Another Purse... & ANTIQUE GFG QUILT

My time and goals of late have been to bring some little projects to completion. I wonder why I get so excited about doing/making something and then let it sit and languish somewhere uncompleted? Shoot... I have absolutely no idea. Does that happen to you? I can understand it with long complicated projects like making a Dear Jane quilt, but not knitting or crocheting up a little purse! lol... of course in all fairness, sometimes not having or finding just the right fabric for the lining, or perhaps stumbling over a couple of design decisions can muddle things a tad. . . that's what happened with this knitted purse. I knitted it in the round; made the bottom with Emily Ocker's Beginning and swirled the increases to make it pretty and then knitted it straight up until it was deep enough to make some eyelet openings to later run I-Cord draw strings through and then finished it off with a bit of a ruffle to give it a "girlie touch".  I was inspired by a picture I saw in an ad for Lion Brand Yarn. Actually Lion Brand has a ton of free patterns available on their site.  So, this little purselette was easy peasy... but the lining slowed me down. SOLUTION! I remembered I have a wonderful gadget by Olfa -- their Circle Cutter -- OMGosh this is a neat tool. If you don't have one, please do yourself a favor and run out and get one! I see a bunch of circles in my future! LOL. So after cutting a few circles out of TemTex to stiffen the bottom, I made a double pocket on the lining to hold Kleenex and Cell Phone in neatly in place and then sewed the thing up... slipped it inside the purse and whip stitched around the top edge to hold lining in place.  Very straightforward. Below are some pictures of my process. 

Note the muslin double circles folded in half and put edge to edge--that's so I can remove or replace the TemTex as the whim strikes me... I'm happy with that little idea and will probably use it again in future purses/totes. A little zigzag around the edge to tidy it up.

I did a purl round to set off where the circle of increases ended and where knitting straight up the sides begins... this also made it easy to put the lining in later.. no guessing... I like that! lol.

Last night I printed up the last of my FF hexes, cut them out and hope to sew them today & applique to their b/g squares tonight... then the fun part: embroidery! I sure do have the embroidery bug lately. . . do you like to embroider? What kinds do you do?  If you are interested, there is a button on my sidebar so you can click over and see what some of us are doing with these FF blocks... cute, small, quick & fun.

This is a GFG quilt that my neighbor brought over yesterday. Isn't it gorgeous?  The color choices are amazing! Every intersection is perfect and this is stitched hex-to-hex... no EPPing! Keep in mind that this was pieced sometime in the 1940's before rotary cutting and Inklingo. This was made by someone with serious and extraorinary quilting skills!  So here's my neighbor's dilemna: "... what do I do now?"  As she wants to actually use it, binding it will be necessary. Once the edges are stabilized the stain removal process can begin. Can you believe this was rescued from a tattered box in a garage?! Unbelieveable! My first inclination would be to LIGHTLY trim the sides by about 1/2" to true them up, then bind with a bias binding... the scallopped top and bottom edges could be saved with even more careful trimming before binding. I wished she had shown this to me before she ran it thru her washer a few times as the edges could have been saved... I don't relish doing all of that mitering, but it would have been beautiful... of course, facing is always an option too.  Now, before doing anything, I'll be doing some online research today to hopefully find some local people who can advise about other options for this beautiful antique quilt. She wants my help to fix it, but I want to gather more info first. The repairs are no problem, but when it's an antique I think gathering some opinions from the experts is always a first good move.  We do have a couple of very well known and admired quilt appraisers and quilt judges in my area... I'll try and reach a few for their thoughts.  I'll post more pictures of this beautiful quilt as we go along. If you have specific recommendations, or know of some experts in the San Diego area, I would very much appreciate some contact info... please comment here on this post or email me. Thank you.

Missy lounging in her supervisory spot at the end of my bed while I sew. Note how she has taken over my hand knitted shawl. . . she now thinks it's hers and uses it all the time! lol..

That's it for now... I hope everyone has a lovely day. I'm thrilled to be moving around more and actually sewing, etc.. Prayer is incredible and I sincerely appreciate all the prayers and well-wishes I've received... I am doing well and the healing process is moving along. Reconstruction surgery will be in about 10 days to two weeks... then I'll look normal again... well, what every "normal" is... lol

Hugs,

Cyn; -)