What's on the line?

Last week, I brought you just one quilt on the line but this week, I have many things on the line! Sunday afternoon there was a bit of sun and not too much wind so I filled a basket full of goodies and headed out to my clothesline in the trees. And since today is National Apron Day..........

I thought I should hang some aprons on the line! I picked three from the little collection that I have . That first one in orange may look like a child's apron but it's not. I made the apron in 1969 for me to wear as a young bride/happy homemaker in the kitchen. :-) And I really did wear it. I was 19 and weighed 98 lbs. For obvious reasons, I no longer wear this apron. :-)

The middle apron is one that my mother gave me a few years ago. It's done in Seminole patchwork and she bought it at a garage sale.
I took a close-up of it (double-click for a close-up view) so you can see all the tiny patchwork and all that tiny rick rack! I've never used this apron, but it's owner did as there are a few stains on it that would not come out when I laundered it.

The last apron is just a little cotton paisley apron that my mother gave me, another vintage treasure. I love it because the fabric is the kind of print that my mother would use to make aprons for my Aunt Bell. My mother would buy the fabric and make large bib-front aprons for Aunt Bell (she raised my mother). I would love to see this fabric reprinted today. I just love it!

As I was getting out the aprons, I came across the yellow pillowcase that holds this quilt....... You may look at and think - wow, that has been "well-loved" and you would be right! This is the first quilt/comforter that I made and I did it in 1970 when our daughter Collette was born. We were stationed overseas at the time (near Tokyo, Japan) as my husband was in the Air Force. I had a very, very small fabric stash then. I loved to go to the shops and look for fabric but we didn't have a lot of extra money then, so I used scraps from some of my clothing and the small bits from my stash. I used an old green blanket for the batting and backed it with an old green sheet. I made it for her as a baby but it was always on her bed right up through her high school years. The quilt was so important to her that when she went off to college she wanted to take it with her. The fabrics hadn't worn away on the quilt top then but the backing was in shreds so I gave it a new green sheet and then repaired the seams on all the blocks. Then I added the rows of rick rack to hide all my repairs. When she graduated from college five years later, this is what was left of the quilt. It will never be thrown away, too full of memories. :-) (And yes, I know that technically this is not a quilt because it's "tied" but to her it was a quilt!)

This next quilt that I hung on the line was made by my mother. Her work was much finer than mine........embroidered blocks and all hand-quilted!She made this one just before I made the patchwork one for Collette. She embroidered the blocks using patterns she had used in the early 1950's. When it was finished, she sent it off to us in Japan. It hit me yesterday, that it must have been very hard for her to send the quilt off knowing that she would not see the granddaughter that would be using it for almost three years. I remember well, just how exciting it was when we finally returned home to the states!

Here's the last thing I hung on the line to share today..............it's a Sunbonnet Sue made by mother!

She made this little wall-hanging for me this past winter. It was a long, cold winter and there were many days when she just couldn't get "out and about". So she sewed to "pass the time".
She also made the hearts and the mini wallhanging in the photo on the left. And when winter continued to stay cold and snowy, she made the St. Patrick's Day potholders and then used an Easter panel to cut and make coasters. She had stitched all of them for me and gave them to me when I was home at the end of March.

And since I'm sharing things my mother made, here's another piece that she did several years ago and gave to me as a Christmas gift. She found the hat pattern in a magazine and she used her "stash" to make the hats and then embellished them with bits of lace and trim, ribbons and buttons. I may have shared this one before but decided to share it again. My dad loved this one. He was always really proud of whatever my mother made. :-)
It hangs in my sewing room where I can see it every day because when I look at it, I can remember my dad describing how my mother worked on the quilt and it's just a very pleasant memory. :-)

That's the end of "what's on the line" for today but I have one more picture to share. First, though, I said I was going to sew on Mother's Day but I never got to it. I did get the fabric pressed and cut out for my rick rack project so it's ready to go for today. :-) What I did do on Mother's Day was to finish a good book (more on that later), wrote a letter and then our son, Devlin, and his girlfriend, Stacia, came over for supper. I asked him to take a picture of me wearing an apron since Monday was National Apron Day. And he laughed and said......"oh, so you can show you cooked on Mother's Day" which made me laugh. Yes, I cooked on Mother's Day but I didn't mind because my husband treated me to dinner the other night so it wasn't a chore to cook last night. Since it was unseasonably cool outside, I decided it was a good time for a Sunday night breakfast. :-) That's right....scrambled eggs, French toast, bacon, hashbrowns and biscuits. It tasted realllllllllly good, if I do say so myself. And the apron I'm wearing in this picture.........it was a Christmas gift from my friend, Pandora, and I really use this one. It fits me a lot better than that little orange number at the beginning of this post!

Have a great day!

Sandi