Day 4 of the Studio organizing and hopefully the last day. Who would have thought it would take so long? What surprises me the most is the things I've kept. Notebook after notebook of scribbled quilt ideas, shipping boxes, fabric bolt boards and every little scrap of fusible webbing. Really? is fusible webbing that expensive? The trash man is in for a big surprise this week. However in my digging I also found some hidden treasures. This chicken scratch alphabet was made in 1987, my senior year of high school, in an elective class called Needlework. I already knew how to do most of the projects in the class such as embroidery, crochet, and sewing clothing. But I had never seen chicken scratch embroidery. I fell in love with the lacy look. The piece below was the starts of a matching pillow for a baby quilt I made using the entire alphabet. I may need to finally finish this little cutie. The old gingham is thin, very poor quality compared to today's gingham. Some fusible interfacing would probably be needed to make the fabric easier to work.
How cute is the little heart balloon!? Even way back then I had a love for hearts and gingham. Oh my goodness that mushroom brings back memories of my first kitchen after getting married. Yellow and white gingham curtains with mushroom decor. Times sure have changed. It was hard to get a spot in this class. We would start applying for Home EC classes as soon as we started high school. It took 4 years before I could take this particular class. It was an easy credit for me since most of the things they taught I already had been taught by mom.
Finding these little treasures caused me to slow down a bit and enjoy the moment. I was getting a little overwhelmed and kinda irritated at my messy Studio. The old UFO's reminded me of a simpler time when life didn't move so fast.
Now to tackle this, again. My old desk/ catch all is being made into my new sewing table. Hubby cut the hole in the top. I made the recessed table, he attached it to the table. Today I will put the top back on the desk and drill a hole for my knee lift. It may end up looking like swiss cheese, wish me luck!
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Sometimes when cleaning we are reminiscing, and takes us longer to clean in the process...it's nice to come across the once upon a time things too, that takes us back. :)
ReplyDeleteI just started cross stitching again and is it ever different! There's a whole community of cross stitchers on You Tube, they call them Flosstube and it 's come in handy. Some just show their work and what they buy but some like to give tutorials or product reviews. I've learned a lot and one day I will start my Mirabilia Mermaids that are so beautiful. The masking tape around your piece made me chuckle-we all did that back in the day. It's a big no no anymore but I have some old pieces I didn't finish like that too. I never seen chicken scratch until within the last ten years when Mary Corbet blogged about it. I would like to try a simple piece on day. I learn so much from her too. I recently came across some State Birds I started embroidering in High School. I didn't finish all 50 but I'm going to put what I have in a quilt top with some pretty blue and white layer cakes. I love seeing how I started out tight and it puckered-going to use them anyway, then I learned what tension to use and the rest look nice. I came across an old cross stitch sachet I made that is lovely but I sewed it so wonky I was tempted to re-do it but decided to just wash it and use as is. It shows how far I've come since the 70's, early 80's. After all, I adopted the "It doesn't have to be perfect to be pretty" saying and this should be one of those projects that won't be anywhere near perfect because to be honest I don't think any of my stuff is perfect but I do try.
ReplyDeleteIn "those days" the gingham was likely a poly blend. VERY hard to find cotton gingham at that time.
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