Factory Leftovers

My mother's last factory job was as a sample maker for Talbot's.  When they closed, she was given some things they wanted to get rid of.  They have been taking up space in her basement ever since.  She showed me a beat up styrofoam chest - what in the world could be in it? 

This is what I ended up bringing home.

Found Objects

Being a long-time seamstress (both home and work), my mother has a basement full of "stuff". She worked in factories, and when the last one closed, she brought home lots of materials they wanted to dispose of. I was going through some of it today and came across a box -I knew this wasn't factory stuff. It was assorted crochet cottons and bits of crocheted laces and started doilies, things I assumed my mom had done. However when I asked her about it, turns out it was my grandmother's. 

This is the pile of crocheted items. The colored pieces are little 3D pansies. Cute!

Above are a variety of crochet and perle cottons. Some are labeled "silkasheen". I especially like the rounded shape of the wooden spools.  It's a little hard to see in the picture, but they all bulge out in the middle.

Maybe some of these goodies will find their way into some of my projects!

The Box

Today my mother pulled a small shoe-type box out of the closet and revealed some things I'd never seen before.  It was like opening a time capsule.

It contained pictures, report cards, postcards, newspaper clippings, even a miniature dictionary. These were keepsakes she had saved from her youth and young adulthood.

It was so fascinating to see my mother in a different light, glimpses of her life as a girl and single young woman, before marriage and children. I suppose my own children may say the same about me some day.

Above, her first grade photo and report card along with a certificate for 3 consecutive years of perfect attendance. She attended several one-room schools and skipped the third grade.

This collage is a mixture - the bottom section is the only school dictionary she ever had. It is about 2 x 4 inches and can be seen in the open box above with the black cover behind the pictures. The booklet is for World War II savings stamps for use in buying bonds. And pictures at different ages - as a teen with her accordion and on the beach at Atlantic City. What a treasure! I'm so glad she hadn't thrown these things away.

Photo Quilt

I am visiting my mother and thought I would share this photo quilt I made 16 years ago for her 75th birthday, which hangs in her living room. Photo transfer printable sheets had not been developed yet, in fact, this was before I was proficient with computers, so it was a completely hand done, very time-consuming process.  Each photo was copied on a color copy machine as a mirror image so the transferred image would be the same as the original. There was a transfer medium, I think it was called "Picture This", which was brushed onto the photo, and then placed face down on the fabric and allowed to dry. That probably took about 24 hours. After that, they were soaked in warm water and the paper rubbed off, leaving the transferred image on the fabric. It was a lengthy process and there are lots of pictures! I'm so glad it can now be done digitally!

Quilting Winter Oaks

Since I was still in quilting mode and had some time today, I decided to get started with the quilting on this Winter Oaks piece that has been on the design wall since last summer.

The painted tyvec leaves like the one I'm stitching above were already stitched to the quilt top.  I am going over the previous stitching (through all the layers) with a different color that shows up better.  Some of the leaves are photo transfer, done with Transfer Artist Paper by Leslie Riley, and some are done with discharge medium through a thermofax screen.  These are supposed to be "ghost" leaves, the ones that are most decayed and are less visible except for the stitching that outlines them.

More to come later.  I'll be away for a week so will get back to this project when I return.

Quilting Done!

After 5 days of work the quilting on this project is finally finished.  Binding is attached and ready for hand stitching.

Snow Dye Results

Snow dye results are pretty unpredictable - the snow we had this week was very light and fluffy, not high water content, so the dye was less diluted as the snow melted than it would have been with a wetter snow.  Anyway, you never know quite what you're going to get!

 The piece above is the black cherry that was a low-water immersion dye.  It has some very dark and very light areas, and interesting color separation.

 This piece is a combination of parakeet and kingfisher blue snow dye. There is more blending of the 2 colors than distinct areas, except for a few streaks of the kingfisher blue.

 This snow dye was a combination of dragon fruit and black cherry.  Both lengthwise edges of the fabric have white areas where the dye didn't penetrate, which make some interesting patterns.

The piece above is a rayon scarf that was in the ice dye.  The colors I used were baby blue, elephant grey and watermelon.  I was really expecting more blue but the watermelon dominated.  There are some large areas with very little color, so I will be adding some more to this one.  It does have some very interesting patterning though.