Weaver Family Quilt

There was no break after Christmas around here.....my dad's 80th birthday was the 23rd of January and I knew we wanted to celebrate that day!  I had several projects in mind and really wished I would have started working on it earlier, but that didn't happen.....

The story started last summer when the Silver Fox and I were able to go through a few things that came from the Weaver family home attic. The Weaver's are my dad's maternal side.  Part of what was there was a pile of old clothing, that would have been worn by my Great-grandmother, Rose Weaver or her daughter (my grandma) Mildred Kullmer, or even some of her brothers.  Some of it was not in the greatest condition, but I brought home most of it and into the wash it went.  Sink or swim time!  I had vintage quilts spinning around in my head.  There were shirtings, chambray, cadet blue prints & some wool.....my guess is work clothes from 1920's.  Here is some of what I had to work with......

Here is the wool overcoat....it was not in good shape holes everywhere, but the color was good and it was not a heavy wool....so had possibilities.

After spending a little time on Electric Quilt.  I came up with this simple design called Weaver Farm Memories. (If you have EQ7 I have included my project file to share.)  I wanted the piecing to be fairly simple.....most of the fabric is worn and thin.  I did spray starch it heavily and that really helped to handle the piecing.  I also used the walking foot when I was piecing with the wool....that seemed to want to creep on me.  Some of the fabrics have spots and a few tiny holes....just adds to the history and charm of it all.

Then I had another idea.  I have had my Grandma Mildred's wedding dress for a long time.  She gave it to me because it was falling apart and I had interfaced it to basically hold it together.  So I got that out and hand tacked it to the back of the quilt.  I have had the dress in a box and thought this would be a better idea, at least to use it, be able to see it and include the story.  It is tucked and basted down just enough to hold it in place on the back of the quilt.

I had this small piece of toweling that had been hand stenciled by either Great-Grandma Rose or Grandma Mildred.....so that became my label with the quilt info included.

Then I made a fabric dress tag.....printed out on fabric the picture of Keith & Mildred Kullmer's wedding and cut out a tag shape from that after interfacing it and then backed it with a piece of muslin that was also interfaced after writing the information about her wedding dress on the back side of the tag.  I basted around the outside edge to hold it together, then went around the outside edge of the tag twice to make a nice full edge.  Also finished a tiny circle to put the ribbon through.

I did ink the wedding dress info by hand, but it was a fairly small font....made it hard to do.  If I was repeating that, I would have printed it directly on the fabric.  The story my grandparents told me, was the day of the wedding they drove to Black's Department store in downtown Waterloo and bought this dress for about $25-30.

The lace is still beautiful!

I chose to machine quilt it with a free motion baptist fan design.

We had the party at my brother's house and I brought some things to display.

The black wool blanket came from Czechoslovakia  when the Fisher Family came to this country 1880-1890.  They used in when they traveled in the sleigh was the story Grandma told me.  The little bubble suit was made for my dad.

I made a quilt roll with the backside and the dress toward the inside.  And I used the belt from the wool coat to make a strap.

I like to do Shutterfly books for special occasions.  I used Dad's H.S. graduation picture for the cover on the left. 

Close up of the bubble suit.....see the little kitty faces embroidered on it?  Sweet & tiny knitted mittens too!  The story goes that my dad was born on his mother's birthday and there was a snow storm going and I don't believe the Dr. arrived till after he was born.  It was so cold, they wrapped him up and laid him on the open stove door to keep him warm.  He was born at the Weaver family farm.

My brother served BBQ brisket and pork loin and all the fixin's.  It was all so yummy!  And we topped the menu off with cupcakes from Scratch.  Too die for!!!