{"id":3977,"date":"2010-01-07T06:40:47","date_gmt":"2010-01-07T13:40:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/?p=3977"},"modified":"2024-09-03T14:02:29","modified_gmt":"2024-09-03T21:02:29","slug":"applique-from-the-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/2010\/01\/applique-from-the-past\/","title":{"rendered":"Applique’ From the Past"},"content":{"rendered":"

My mom often cleans out some part of her house or storage and tries to give me things. I have a lot of things. Probably too many, so I try and refuse. She got me in a weak moment over the holidays and I ended up with a plastic bag containing something that was a very odd shade of green. She said it was Aunt Grace’s Holiday tablecloth.<\/p>\n

I have a holiday tablecloth and during one of the massive cleanups during this holiday season, the plastic-bag-with-green-who-knows-what got shoved in a closet downstairs. As luck would have it, or perhaps some goddess of table linens was smiling on my dead Aunt Grace, The Child spilled chocolate milk on my holiday tablecloth right before a party, so I went in search of the green thing to see what it was and if I could stand looking at it.<\/p>\n

Oh Me of little faith!<\/p>\n

\"Holiday<\/a>
Holiday Tablecloth<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Well, I have to say I do like this tablecloth. My mom said that Aunt Grace had one of the first zigzag sewing machines in the 1950s and made this tablecloth with her own drawings. I have no idea if that is true (when were zigzag machines available to home sewists??) or just family lore. I can relate, however, as I did a wild and complicated machine applique’ project<\/a> when I first got the 9K because I was so excited about having zigzag capability.<\/p>\n

\"Dancing<\/a>
Dancing Santa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We had a big discussion in my house about the meaning of the Happy Dancing Santa and his red face. Too much dancing?<\/p>\n

Santa has long and luxurious hand embroidered eyelashes!<\/p>\n

The satin stitch  on all the pieces is really thick, so we have had discussions about that as well. I can’t tell if she used thick thread or if the fabric bunched up under the zigzag. I guess there could also be some stabilizer in there, but I didn’t see any when I looked at the back.<\/p>\n

\"Candles\"<\/a>
Candles<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One thing I noticed is that there is a lot of movement in these designs. The slanted top of the candles is an example of this. The shape of the candles echoes the shape of the holly, wreath and other motifs.<\/p>\n

\"Reindeer\"<\/a>
Reindeer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We all agreed that this reindeer looks very Seussian. I would love it if Aunt Grace had a journal or blog where she talked about her inspiration. Was she reading Dr. Seuss at the time? It gives me renewed resolve in continuing to post about my projects and quiltmaking encounters!<\/p>\n

\"Bells\"<\/a>
Bells<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As you may be able to see (click to enlarge the picture), Aunt Grace has used French knots for the edge (lip??) of the bell. Notice how she used one towards the bottom to highlight the shape. Very subtle, IMO.<\/p>\n

\"Snowman\"<\/a>
Snowman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The very un-PC snowman with his prominent pipe! She used some hand embroidery stitching for the eyes, which she also used on the reindeer. I also like the way the stitching around the sections of the motifs do not match the fabric.<\/p>\n

\"Tablecloth<\/a>
Tablecloth detail<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I love the detail in the designs and also the variety of thread used. I also like it that everything is not perfect. I don’t mean that she put in fake mistakes. She just did what she could do. It looks real to me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My mom often cleans out some part of her house or storage and tries to give me things. I have a lot of things. Probably too many, so I try and refuse. She got me in a weak moment over the holidays and I ended up with a plastic bag containing something that was a … Continue reading “Applique’ From the Past”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[390],"tags":[3,330],"class_list":["post-3977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-390","tag-applique","tag-other-artists"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3977"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63980,"href":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3977\/revisions\/63980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}