Now that I have two new shoulders to use in sewing and two new knees so I can go downstairs and back up again from my sewing studio, I've been at my sewing machine. This is a wall hanging that I made for our youngest granddaughter's new apartment. Alyssa is a great tea lover, she collects tea pots, tea cups, and various tea varieties as well as serves as hostess for regular tea parties for her friends. So this quilt was designed just with her in mind!
The tea pot resembles my maternal grandmother's tea pot. The cup and saucer were as close as I could come to an antique cup and saucer (I used Prisma-colored pencils to shade the cup and saucer). The lace doily is from my collection of laces - my paternal grandmother made many lace doilies in her lifetime. The napkin is actually a handkerchief from my mother's belongings. It is embroidered with a "G" for her married name of Gangl. I believe that either she or her mother did the embroidery, as both were adept.
The bluebirds are symbols of happiness in many traditions and I feed them and photograph them regularly, so they are part of the ensemble. I printed the photos on silk, then fused them to the quilt top and did machine embroidery to make them stand out from the background.
Since Alyssa has been an organic farmer and is very much a farmer at heart, as well as a nature lover in all ways, the background of lush leaves provides a relaxing atmosphere for a tea party. For the table I used rusted fabric that I did many years ago back when we were still in New Jersey. I love the rusted fabrics and still have a nice collection of them, but they are somewhat difficult to quilt and worse for embroidery! Machine needles need replacing often as then dull quickly from the rust. But it makes a perfect table top for this quilt!
I did the "pillowcase" method for backing to eliminate binding - I'm not very good at corners of the bindings and find the pillowcase a great solution! Here is the back of the quilt - hopefully you can see the machine embroidering and quilting in it. Click on the image for a better look!
