When Old Meets Young

1930s Butterflies with authentic feedsack binding

My oldest daughter Audrey turned 33 years old last week. Yikes! Where did the time go? My 3 daughters always think one of the others is my favorite. As a mother, I have no favorites, but I do say to Audrey: I've loved you the longest!

She is enamored with all things vintage. She began digging through my box of feedsacks years ago and has already claimed all of my vintage quilts and recreations of vintage quilts. Whenever we find something like the butterflies square above, she says: Mom - will you make a pillow for me? Well, I know her husband Dani can't even find the bed at night because of all the pillows on the bed, so I turned this block into a table topper. I added NO batting, just a muslin backing and cut extra wide binding from AUTHENTIC feedsacks. This was birthday present #1.

Yo Yos from c.1980, intended for place mats

I came upon a whole set of these 4 x 5 row yo-yo placemats at a New England quilt show I was teaching at. I think I spent $30 for 20 of them and Audrey and I have had fun taking a few apart so she could decorate various items with the yo-yos: purses, sweaters, etc. I realized I could stitch all of the remaining ones together to make a table runner. But no hand work here: I used invisible mono-filament thread and a small zigzag stitch and finished this in under an hour. You may have missed an earlier post last summer when we took a 1930s yoyo quilt and mounted it on a foam core board covered in muslin. It turned out so awesome! Go see the post here: Antique Yo Yo Quilt.

Antique Yo Yo Quilt mounted on muslin covered foam core

And the last gift has a wonderful story. My friend Jeannine, sometimes quilter and faithful walking partner in the mornings had a gift she bought for one of her daughters, but her daughter didn't like it. She racked her brain to think of someone who would appreciate it and then remembered meeting Audrey at my house a month ago when she came over to do more sewing with vintage items. Jeannine gave me this AWESOME, creative purse made with a book cover from Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre! She figured Audrey would love it (and she absolutely did).

Book jacket re-purposed into a purse

This turned out to be one of Audrey's favorite authors. She is a high school English teacher and loves introducing her students to classic literature.

See? It says "Jane Eyre"

 And look at how well the inside was constructed:

Purse inside - well made

So, sometimes I like to re-purpose vintage things. Do you think Audrey takes after me? She does like to call me up on a Saturday morning and say - Mom, can I come over to sew? Well, OF COURSE! I cancel any plans I may have had (ie, housework) and we have fun in my cluttered,  messy studio. She has all these ideas she finds on Etsy, Pinterest, and any other place that people visit to get fabulous ideas.

So, this was a happy meeting of young (Audrey) with old (me and the vintage items!). She loved her birthday presents. And, oh yes! I also made a chocolate cake from scratch and chocolate butter cream icing - from scratch (her wishes). And spaghetti and meatballs (her request). I guess you could say she's my favorite oldest daughter !!!