Some More Baskets and Quilt

BASKETS, BASKET AND MORE BASKETS

I was recently at my friend Teresa's house for a girls weekend and spotted a basket that I enjoyed making. 

Teresa really liked this wall basket when I made it and wanted to give it to her husband as a gift.  As you can see it is very well used and is made from an antler of a White Tailed Deer with willow branches as the base and woven with reed that has been dyed in walnut hulls.  I added a bit of leather.  It's really a man's basket. 

This basket Teresa made into a bowl shape and is made from willow, a large hoop for the rim and woven with reeds and birch bark.  



My grandmother's brother lived in Minnesota and sent us the birch bark.  What a fun medium to use. 

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SCRAPPY DO QUILT

 
I worked on this quilt for my sister.  She picked out the pattern and we used what fabric I had and purchaced some so that there would be a good mix of prints.  

 
It originally was going to be king size so I had a lovely turquoise blue for the border.  She has since down sized to a queen so I took the border off and it fits just perfect!

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I haven't been sewing as much lately.  Between vacation, girls weekend and helping with our new addition to the house, I've been kinda of busy.  My brother from Hawaii had some Crown Royal bags and would like me to make a quilt out of them.  I had not heard of using the bags and when I Googled it, lo and behold, there were many quilts made.  Now I just have to pick a pattern and fabric. 

Thanks for visiting,
Cinder 







 

Willow Basket, Quilt and Christmas Decoration

 Thank you all very much for the warm welcome and nice comments.  What a pleasure this is going to be, to share a common interest with others like me.  Confession time:  sometimes when life gets chaotic, I will go to my fabric stash and mellow out by sorting fabric, looking at patterns or even make a run to the fabric store.  Ahhh, life is good! 



SMALL WILLOW BASKET

 I had the opportunity to learn basket making in 1990 from a lovely lady, Teresa, who is still my friend.  We went out into the woods to gather everything we needed to make a basket:  creek bank willow, scrapped willow bark, cattails, and grapevine.  Then we could add basket reed, fabric, leather, lace or anything that was flexible.  The basket reed was dyed by soaking it in walnut hulls to give it a great brown color.  The longer the reed was kept in the smelly "solution", the darker the color.

 

I made this basket with a grapevine handle and willow ribs and rim.  Then it was woven with some reed and scrapped willow bark.  This is one of my favorites because I like the curlicue!

SMALL SQUARE QUILT

 My sister-in-law Ann purchased several bags and boxes of old fabric, batting and miscellaneous quilt blocks at a sale.  In the box was 5 sets of 10 block by 4 blocks, each small block measuring 1 3/4 inches.  My guess is the fabrics are from the 1950's and 1960's.



Well, I love a challenge and pondered what to do.  I laid them out on my white work table and WOW.  I LOVED the look of each block being separated by white, so that is how I put it together. 

 Half of the blocks are the original vintage fabric. I added some vintage and modern to make it a twin size quilt.  I added a border of the same squares and hand quilted it.   This quilt was given to my niece as a graduation present. 

MY FAVORITE CHRISTMAS DECORATION

Santa's laundry - a decoration?  My grandmother made this many years ago.  It is the first decoration that I like to get out and hang up.

Even Mrs. Claus gets clean bloomers and an apron and check out Santa's red long underwear!

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Well its time to start thinking about presents for the grandchildren.  Happy shopping to all...

Thanks for visiting,

Cinder