May I introduce Greta Lillian Rutledge

Jayne’s Grandmother and the quilter of her Redwork Quilt.

I have a little green cardboard box with all he finished Redwork blocks of my re-make of Jayne’s quilt. It is like a little treasure trove, by now it contains 11 of the quilt’s squares.

In a file folder I keep the patterns in all their different stages.

• the printouts of the photo jpgs Jayne sent me from all the individual Redwork block in her quilt, for which I am ever greaful
  
• my tracings on overhead films which I made from each block to act as my pattern masters that I scanned and then resized to fit the fabric squares I choose
  
• and last but not least all iron-on transfers of the final pattern I made by tracing the pattern on the back of paper print-outs
  

I also filed all the little stories Barb send me, the mails I received on my progress and the comments that where made on the photos in my flickr photo file.

And very special pieces in my little collection are the two b&w photos Barb sent me. A potrait of Greta Lillian Rutledge which was the source for my Redwork picture you can see in this post and another b&w print showing Greta Lillian and her little son Floyd for whom she made the quilt so many years ago.

My new etsy shop RedworkInGermany.etsy.com

RedworkInGermany.etsy.com

A little over a year ago I got my etsy account as I wanted to open my own etsy shop and just didn't find the time or - more truthfully - the courage to set it up.

But then, this year was the second time I offered my Redwork on a local craft fair and the positive feedback on my work was so encouraging I finally "opened" my shop, albeit very small...



La Belle Chocolatiere - Redwork embroidery kit
available in my new etsy shop RedworkInGermany.etsy.com

The set has my original embroidery pattern I created based on the painting “Das Schokoladenmädchen / La Belle Chocolatiere" from Étienne Liotard (1744/45).

The original painting by the way can be admired at the Gemäldegalerie alter Meister in Dresden.

The Redwork pattern is pre-printed on a piece of white cotton that perfectly fits the wooden frame which is also part of the set as well as the embroidery floss I used for my version of the Redwork piece: Anchor #1005 and an embroidery needle.

Vintage hand pieced Album Block aka Chimney Sweep Block

This is a vintage block I bought from Jane Lury of Labors of Love at the Carrefour de Patchwork in the Val d’Argent a few years ago. Again, as usual, it was the red&white color combination that made me notice it. But I also really liked the simple and grafic block pattern.

Back in Germany I started to research the pattern a bit and found some very nice quilts on the web pieced with this block pattern.

A beautiful example –

and the one I liked most…guess why… - can be found in an an article on the Quilt History site, which is by the way a great source if you are interested in vintage quilts!

Another example of a beautiful Album Quilt is on the RMSC site

As with quilt projects and me it take ages before I am ready to start. Sometimes I think the research and planning of a project is what I love most about this craft…However, I want to use the vintage block in my quilt and so far I haven’t found “the” idea, yet.

Nevertheless, I keep looking for Album Block Quilts and already marked a few sites with the pattern piecing instructions to be ready to go when I am ready to start…

• An Album Block instruction with foundations to print out
  http://www.threshpublications.com/kris.html
  
• A German text version:
  http://www.patchworkgilde.de/quilts/public/show.php?id=133
  
• This link is also for a pattern of the classic Album Block but the way the fabric color is used it looks kind of wrong but interesting….
  http://www.sewquilty.com/History/0105.html
  

If you find out more about this block pattern please let me know.....

Hand piecing detail of the Album Block aka Chimney Sweep Block

W. W. Denslow's Humpty Dumpty

I love the online "libraries" on the web, especially the Project Gutenberg where I found a book by the illustrator and caricaturist W.W. Denslow. The pictures in his Mother Goose book from 1901 are just beautiful.

And I fell in love with his 1903 version of Humpty Dumpty, a book not part of the Project Gutenberg though. He spinned a story from the orignial nursery rhyme, made the unfortunate Humpty Dumpty to "Old Humpty," the father of this children books main charater Humpty Dumpty a wandering ministrel who travelles the world as the "hard boiled" version that learned from his father's raw egg foolishness. ..

My Redwork designs are adapted from Denslow's Humpty Dumpty illustrations.

Humpty Dumpty Senior

Humpty Dumpty Junior

Halloween Redwork Pattern

I found the orginal Halloween postcard in KellyLWatson flickr file and thought it would be a very nice Redwork pattern for Halloween.

Download my original pattern in a larger size for your own Redwork project.