A Finish! Grandma's Apron Strings

Grandma's Apron Strings

(Wheel of Fortune)

75 x 87

It's a big stitch hand quilted finish!

I started making these blocks called Wheel of Fortune back in 2015 so this is almost a vintage quilt! 

The block pattern is found in the book History Repeated by Betsy Chutchian and Carol Staehle. 

I used kitchen themed fabrics. I used to make sets of potholders, embroidered dish towels and crocheted dish cloth as Christmas gifts and liked to use kitchen themed fabrics for the potholders. I usually bought 1/2 yard of those fabrics and a potholder didn't take up much so I thought I might as well make a quilt of them with a few leftovers. 

The blocks are a bit fiddly to make and finish at 8 3/4 inches.  The blocks are a bit fiddly so I must have set them aside until 2017 when I started making more. 

Also in 2017 I decided to do chicken scratch embroidery on gingham for the sashing.  It is inspired by chicken scratch embroidery I used to see on old aprons. That old blog post shows a few I have in my little collection of aprons I used to use as my kitchen curtains. 

In August 2020 I finally assembled the top. 

The silly (stupid?) thing is that I just ran off and made blocks out of whatever kitchen themed fabrics I had and did not give any thought to colors or values. So when it came time to put it all together I kind of kicked myself because I never thought of that during the whle process. I made the best of things and moved forward...the quilt is for me, reminds me of my paternal grandmother, I like the kitchen themed fabrics, the whole thing was a little self challenge,  I won't be putting it on a wall, I won't let the quilt police near it. I decided on kind of alternating dark and light blocks and ended up making a few more blocks just to make a layout like that all work out. You know I usually sew blocks together randomly but this time I had to arrange them on my design floor. 

This month I started hand quilting. 

There are seed packets on back. I bought this a long time ago when Hancock Fabrics went out of business and have been saving it as a backing for this quilt. 

Unfortunately I didn't have enough to match up the seam on back. But like I said...it's for me and I don't mind. I probably won't spend much time staring at the seam. 

And sew on...

Finished or Not Finished Friday at Alycia Quilts

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REMEMBER, TREASURE, GROW, READ (my words of the year)

Veg Garden:

I planted a bundle of Patterson onion plants from Dixondale Farms a week or so ago. Several years ago I went from planting onion sets purchased locally to planting onion plants. I've been getting better results and longer storing onions so I'm glad I made that decision.  (All that white stuff you see are heavy plastic water softener salt bags.) I put them on pathways between rows. I read a long time ago that

raccoons have sensitive paws making them uncomfortable to walk on surfaces that feel slippery or unnatural like plastic bags.  I think the raccoons around here have mutated and are no longer uncomfortable but I still put them down in pathways to help smother weeds.   I did make the mistake one time of also putting down cat food bags (we have a lot of barn cats) but the raccoons thought there was food in those bags so dug them all up to have a look-see. So I don't use cat food bags in the garden anymore. 

One thing about planting onions...the birds like to pull them up and leave them laying there so I have to go out every day and replant a few.  The big flocks of Grackles have made an appearance. When they fly overhead the sky is dark and they cast a big shadow passing by. They seem to fly in unison then stop and rest and chatter away in the trees. Then when they all fly off to gather seeds at the same time there is a loud swooping noise.  I tried to take a pic of them in all the trees butthey chose to fly off right then.