Vintage wee quilt from Grandma #3

I've saved the best for last. I suppose you thought I'd forgotten? This is my favorite doll quilt of the three. The lovely colors and all of the tiny, tiny squares and stitches make me happy. Grandma is pretty sure that Mrs. Richards (is the name right, Grandma?) next door made it for her when she was a little, little girl.


I have fabric on the way that reminds me a bit of this same feel, one print is quite modern and one has the vintage-look of the truly vintage fabric in this quilt. Both will be made into some wee little quilts.


Random thoughts:

• I'm looking for a pattern to recreate "The Perfect Skirt." It has to be very, very simple because my entire sewing experience with clothing consists of a pair of wacky royal blue shorts I made when I was about 10. My 'perfect skirt' is not just a pipe dream; it's actually an Isaac Mizrahi skirt from Target (bought many years ago). It's an A-line and goes just past my knees, and it was my first A-line skirt. Who knew I'd been missing something so wonderful for so long. I feel my very best in it and it's so forgiving. Seriously, when I was teaching my colleagues would walk by me in the hall and say, "I see you're wearing your 'perfect skirt.'" I let everyone know how much I love the darn thing. I want to make several to wear all spring and summer in the same shape but without a zipper (I'm not up for zippers yet). I don't want a really bunchy waistline so I'm worried about elastic, but I have to use elastic right? Any ideas? Being home I figure I could make three and rotate through them, wearing only those through fall, and nobody (aside from the boy, of course) would ever be the wiser! I'm only half-way joking. Speaking of the boy... He's made his first fashion choices lately, demanding what we've deemed his "fancy pants" every day. They're bright orange hand-me-down cargo pants. They're WOW! Sometimes he wants my bright blue and green striped scarf to wear with them. Anyhow, I don't think it would bother him if I wore the same skirt every third day!
  

• I like this "do something every day" idea. I saw Shiso Mama's collage-a-day via Whip-Up and I liked the commenter's idea of 100 words of fiction a day. That seems doable. I've mentioned before how I'm always "WOW! And this... Oh, and I could add this and do this and WOW... and... Why isn't it done already?!" Via Apartment Therapy (Nursery) I just saw this artist as well. She does a painting every day and I really enjoyed her site. I suppose I already do incorporate this idea into my life. I do the dishes every day, and make the coffee, and brush my teeth...

• I need Timtex for a pattern. I know nothing about it. Is it something I absolutely need to order (craft/fabric stores around here don't carry it), or would something else work just as well?

• I'm feeling old. It wasn't my birthday this past weekend (it was my husband's) but events are conspiring to make me feel old. I keep finding these absolutely incredible web sites where these women are doing amazing things, only to discover that they are so young too. Like here, at Inside a Black Apple. It makes me a bit panicky, like how I feel when I read an outstanding book and discover that the author is about five years younger than I am. I get this clutchy feeling in my throat and chest and think, 'but I haven't written my book yet?!...' Anyhow, really enjoyable things going on out there by people that have so MANY wonderful years of creativity in the wings. Not that I don't. I'm just feeling old. I've been painting with white paint lately on the boy's kitchen and then last night in the basement I'm doing, so I have all of this white paint in my hair. I keep looking in the mirror and seeing the white and thinking that I need to really do a wash number in the shower; then I look more closely and it's just the gang moving in. That's what we call the white hairs around here: the gang. They're slowly taking over the neighborhoods in my hair. Oh, and my sister gave me a tour of "My Space" (with a chuckle that I hadn't ever visited before) and I found all of these people from my high school and from T's school (I didn't recognize anyone really). So many of them just look so old. T and I both felt like we don't in any way look like those people do, but of course we must. We're getting older. But it's OK.

• My lovely and talented sister added in a link to some of her Flickr images on her website and I think so many of them are so outstanding. Some of those England pictures look like stock photography (in a good way). They're gorgeous.