2 more oldies

Sharing a few more of the old-time quilts that I have hanging around here. I just had a thought about the way I amshowing these in contrast to the lives of the women who made them. This would be so strange to them, since some of them were not living at the time of the development of home computersand this world wide web stuff. My mother being the exception, and she is one of my readers and knows her way around the keyboard. In fact, we were just talking on the phone about getting her a new computer since hers is so slow that she sews while waiting for things to load! But for women of my grandmothers' era and great-grandmothers, do you think they would be pleased? Surprised? I bet they would wonder what all the fuss is about for these simple quilts that they made out of whatever was on hand. Like this crazy quilt, which I think came from my Grandma Herbert's home and was maybe made by her mom?

It is a mixture of fabrics, a few of them disintegrating.

Some unusual shapes and sizes thrown in the blocks, mostly wools but some other things including velvet. All outlined in a feather stitch by hand.

I think that my Grandma Irvine made this little doll quilt. The squares are about 1 1/2".

A simple pattern of repeating colors across the diagonal. But what really caught my eye was the

use of a couple other shades of a color when needed:

And the little orange square with a seam running across it to put together enough fabric for the size needed.

I think we worry way too much about matching colors perfectly and cutting perfectly and sewing perfectly. The imperfection of this doll quilt makes it no less loveable, and I'm sure it made not one whit of difference to the little girls and their dolls. I need to remember that.

We had such a fun BBQ at Molly's house last night, even more fun because we had some out-of-town family there, too. By a serendipitous turn of events, we got to see Jarry, Mary and Spencer (my brother, sister-in-law and nephew) in the city from the North Shore and northern Iowa. The cousins paused for a picture--

And Kevin, father of son-in-law, Ben, was visiting from Big Sur, so we got to share in his introduction to everything you ever wanted to know about Minnesota but were afraid to ask.

Even though we were smiling in this picture, the 3 of us on the left were covering up our sadness over being defeated by our offspring in a best out of 3 Backyard Tip Cup tournament! Yes, there was alcohol involved. Spencer expressed shock and awe over competing against his parents and aunt and uncle in such a special game! The competition was close, and I know the only way those younguns won was because we taught them everything we know! Ahh, the glory days of summer!