Saturday, October 16, 2010

Anna

Too tired to blog...but here:
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She was obliging me by showing the back of her gown to the camera.

More coming.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Saintonge Flag Quilt

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I have a friend, who's sick. He's going to be dealing with a lot of doctors and hospitals and feel crummy for a while. There isn't much I can do to help...but I can help keep him warm, while reminding him that there are people who care. And, while we are at it, this will remind every doctor and nurse who enters his hospital room that this man is important enough to have people making him hand made stuff.

When my daughter had her tonsils out, I noticed that the medical staff flocked to her, to admire her handmade doll and quilt...so I do my best to send friends and family prepared.

So, here is what I did....

At Jo-Ann's, we wanted to get fleur de lis polar fleece, but they didn't have any (I though I'd seen some, but, sadly, no). So Abe suggested a Saintonge flag, backed with Marine Corps polar fleece. I decided that was a great idea, so here is the flannel for the flag:
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And my rulers and rotary cutter...this would have been impossible without big, good rulers...at one point I had to use 3 to cut my squares, these are big squares!

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If one is clever, and remembers how, and the weird seam allowances necessary, you can get 4 squares, each made of 4 different colored triangles, without ever actually sewing a pair of triangles.

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You take two squares, sew them diagonlaly, twcie, then cut between...that gives half square triangles.

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Then you do the same, again, to get quarter square triangles.
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I put the white all around, and the stripes of all the colors, like the ribbon/braid hanging from the real flag pole, to make it rectangular and long enough (a hint of this is to the left in the photo way back at the top). Here it's unironed, waiting for me to go to Jo-Ann's to get more white flannel. It's very very bright in person.

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It's flannel on top, fleece on the back. Totally washable, soft and very cuddly. It folds up small, but should be nice and warm.

We just got back from giving him the quilt. He liked it, we chose well ;-)