A Tisket A Tasket, A Pretty Heirloom Basket

A beautiful welcome to all you lovely lovelies♥ Goodness me, it's been a while since I prattled on here at my happy place. July has swirled around and around, tangled and trapped in howling gale force winds blasting into August, without nary a word from moi. 'Tis just a little too cold for me. Wish oh wish I was right smack in the middle of those 40 degrees hot, hot, hot summer days you up there seem to be 'enjoying'. Believe you me I am counting down the days till I can kick Old Man Winter down my ice encrusted country road, so that he can find lodging in some other part of the world! Though I have been absent from blogland for yonks I have been filling my  wintry freezing days with happy stitching.

I have been enjoying hand quilting my 'Buds in the Basket' quilt ('tis nearly finished) ......BUT.......would you believe I have fashioned another quilt, from start to finish! Yes I have; just a little one to adorn a wall in my humble abode. I know, I know, I should be stitching flowers on my 'big girl quilt' but I am afraid I have wandered from that flowery path where irises and daffodils and cosmos nod as I walk by. I have been led down a path where funnily enough pretty heirloom baskets are dotted here and there peeping from behind the blossoms.

Why was I led from my flowery path??  What can I say. I will have to blame it on one of my sewing room, tidying up frenzies. Whilst re-organising some books I came across a quilting book, 'Basket Quilt Show'. It is a book showcasing quilts featuring baskets and flowers, all of which won awards in quilt shows back in the day. I bought this book about 25 years ago and I can still remember being rather taken with the 'Heirloom Basket' quilt. At the time, I of course thought that I would love to fashion this pretty one day. Well......that day came about six weeks ago........quite a few years down my quilting path. As I am a gal who adores her baskets flourishing with flowers, both in pretty embroidered stitches, ribbons and fabric; and in real ridgy-didge drink-in-the-perfume-of-real, flowers....I wanted to try my hand at a little cross stitching with tiny squares of fabric.

This quilt was designed by Ruth Diane Hosfield based on the original double bed quilt pattern by Anne Orr, which was featured in Good Housekeeping magazine in January, 1935. This quilt's style is called cross stitch. Years ago I used to do a lot of cross stitch, though mainly as gifts. I loved to stitch Anne Orr's designs. Do any of you lovelies of  'a certain age' remember her books?? As I researched, I learnt Anne Orr created nearly 100 books of designs for needleworkers. As needlework editor of Good Housekeeping magazine her designs became part of the decor of thousands of American homes.....and I suppose Australian homes, too. Ann Orr's designs are versatile. Her charts may be used for any needlework technique worked over counted threads or in blocks; as in cross stitch needlepoint, filet and mosaic crochet, petit point, knitting....to quilts made from tiny squares of fabric. So when my beady li'l eyes spotted the Heirloom Basket pattern all those years ago, I snapped the book up quicker than quick. Since time immemorial, yes, even when I was a slip of a girl, I have loved flowers in baskets....actually I have always loved flowers. Hard to believe, I know. =)

And......as I have a penchant for baskets of flowers either in quilts, or embroideries, I think a quilt of  1" squares of a pretty basket spilling over with flowers, in a cross stitch design would be just the perfect addition to join my collection of flowers in baskets, pretties.

Anne Orr's designs have always evoked in me a feeling of bygone days. Days of quaint scenes of children and animals; period children in silhouettes. And....I love, love, love her baskets of flowers, peacocks, birds, butterflies......so many designs evoking a feeling of whimsy. I have always considered her designs to be charming.

I didn't need to acquire any fabric as I had all the Kona colours I wanted to use for this quilt and the white background is a fabric that I had left over from another quilt. Sometimes it is a most excellent thing to buy more fabric than one needs, isn't it.

This quilt is fashioned of 2,322 1" squares in shades of grey, pink, blue, purple and yellow. As the main colour is white I chain stitched the white squares in pairs. This made the assembly of each row much speedier as I joined the required coloured squares together until each row was completed.

Love, love, love all that messiness of the back. Love, love, love the concertina-like swirls and swirls of the strips.

I love the back of this quilt as much as the front.  Love the soft muted effect of the sun shining through the quilt backing.

Love all the little crosses of the quilting in each square. Looks like cross stitch, doesn't it??

I love this quilt.  The piecing of the itty bitty squares took some doing and was a painfully slow process, but now that the last stitch has been stitched this happy quilt makes me smile. As this quilt is oozing with tiny squares I desired all the corners to be perfectly aligned.....I am funny like that. Thus the stitching of each row to the one below took an age. I pinned every corner and then stitched slowly along till the end of the row. I am glad I took  the 'slow is better' approach, ensuring each corner is perfect as I think it adds to the cross stitch aesthetic. Don't get that magnifying glass of yours out though......as there could be a few corners that are a little less than perfect.

Upon stitching all these tiny squares together I noticed the chart that I had followed did not match the photo of the finished quilt. The ribbon is a little different to that in the photo. Don't you hate that!! What a pain in the royal derriere. I dithered whether or not to unpick the offending squares but I decided to leave everything as is. I had just finished stitching the 2,322nd square....did I really want to unpick and create much angst?? Noooooooooo!! The ribbon bow on my quilt looks tolerable enough. =) I am guessing "Little Miss Persnickety" ain't so persnickety after all! Shh......now don't you tell anyone.

I machine quilted this pretty. I thought straight diagonal lines stitched through the centre of each square would be the way to go. The diagonal lines stitched through each square gives the effect of cross stitch. I used Mono Poly extra-fine polyester, invisible monofilament thread to quilt as I wanted the quilting stitches to be 'colourless'. I have used a nylon thread before and had so many problems that I vowed I would never use it again. There were a few times when the thread broke but surprisingly the quilting was rather pain free.

I found after quilting this pretty that the quilt was rather wonky. As it was going to be a wall hanging I blocked the quilt to ensure all the 'wonkiness' disappeared. Alas, there are a couple of places that are still a little less desirable, but I think I will just have to live with these imperfections. Perhaps I will block it again. I have never blocked a quilt before so this was a first for me.

I love the cross stitch look of my Heirloom Basket and the gentle gradation of the colours. I love the pixelated look of this quilt. Why, looking through Anne Orr's Charted Designs book there are many other designs that would make a lovely quilt. Perhaps I will fashion another, one of these days.

I am amazed I have completed a quilt within six weeks! Never in the annals of "The History of Kim Sharman's Quilting Adventures" has this ever been done. No big deal to those of you lovelies who seem to whip up quilts within days......but as for me, I am popping the champagne cork!

But enough of me basking in the warmth of  my small accomplishments. Thank you for visiting my little place and taking the time to read my 'stuff and nonsense' about my little "Heirloom Basket" quilt. For the next little while I perhaps should finish my Buds in the Basket quilt and see that some flowers are 'growed' on my flower garden quilt. I can sense that Spring is not too far away........well at least in my dreams! The pretty flowers in the garden are once again beginning to pop up from the earth to herald the season that fills my days with joy. The wattle trees are blossoming and the daffodils and jonquils are beginning to burst from the confines of the prison of their green spathes resulting in bright and happy flowers. Yes indeedy, hundreds of bulbs have broken free from the damp, dank earth and growing towards the sun.

As for my pretty quilt it has now found it's new home on the wall. I must say I love the gorgeous spring feeling it brings to the family room. It adds to the pretty aesthetic which already oozes in this room. May your day be sprinkled with beauty and smiles♥

Until the next time...............

Linking up this week to Wendy's Peacock Party. and Finished or Not Friday over at Alycia Quilts.

WINTER!!

Winter! The very word chills my bones. Way down here at the bottom of the world, where it is just a hop, skip and a jump over melting sheets of ice to Antarctica, Old Man Winter, that blustery, ill-mannered chap has brazenly blown in. Yep.....he has arrived. He has swirled and swirled wherever he will, tempestuously dispensing his frigid tricks from that over-large bag of his, onto us mere mortals........and Maisie, too♥

I wish I loved Winter. I know there are some of you lovelies who invite Old Man Winter into your homes with outstretched arms and embrace him, chastising him for being away so long.....but I do not. There are some of you who don your snowshoes, your skis; and trudge through snow up to your chin for mile after mile and have the best time, embracing whatever Old Man Winter heaps upon you. Why, I would believe there are some of you who would lay supine, on that white stuff  as it slowly thaws and turns into slush; looking at the crystal blue sky above with a smile on your face.

What can I say?? I am a gal who as a newborn bairn was delivered by the stork right smack in the middle of a Sydney Summer, where perspiration dripped from those who, as they gathered to ooh and aah over my sweet tiny self, they then collapsed onto the floor fainting with heat stroke. As for me, I would not have been perturbed one iota. I would've just gurgled and cooed at everybody, happy to feel the strength-sapping heat of Summer hugging me. Wish oh wish I could be as enamoured with wintertime as you......but I quite simply cannot. As Old Man Winter steals his way into my humble abode, squeezing under the door, I love to crank up the fire and see every little corpuscle of his cantankerous self melt away into oblivion.

Oh, I know Old Man Winter paints the landscape in the most beautiful of suffused colours at wintertime; and though the sky blesses me with sunrises which are more beautiful than summery ones, and the kaleidoscope of bejewelled colours which magically appear as the sun shines on the ice-sheathed earth is a spectacle one would never witness in summertime......it's just that.......it's so darn cold. "But you can rug up", I hear you say. Yeah I can, but it wouldn't matter if I walked out of my bright pink, front door clad in apparel that an Eskimo would wear, I still feel Old Man Winter's icy touch.

I have never liked the cold. It's a family thing. I seem to have DNA which has deemed  that I would always shiver.....just a little. My mum was the same, as was my nanna......so I guess what will be, will be. I will just have to suck it up for another three to four months; don my thick aran knits, throw another log or two onto the fire and follow Old Man Sun's sunbeams around my humble abode, as they shine through the windows.

Freezing temperatures aside the tracery of  naked branches plonked in a glass jar or an old tin bucket, with the background of a ramshackle potting shed, or the sky behind them is always a beautiful wintry sight. I do believe tortured willows are one of my very favourite trees, especially in the wintertime.

What has little ol' shivering me been up to since you lovely lovelies last visited?? Why, during the day, I have been following the sunbeams from room to room as I bask in the warm beams of happiness. Yes indeedy, with my quilting needle and thread....and my Buds in The Basket quilt in hand, I have plonked my gluteous maximus...my derriere on many a sunny chair, enjoying a little hand quilting. Sunshine is one of life's pleasures is it not?? Sitting in a comfy chair, slowly stitching away is truly one of the delights of my days. In the evenings too, I have been snuggling under this pretty, keeping warm, happily quilting whilst watching TV. Aah.....the good life!

I am loving hand quilting this quilt. As I meander upwards in a diagonal line.....down......and then up again, sometimes with wonky dashes wandering off that 'straight and narrow' path, the hand quilting relaxes me; calms me. I seem to get in a groove. I find beauty in the slow, imperfect stitches. Mmm...I wonder if I will ever get the hang of stitching perfectly spaced, perfect stitches of even length?? I find hand quilting tactile. I love the squishy squashy-ness, wrinkled feel and look of hand quilting.  Hand quilted quilts I find, are soft to the touch.

As well as line after line after line of diagonal quilting, I am stitching a basket weave pattern in the baskets and quilting around the buds....all rather meditative.

This last little while 'My Pete' and I celebrated another year of wedded bliss. He and me have been skipping hand in hand along the flower-lined, bendy path for 41 years! AND...some said our happy union wouldn't last....hey, what do they know. Our daughter sent this sweet tea towel and oh, how it makes me smile. I wonder......if ever he will?? As yet.....he has not. =)

Anyway......thank you lovely lovelies for visiting my little wintry world♥ As always the thought that you have visited me and read my musings has delighted my heart once again. May you who live way, way up there enjoy your summery warm, sunshine-filled days and I way, way down here will remember that there is much beauty to be seen and to savor in my wintry days. I will do my darndest to keep warm. So very thankful for toasty, cosy fires, knitted aran woollies, pretty cups steaming with hot ambrosial tea and warm quilts that cover me as I slowly hand quilt. As it is Sunday tomorrow, I feel a little snuggling down with some hand quilting will be enjoyed in the afternoon and into the evening.

Until the next time............

Linking up this week to Kathy's, Slow Sunday Stitching.

"Ah! Well away! Seasons flower and fade." Alfred Tennyson

A lovely welcome to my little autumnal little place♥ I would like to say thank you for each lovely comment you gifted me last time you visited. Each one of you truly blessed me with your kindness. May I say at this juncture that my little basket of beribboned flowers will soon be flying over land and sea to the lovely Marilyn. I think I will have to fashion more pretties to give away throughout this year as it is such fun.

Down here at the bottom of the world, Autumn has arrived on the wings of force gale winds, whooshing most of the flowers into oblivion with great gusto. I have no doubt the seeds will appear in the strangest of places next Spring. It is always a delight to see where Mother Nature has dropped her bounty each year. She sows her seeds wherever she will. Some flowers in the garden are still standing, but they are past their best. In one accord the flowers are leaving the stage. The remaining flowers, the Dahlias, Buddlieas, Cosmos..........the Hydrangeas....have strut their stuff on the Summer stage for months now and will soon vanish to the land of repose. I always feel a little sad with the passing of Summer. I love everything about Summer....the warm sunshine, the early rising and late going down of Ol' Man Sun, the vibrant colours of the garden, long, lazy days of activities spent outside; long Summer days that go on forever. But...Autumn and Winter do bring months of cosying up in front of the fire and early morning walks drinking in the joyous sunrises that only Winter can deliver. Then, there is Ol' Man Sun whose rays reach deeper into my home basking everyone in his warm embrace.......so perhaps Winter ain't too bad after all.

The trees' canopy is ever so slightly beginning to change from the verdant brightness to leaves that are dotted here and there in yellow, orange and red tones. In a little while the  dry, crackling leaves will tumble to the ground covering the ground with an autumnal hued carpet.

There hasn't been a lot of stitching happening since I last chatted. I have put aside my flower quilt these last couple of  weeks as there are some design decisions I need to think about. I also wanted a break from stitching petal after tiny petal. The Wisteria is next on my to do list and as we all know the Wisteria flower is abundant in petals; many of them itty bitty in size. I suppose I probably should have worked on my 'Buds in the Basket' quilt but a new tarting up project has been gaining some momentum in my imagination.

My attention has been diverted to a chaise lounge I purchased about fifteen years ago. I loved the shape (and still do) and the thought has always been in my mind that I would recover it one day.  Believe it or not it is the comfiest of chairs. No wonder those medical professionals in the know have like-shaped chairs (though I suppose theirs are covered in red leather, in a more modern aesthetic than mine)  in their office for a spot of psychoanalysis......I can imagine they make a patient feel very relaxed and more prone to reveal their deep and hidden thoughts.

As is always the way with me, I was looking at my reclined pretty for the millionth time the other day and I decided to start playing with the covering and see what I come up with. Now is the time to pull out my upholstery tools yet again. For all these years my chaise lounge has been hidden under quilts and crochet blankets which has been fine thus far, but I am tired of it so a little tarting up is required.

The 'parlour' is a restful room where shades of soft blue and white are seen everywhere. This colour combination is and has always been my favourite. It is a room which will be undergoing a little sprucing up throughout this year. The faux wood walls have to, have to go. I mean really, if one is going to put wood on one's walls, please, please cover them with real, ridgy didge, run-your-hand-along-the-grain-and-knots-and-in-the-process-get-a-splinter.....type wood. Oh, and  I will be giving the wooden floor boards a lick or two of white floor paint. I know, I know.....who paints wood floors....well......I do. Yep....I am a, cover-wood-with-a lick-of-paint, kinda girl. =)

There are many pretties that I have fashioned over the years, to be seen in this room. This room evokes cosiness, an aesthetic of a bygone era. It is a room where I spend a lot of time in the winter months, stitching or knitting, reading.....and just dreaming. Especially those chilly, sunless days where the blazing open fire lulls me with its warm embrace. And then there is the view. It is a view that always quietens my soul. I am in no need of a psychotherapist session when I sit in this room.....though of course, those who are privy to the inner workings of my muddly mind may beg to differ.

I want the chaise lounge to have a smattering of fabrics, along the same aesthetics of the chair I tarted up a couple of years ago.

I  have gathered together fabrics in different blue hues and patterns left over from other pretties I have fashioned. As is my style, I will play for a while with no set design in my head and go with the flow.

I am going to incorporate some hexie love somewhere on the chaise lounge. I am  hand stitching hexies in shades of blue and white, with the thought of wrapping the arm in these pretties.

I will play with these fabrics, hoping to work on the chaise lounge in the Easter holidays which are coming up in a few weeks.

May I say, that nobody's back (mainly my husband's) was put out of kilter  during this photo shoot. He is a good man, is my husband. =0

On the flower front I have been filling vases with cut Hydrangeas as very soon Jack Frost will be visiting, touching these pretties with his icy fingers, causing these gifts from Mother Nature to flee. The days here are still warm and sunny BUT the nights and early mornings are becoming chilly. I sense Jack Frost's imminent arrival. The wonderful thing about vases of Hydrangeas is that they fade into the prettiest autumnal shades. All other cut flowers metamorphose into a pongy mass of organic matter after a week, but not the Hydrangeas, they provide pretty colour for months on end.

Aah yes......Happiness with a capital H =  Hydrangeas!

For the next little while I am going to play with fabrics and see if I can transform my chaise lounge into a tarted up pretty.  I am supposing there will be a few problem solving challenges along the way.

As my once summery little place fades into autumnal glory and you up there shine with the expectation of all the bright, happy colour that Spring brings, may I say thank you for your sweet visit today♥ It is a blue sky, sunny kinda day down here at the bottom of the world. I think I might enjoy a little Sunday afternoon hand stitching some sweet little hexies.

Sending each one of you lovelies a little, blue Hydrangea LOVE.

Until the next time.............

Linking this week to Kathy's, Slow Sunday Stitching.