusual embroidery

Last week, Janice sent me a photo of a piece of embroidery she found at a folk art/fabric art store where she lives. She wondered if I'd ever seen anything like it before. And I hadn't, although we both agreed that the center looked like the spider web stitch. I assumed it was some variation of that stitch and asked if I could post the photo on my blog to see if any of my readers had any info on it. Sometimes there are regional variations on stitches and I know I have a lot of readers who live in foreign countries. You never know.

So, this is the stitch...

Isn't it cool?

Janice emailed me back later to tell me that she thought it was called tenerife. I did a little research and it seems that the original technique is Spanish—from the Canary Island of Tenerife specifically—and is indeed called tenerife, or Sol Lace (more examples here). The base threads were originally stretched across pins with the cross threads woven into them. And the resulting lace is very delicate and pretty.

Janice's example, which has the base threads in the fabric corners and uses embroidery thread, seems to be a less delicate variation. At some point in history the Spanish introduced the original technique to South America and in Paraguay it's now called Ñandutí lace. Ñandutí means "spider web" in Guaraní, the official, indigenous language of Paraguay. Perhaps this is the variation we're seeing here.

Ruth, at Needlpointers.com has some examples here. (warning - music on the page)

Some instructions for a Teneriffe Lace Christmas ornament. And a butterfly design.

Have any of you tried this or know anything more about it?

*Updated to add a direct link to Deepa's blog post about Kamal Kadai, an Indian surface embroidery technique that looks a lot like our picture. Thanks for commenting, Deepa!

not a hummingbird

Although it hovers and hums when it feeds on flowers just like one. This is a hummingbird hawk-moth (Macroglossum stellatarum) feeding on my butterfly bush. We have hummingbirds, too, and I've seen them fighting with these moths over the bee balm in my herb garden. Nature in action :)

August, already?

What is it about this summer? It's happening so fast! Sorry for the lack of blogging last week. The garden has been occupying a lot of my time—colanders full of green beans and piles of cucumbers to deal with. And the corn and tomatoes are coming quickly. So much outside stuff to do.



But, in case you think I haven't been doing anything fun, here are a couple of those embroidery projects I promised to show you earlier this summer. This first one is a vintage Vogart quilt block of violets. I bought a set of these (six flower designs) recently on Ebay and embroidered this first because I have some matching fabric and plans for a pillow. I finished the top yesterday and should have the completed pillow up on my site soon.



This little cowboy quilt block (complete except for French knots on his shirt) will be combined with a vintage red bandana print for a future pillow.



I've also been working on this sweet blue dotted flannel baby cover with kitties and strawberries. I know, what self-respecting cat would eat strawberries? But, it is cute, even if it stretches reality a bit :)



There are three cats in all plus butterflies, small patches of strawberries, and little flowers, all set in an oval shape in the center. It's big and taking a while so I alternate this with other projects that are more quickly finished.



It's been a weird summer for sales. I haven't been making new pillows at all, or anything else handcrafted because no one is buying right now. People have other priorities—like food and gas—believe me, I get that. I have been selling tons of vintage buttons and fabric (who knows why?) so I've been keeping those sections stocked with new items. Also added are a batch of vintage crochet pattern books and some cute vintage baby things, including embroidered bibs, a Bambi crib sheet, and a pair of green wool mittens embroidered with ice skaters!

a cat speaks

This is how I deal with the heat...



By sleeping. Of course, that's how I deal with most things, but the screened porch is especially nice for a nap when it's hot. You can't see it in this picture but there's a ceiling fan right above me to keep the air moving. And I love this pillow cover that my mom got at the flea market. She says it's not bark cloth but I wouldn't know anything about that. Bark makes me think of dogs and I'm not so fond of dogs.

I didn't know blogging was so much work. Yawn. Time to go back to sleep...

~ Amaya

what to eat when it's too hot to eat

It's been unbelievably hot here the past few days—in the 90s! Thankfully it does cool off a little at night and stays cool for a few hours in the morning so I can get some work done early. After that it's too hot to move. Eating is always a problem when it's really hot. Who wants to add more heat to the air by using the stove or oven? And who want to eat something heavy? I've been turning lately to salads.

Over the weekend I made a nicoise salad with baby green beans from the garden. I've been making this salad for years and have lost track of where I got the recipe, so apologies to whoever the original belongs to. There's some prep work and use of the stove involved but you can do that ahead of time.

Salad Nicoise

3/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil (1 tsp. dried)
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1/4 teaspoon cracked black pepper
1 large head Boston lettuce
1 pound small new potatoes
1 pound fresh green beans
3 hard-cooked eggs
1 medium red onion
2 medium tomatoes
1 red bell pepper
Two 7-ounce cans water-pack tuna
1/2 cup pitted ripe olives

1) In a jar with a tight-fitting lid, combine the oil, vinegar, garlic, basil, salt, mustard, and pepper. Shake vigorously and refrigerate.
2) Wash lettuce; remove core and drain well. Separate into leaves.
3) Scrub unpared potatoes. Place in a medium saucepan, add boiling water to cover and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Bring to boiling and boil gently, covered, for 20 minutes. Drain, cool and peel, then slice 1/4-inch thick. Turn into shallow dish.
4) Trim ends and wash beans. Cook whole in boiling water with 1 teaspoon salt, covered, for 5 to 10 minutes. Drain and cool 10 minutes. Turn into dish with potatoes. Add 1/2 cup dressing and toss until well coated. Refrigerate, covered.
5) Peel and quarter eggs. Slice onion thinly. Wash and cut each tomato into six wedges. Wash pepper, halve and remove seeds, and cut into 1-inch strips. Drain tuna; with fork break into chunks.
6) Arrange lettuce in a shallow bowl. Arrange eggs, onion, tomato, pepper, and tuna over lettuce and chill until ready to serve. (I hate really cold salads so I let it warm up a bit on the counter). Just before serving, spoon on the beans and sliced potatoes and drizzle the whole thing with the remaining dressing. (6)

If you want something easier (and quicker), throw together an asian noodle salad with some shredded leftover chicken, chopped veggies (I like carrot, red pepper, scallions, and cucumber), chopped herbs (Thai basil and cilantro—also from my garden), some noodles (linguine fini is good), and some bottled Thai peanut sauce. Mix it all together in a bowl and chill for a little bit in the fridge. Easy peasy! This would be fine without chicken or with the addition of some tofu for a vegetarian version.

So, what do you like to eat when it's too hot to eat?

rickrack + embroidery

I promised to show you another apron that uses rickrack creatively and here it is. The technique for attaching the rickrack can be used on anything—not just gingham—but this example shows a nice use of cross stitches in between the rows. And it's another idea for trimming your gingham apron if you're doing one for the challenge.


Use colored embroidery floss (same color as the gingham) across the dips in the "waves" to attach your rickrack to the fabric. Running your stitches all in the same direction gives you a striped effect; alternating direction forms a v-shaped design.



The apron shown here has the rickrack along the waistband and pocket tops—one row of the larger size in the center surrounded by two rows of the smaller size. Along the bottom are two rows of this same arrangement with the addition of cross stitches on the white squares in between. Looks pretty fancy but isn't quite as much work as chicken scratch!

Stitch School: Chicken Scratch

Stitch School has moved to it's very own space on the web! You'll now find the Chicken Scratch post here. Comments are now closed on this post; if you'd like to leave a comment please do so on the new one.

in case you haven't heard enough about gardening

This really isn't a gardening blog but it's hard to tell lately since that's all I've talked about. It's certainly more interesting than talking about my business accounting or cleaning my house, which are the other things I've focused on this week. So, to continue the theme for one more day, let's talk about gardening books.

I actually read quite a bit of non-fiction and gardening books are something I've been turning to lately. Not so much the how-to books but the ones that read like fiction, the personal accounts of people's attempts to garden for the first time or to live closer to the land. I'm reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle right now (from the library) and picked up several interesting-sounding books on my recent trip to the used book store:
• Letters from the Hive: An Intimate History of Bees, Honey, and Humankind by Stephen Buchman
• Two Gardeners (Katharine S. White and Elizabeth Lawrence): A Friendship in Letters edited by Emily Herring Wilson

I'll probably save them to read this winter when there's snow on the ground and the garden seems like a distant memory.

If gardening books interest you, too, you might want to check out Barnes and Noble's weekly roundup of five themed books. This week's theme is gardening and a few of their featured books are going on my must-read list.



• Old Herbaceous by Reginald Arkell
Arkell’s 1950 tale chronicles Bert Pinnegar’s eight decades in an English manor house garden.

• Down the Garden Path by Beverley Nichols
Nichols’ 1932 memoir of a cottage in the British countryside and its attendant flora.

• The Education of a Gardener by Russell Page
One of the most famous garden architects of his time, Page (1906 – 1985) designed the gardens at Leeds castle and the grounds of PepsiCo headquarters in Purchase, NY.

• Gardening for Love by Elizabeth Lawrence (yes, the same woman in the Two Gardeners book mentioned above)
This book, by an American original once called “the Jane Austen of the gardening literary world,” chronicles the author’s long correspondence with a circle of Southern women who traded seeds and bulbs through agricultural market bulletins.

Back to stitchery and needlework next week- I promise :)

a favorite garden center

I'm not sure I've mentioned exactly where I buy all the lovely plants for my garden. I'm blessed to have two great places within ten miles of my house. One of them is Greystone Gardens and it's an irresistible place. More than a garden center, the property is laid out with walking paths and stone walls, arbors and bridges, and water features. Perfect for finding inspiration in their careful juxtapositions of plantings. Very English garden. And that's not surprising because the owners—Paul and Susan Epsom—are from England and the gardens themselves feature an English cottage garden theme.

I love to go early on Sunday mornings when it's cool and less crowded. The birds are singing in the woods, the sun is just hitting some of the more wooded sections, and I'm free to wander around. I usually start in the shade garden area in the back where the plants are grouped together under a black-tented arbor. If it's rained recently, the air will be misty and you'll hear the sound of the water tumbling over the rocks in the waterfall and creek that run behind this area.

At the center is a section for vines (clematis and honeysuckles) and then rows and rows of perennials on tables. I love that they have unusual things and unusual varieties of more common things. Like that Verbascum chaxii I showed in one of my previous posts. There are sections of roses and herbs, shrubs and trees, and water plants around a lily pond that is filled with frogs.

Inside there's a gift shop that's open year-round and that's stocked full of interesting bird houses and feeders, pottery containers, garden ornaments, and lovely garden-themed gifts. I often Christmas shop here. And, if all this wandering around leaves you hungry or craving tea and scones, you can have lunch or afternoon tea in the Garden Cafe. There's an outdoor patio if the weather is nice.

Paul is the gardening correspondent for PBS' Victory Garden and has won Garden Globe awards in 2003, 2004 and 2005 for his on-air work as a garden correspondent . Both he and Susan really know their stuff when it comes to plants and gardening and are always available to chat, answer questions, and give advice.

I don't think many of my blog readers live near enough to visit but it's worth checking out your own local garden centers. You never now what treasures you'll find.

Greystone Gardens, 829 Old State Road, Clarks Summit, PA 18411

what a difference a day makes

Not quite an "after" picture yet but we're making progress. The stone walkway is in...



A few plants have been added. And a bench.



I bought the bench for half price at a fancy garden center north of Indianapolis years ago and have been lugging it around ever since. It's been used on the porch of every apartment I've lived in that had a porch. It was in storage for a while. And I think I may have used it as a couch (a very hard one) at one point. It's been in several locations since we bought this house but never one where it "fit" so perfectly.

Next up is a trip to the English garden center in a town nearby. We still have lots of holes to fill!

in the garden

Unbelievable that it's July already - where does the time go? My absence from blogging this past week might lead you to think that I'm adjusting to my state of unemployment by sleeping late and generally goofing off. Not so. I'm up with the birds and at my computer most mornings, working on my website and getting Primrose orders ready to ship. I'm also taking the time to clean my hard drive of old unused files and archiving everything. One of those things I've never had time to do before.

And I've been working in the garden a lot. Last weekend we ripped out a large, very ugly, bayberry bush and some ivy (you can see some of the dead vines on the chimney that need to be removed) on the driveway side of the house. This involved a chain attached to our truck and lots of cursing but you don't need to hear about that part. Now there are two new blank canvases to fill - so exciting!



Brian set two long flat stones for steps at one end and will be making a stone path through the center that will lead out to the herb garden in front. Sort of where the footprints are in the first picture. The stones you can just see at the left in the second picture are part of the wall that surrounds the steps that lead down to the basement and their tops will be a great place for those creeping plants that I love so much.



We came home from a trip to the garden center yesterday with the trunk full of plants. It looked like so much in the car but barely made a dent in the space we have to fill. As with most gardens it will evolve over time and I don't expect this to be fully filled in until next year. I like to see what survives over the winter and will probably move some things from elsewhere in the spring when the plants are small and easier to dig up.

I'm taking a break today to get my hair cut, pick up the DVD of the first season of Mad Men that releases today (yay - finally!), return some library books, and have lunch with my friend Jenny who's a teacher and has the summer off. I've been working on a post about some great vintage embroidery books I found last week at a used book store (one from 1890!) and a Stitch School about chicken scratch embroidery. So, look for them soon!

shop news

I'm running out of space, I want to get started on new designs, I'm just plain sick of looking at them. Time for a blowout pillow sale! All pillows are now 30% off. Including this floral one made from a gorgeous vintage Waverly print and vintage ball fringe.



Two new embroidery patterns have been added—a design of a bird with strawberries that would be really pretty embroidered on a tea towel (the picture shows just the top part) and a cute 1930s-40s baby bib design.


You've got to see the original that the baby bib design was traced from. Isn't this little guy cute? I love the tinted areas (hopefully they won't wash out when I clean this after finishing the embroidery) and the beets. Although the one hoisting himself out of the ground is kind of scary. I love that children's designs from the 30s and 40s often have a slightly sinister quality to them. A little sweetness goes a long way in my opinion :)





Don't forget that all patterns are Buy 1 Get 1 Free during the month of June.

And finally, I've been investigating ways to offer my patterns as pdf downloads. Selling to crafters in other countries has always been a problem because the shipping is so high. Heck, it's high here, too. Pdfs would solve that problem. More on this when I've figured out the details.

Happy summer! I totally missed the fact that Friday was the first day of summer. Probably because it was rainy and in the 60s and didn't feel much like summer :)