Our Caroline in vintage clothes

When Caroline, and her mom Rebecca, visited us in May I took the opportunity to play dress-up with my grand-daughter.

Several years ago I received some of the batiste dresses that my grandmother McClure, my mother's mother in Atlanta, had made for me when I was an infant (I won't tell you how many years ago that was!). After soaking the dresses in sodium perborate dissolved in hot water, an archival-safe chemical used by many museums to remove yellowing and some stains in vintage fabrics, and pressing them, the little dresses have been restored to their glory. The workmanship my grandmother put into these dresses is impeccable - the tiny stitches, the enclosed french seams, the precise embroidery, the teeny tiny buttons and hand-stitched buttonholes.

So I put one of the dress and slip sets on Caroline and started snapping photos. I think this is the best one. Isn't she absolutely adorable! She's seven and a half months old in this photo.
Another photo showing the dress and slip from the side.
I am going to put the dresses on soft little hangers and hang them on a Shaker peg board in my sewing and knitting studio ... a beautiful reminder of the generations of needlewomen in my ancestry.

"Road to Miami" - Liz's Graduation Quilt

My niece Liz just graduated from Lehigh University and is now studying at University of Miami for her DPT (Doctor in Physical Therapy). When she graduated from high school I knit her an afghan instead of making a quilt ... so I decided to make her a quilt for her college graduation.

Because she was moving to Miami the quilt had to reflect the tropical colors there, so I selected bright batiks and used the pattern "Yellow Brick Road" by Atkinson Designs ... hence the quilt's name "Road to Miami." I machine quilted this myself, using a large pumpkin seed design with the curving lines flowing diagonally across the quilt. The borders are quilted with a cable pattern.

Congratulations Liz ... and lots of good wishes for successful studies at U. of Miami!!

Caroline's Comfort Quilt

The Armed Services YMCA runs a program called "Operation Kid Comfort" that provides quilts for children of deployed service members and you can read more about it here: http://www.operationkidcomfort.blogspot.com/. Ann Flaherty, the founder of the program, is a quilting friend of mine from when I lived in North Carolina.

As most of you know our son-in-law Jason deployed to Afghanistan in February for a year. When he deployed I began planning a comfort quilt for grand-daughter Caroline. Instead of using the standard Operation Kid Comfort design I decided to use the "Lucky Star" pattern (by Atkinson Designs). Susan at the main office of the ASYMCA here in Springfield, Virginia very graciously did the photo transfers for Caroline's quilt. The photos are of Jason, Jason in uniform, Jason and Rebecca, Jason and Caroline, and even one including their dog Sadie. The fabrics include a lot of orange, Jason's favorite color. The machine quilting, which I did, begins with stitching around the central star and then parallel lines radiating outward.

After completing the quilt I decided that Caroline also needed a small "quiltie" that she could take with her whever she goes, in the car, to a friend's house, and traveling. So I made a single block with a single photograph (the photo of Jason, Rebecca, and Caroline was taken the night he left on the deployment), and then I put taggies of various ribbons around the outside of the small quilt.

Rebecca and Caroline visited us in May and here is a photo of Caroline and her toys on the quilt.

Catching Up - Part 3 - Knitting for Caroline

Our grand-daughter, Caroline Anne Floyd, was born October 3, 2008 in Anchorage, Alaska. Once I found out Rebecca and Jason were expecting I spent most of last year knitting little sweaters and hats to keep the little one warm during the long Alaskan winter.

Here, for your viewing pleasure, are photos of Caroline in the various sweaters and hats. The photos are in order by her age, not necessarily the order in which I made the items. For those of you on Ravelry you can find pattern and yarn details there (I'm fairfaxknitter there as well).

(Note - the crocheted blanket behind Caroline is one that my grandma Lewis made for Rebecca in 1981 when Rebecca was born - the tradition continues!)

The Seamstress - a book

I just finished listening to an amazing book ... The Seamstress by Frances de Pontes Peebles. The basic plot is about two sisters, Emilia and Luzia dos Santos, who live in the province of Pernambuco in Brazil in the late 1920's and early 1030's. Both sisters have been taught seamstress skills by their Aunt Sophie - how to cut, how to mend, and how to conceal. The author has divided her novel into chapters which alternately tell the story of Luzia, who is abducted by a group of outlaw "cangaceiros " and lives her life as a nomad in the scrubland, and Emilia, who marries a wealthy young man and moves to the city. The sisters' lives diverge in ways they could never have imagined.

The book has been described as "an enthralling novel of love and courage, loyalty and adventure, that brings to life a faraway time and place". I highly recommend it. And I highly recommend listening to it while knitting and quilting (21 CD's in the library edition)!

Catching Up - Part 2 - knitting for others

Here is a sampling of the knitting I have completed for the Anchorage Stork Project and other "knitting for others" organizations since last June ...

Catching Up, Part One-quilting

I have been seriously lazy about updating my blog since ... can it really be last June that I wrote my last post? The two major family events since then are ... our grandaughter Caroline was born in early October in Anchorage, AK to our daughter Rebecca and her husband Jason, and our younger daughter Kate completed her master's degree at ECU and moved to Baton Rouge, LA to start her PhD studying coastal geography.

So what have I been doing? Some quilting ... some knitting ... some traveling. Having daughters in Alaska and Louisiana means traveling several times a year to those interesting places. They could not have "chosen" more different climates ... one lives through Hurricane Gustav just weeks after moving to Baton Rouge, the other has ash falling from Mount Redoubt on the snow in her yard in Anchorage. One lives with snow five months of the year, the other wears shorts and Chaco sandals year round. Each has a wonderful sense of adventure.

Here are some of the quilted items I've completed since last June ...

A"yellow brick road" pattern quilt for grandaughter Caroline - machine pieced and machine quilted. The fabric in the border is the same as the bed skirt. You will see this quilt again in the monthly birthday photos of our grandaughter I'll post soon.

"Alaska Animals" for Caroline - embroidered animals, all found in Alaska, in snowball blocks, alternating with nine-patch blocks. I hand embroidered the animals, machine pieced the blocks, and hand quilted the layers together. This quilt was so much fun to work on ... the otter on his back is my favorite block.

"Prodigal Summer" - a table runner made using the ancient Isle of Man Roof Tile folded log cabin technique. I first learned of this technique from quilter Pepper Cory when she visited my quilt guild in 2007, then found instructions in a Jane Hall book. Then my book group had a challenge last year to make a quilted object representing one of the books we have read. I chose "Prodigal Summer" by Barbara Kingsolver ... elements of the runner represent the three story lines in the book. I hand pieced and hand quilted the entire project.

"Sugarloaf" - a small quilt started in a class taught by Debby Kratovil at our Quilters Unlimited show in 2008. This quilt is machine pieced and machine quilted, and has been given to a child in the Fairfax Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

"Crumbs" - a small quilt started in a class by Bonnie Hunter taught at Springfield QU in January 2009. Bonnie taught us how to use all those small scraps - crumbs - to create small crazy-pieced blocks. After all, those scraps did cost money and throwing them away would be like throwing away money. This quilt is also machine pieced and machine quilted, and has been given to a child in the Fairfax Hospital NICU.

"Circa 1970" - wall hanging started in a class with Linda Fiedler in May 2008. Linda taught us her applique method. I interpreted her design as a representation of the bottles I had lined up on my windowsill in a college dorm room many years ago (I guess the title gives away my approximate age!). This piece is hand appliqued, and hand quilted.

Stay tuned for photos of lots of baby sweaters ...