Monday, November 12, 2012

Hand-dyed wool penny runner




One of my latest finishes. I've been working on these pennies as a take-along project for quite some time. But YAY, it's finally done, and in the right season.  It is about 42 by 15 inches. The colors are quite a bit more muted than I can capture, and the lights are not as light as they appear.

The large pennies are 4.25 inches, the medium ones are 2.25 inches, and the small penny on top is a little over 1 inch. I whip-stitched these together, then onto the backing with regular brown sewing thread in a primitive style.

I bought the kit as an end-of-season deal several years ago from Country Sampler in Spring Green, Wisconsin.  The pennies were simple to do.

My biggest challenge was figuring out which color was which. How hard could that be? Well, here are the color names I had to choose from, with none of the colors identified on the felted wool pieces:

  • Rusty nail brown
  • Faded gingerbread
  • Country pumpkin
  • Pumpkin mold
  • Jack-o-lantern stripe
  • Brown tweed
  • Pumpkin tweed

The olive, yarrow and red were the only easy colors. I was nervous that if I started cutting without thinking, I would run out of a key color if I chose the wrong one. But they were very generous with the wool, so there was wiggle room for possible boo-boos.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Antique Broken Dishes


I picked up this quilt top a few years back; it was labeled a doll quilt, but it's 22 by 28, so it's closer to a small baby quilt. No info came with the piece, but the fabrics looks nice and old (maybe prior to the turn of the century?)

I love the jumble of colors.

A close-up of some of the fabrics.

Even closer...

And the back. I'm prepping this for hand quilting over winter.