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Sunday, May 18, 2014

Jon Built New Screen Door for Front Porch Door


Here's Jon and the new screen door for the front porch door he built this month

Jon finished painting it today, and was lucky to find
a matching porcelain knob in the barn.


Below is the surviving antique screen door for the west side of porch
Jon did a fabulous job building a new screen door to match the antique one
.
Matching antique screen door west side of the front porch.

Through the door you can see the glow of the 
big chandelier and tomato soup red walls of the dining room.


The foyer will be done soon, and will be painted the same tomato soup red walls.
The color is called Flaming Sunset.

I'll post photos when the foyer is done.  
I'm looking forward to re-photographing the old and new matching screen doors in the evening.

 and to re-create the warm glow featuring the blue heron images on the etched glass.










Tuesday, May 6, 2014

When Old Memories Become New


I finished free hand quilting Mom's nine patch. 

Here it is, rolling it off the quilting frame yesterday.


My mother Lorraine created this quilt several years ago--it measured 60" x 80".

I added borders of ivory, navy, and sage green to make it a queen size quilt for her bed. 
Now it's 84" x 104"


I'm a free-hand quilter.  
I use a Babylock Crown Jewel 18" throat long arm quilting machine.

My original swirl feather design Squirrel Feathers, is a very fast free flowing edge to edge quilt design. 


Since taking this on the frame photo, I've finished quilting, added the binding, turned the binding and hand sewn.

I'll post more finish photos later before I mail the quilt to Mom.


I quilted 2 whole cloth baby quilts last week-- in preparation "getting my groove on", building muscle memory to quilt Squirrel Feathers.  

You know you have the muscle memory down and ready to go when you can quilt the design free hand in all 4 directions--literally.  

Since I was a kid, I could always always write backwards and upside down.
Who knew it would come in handy one day?????


While quilting--I listen to Rock, Blues, and Motown from the 60s.  


Sometimes I quilt at 4 in the morning when its still dark.


See what you can do with all your fabric scraps???

I smiled lots while quilting Mom's nine patch. Oh my gosh--I recognized material for a dress Mom made for me when I was studying in Mexico in 1966.

I remember all the beautiful clothes Mom made for us.  And she made the most beautiful prom dresses.  I could just cry with happiness thinking about all those old wonderful memories Mom created for us.  She's such a great seamstress/designer and can take an ordinary pattern--and make it sizzle.


Mom--if you are looking at this post I just want to say--this was a fun 3 day project--quilting your nine patch.  I love you.