Paintings by Ella Gardner

My friend's grandmother Ella Gardner was a prolific painter.  And she also made quilts.  She painted lovely scenes of rural Wisconsin life, her Amish neighbors, and my favorites of course, quilters doing what we do best - making and loving our quilts.

There is an exhibit of Ella Gardner's paintings up now through  March 12 at the Steenbock Gallery in Madison, WI.  The Wisconsin Regional Arts Program has created a lovely page about Ella Gardner and her art. 

Quilting Party

Rescuing a Double 9-Patch

Here's a nice old quilt with two large, dog-chewed holes.  Needless to say, this is never a happy circumstance....

The first step was adding new cotton batting, basting down the raw edges of the holes on both front and back.  After that, I patched the back with a solid blue. 

    

   

Mushrooms!

I found this delightful fabric on the back of a cotton crazy quilt.  The top was probably pieced in the 1950s, but I think this backing was applied a little later.  The color palette says 1970s to me.

It's really silly and happy, isn't it?

The cluster of mushrooms measures 1 1/2" tall.

The quilt was very, very damaged.  The backing and batting were mostly torn and gaping in many places, and lots of the top had barely a single piece of intact fabric.  I did manage to salvage and mend a few corner areas for keepsakes.   And I found enough fabric intact on the back to take a couple of photos for my (and I hope your) enjoyment!

1934 Sock Top Quilt

A short while ago, I repaired a late 19th century baby-sized crazy quilt.  The quilt's owner shared her family photos to add to my blog post about her little quilt.  As I keep saying, I meet the nicest people when I work on their quilts!

Well, her kindness didn't stop there.  She oh-so kindly sent me this photo of a quilt she saw on exhibit at the Mingei Museum in San Diego.  It is labeled "Sock Top Quilt", made by Ada Jones in 1934.

 

"What's a sock top?" you ask.  I certainly had no idea. 

A 9-Patch Quilt with Many Stories

Some quilts are repositories of stories, memories, and love.  This is one such quilt.  It was made c. 1950 by the owner's mother.  She can relate the stories of all the fabrics in it.

The quilt is still used by its owner and her husband as a lap quilt on the couch.  The original binding was tattered, there was a hole, and and some of the fabrics were starting to wear.  Her husband found my website, and sent the quilt to me for a fix-up.  A loving gift indeed!

Denim and Flannel

This quilt was made about 10 years ago, and has a sweet story.  It's been much loved because it was made by a father for his daughter.  I always like to give kudos to a guy who makes quilts!  I love the subtlety of all the shades of denim blue.

Darn It! - Creative Mending

This post about creative mending is in honor of my personal New Year's tradition of mending everything I can during this week.  (I don't just do sewing mends, but I'm not going to tell you here about the new seat in my bentwood rocker and stuff like that.)  I like the symbolism of starting the year with a clean slate.  Or mostly clean slate.  I'm coming to terms with the reality that Life is never fully mended....

A short while ago, my blog was mentioned on a site called "Sew Mama Sew" - nice name, huh?  The article is called "All About Textile Repair: How to Repair with Stitching".  The theme is about making repairs that add something new - sparks of color, whimsy, a new design element, etc.

The photos in the article show loads of ways to use darning, sashiko stitching, and the like.  It looks really fun!  It makes me reminisce about the good ol' hippie days, when jeans were patched/embellished with colorful fabrics and embroidery.