Log Cabin quilt top and a Lover's Knot scarf

Yesterday I finished the Log Cabin quilt top. It is 6 x 8 blocks and large enough to be used as a day cover for a single bed.

Because my quilt will not be a square but a rectangle, I decided to use this setting.

Florals, stripes and plaids, nighties, aprons, summer frocks and shirts happily mixed together.

The Solomon's Knot or Lover's Knot stitch is one I have been thinking of for a long time. It looked too difficult, but I decided to give it a try anyway. My 25 g ball of Rowan's Kidsilk Haze just called for a pattern like this.

As usual, my first crochet rows had more tension than the rest of the scarf, but you really can't notice it easily. And yes, the pattern was super easy, and only a couple of times I had to unravel to the previous row because I had skipped one stitch or made one too many.

My pink peonies are just starting to bloom, much smaller flowers this year and about a week later. Our June was exceptionally cool and we had lots of rain.

VTT 18 - Monograms

Two weeks ago in my VTT post I showed you a collection of marking thread , because there was some talk about it in Miri's VTT post. Today you  will see some of my linens with monograms stitched with these threads. Suzanne is hosting VTT here.

     

Here are my kitchen towels with different monograms. Actually, the one in the top left corner is for my face, it just happened to be with these other towels. The next towels I made by hand because I didn't have a sewing machine at the time, and used red marking thread and chain stitches. We had the towel fabric as a wedding gift. The ones in the bottom row are from my grandmother and from my mother.

Grandmother's towel is used for glasses, because the fabric is lint-free and thus perfect for drying up glasses. Cross stitches in red marking thread.

Here is a pillowcase with her initials, white marking thread on white linen. The pillowcase has two pairs of tape at the open end, tied together to keep the pillow in place. When I was very little, I sometimes was allowed to curl the tapes with a pair of pliers by turning a wing nut at the end of one of the grooved cylinders in them.

Different monogram on a face towel from Grandmother.

Striped linen towels, good as new, made by my mother before she was married to my father. I believe she has never used any of these  kitchen towels, and neither have I. They feel stiff and don't dry very well, just because they have not been used and washed. Red cross stitches in red marking thread again.

These were my initials when I was a schoolgirl and made one towel like this at school. My mother bought some more of the same fabric so I could make the first half a dozen towels for my "hope chest". I only have four of them, two have been used threadbare. Cross stitches in embroidery floss this time.

When I was leaving home to live on my own, my mother made me 12 of these towels and marked them in light blue marking thread.

When I was engaged to Mr. K, mother made the rest of my hope chest linens: pillowcases and bed sheet with lace crocheted by my late grandmother at a time when I was just about 10 years old. She crocheted lace inserts for all 6 of us, for half a dozen sheets. Here are my old initials for the last time.

These are my favourite towels, only used about once a year just to kep them from yellowing:

Great Auntie Saima's monogram in red and white marking thread. This was before she was married, so it must have been in the 1930's or earlier.

Grandmother's big dinner tablecloth of linen damask, big monogram in red and white.

  

Finally the oldest monogram, my great-grandmother Amanda's little tray topper.

  

I hope you enjoyed the peek in my linen closet (with some re-runs from earlier VTT posts). Other kinds of vintage thingies you will find on the list of links at Suzanne's blog here.

Vintage Thingies Thursday 14 - more books and lace

Last week I left one book untouched, and now is time to show what is in it. Coloradolady Suzanne is hosting VTT again, and on her blog you will find the links to all other blogs playing along.

The last book is Handarbetsboken, a handicraft book in Swedish. It covers many different crafts, like sewing clothes, stitching, knitting and crocheting.

Samples of the crocheting patterns:

These are some of the laces my grandmother crocheted for me after she had gone blind in one eye. We are six sisters and brothers, and she crocheted a set of half a dozen laces for each and every one of us to be used in our bed linen.

Back to the book: this is how you learn to knit on four sticks.

And you will learn to make the heel in at least two different ways. I prefer the first one.

That was all for this weeks vintage. Suzanne is showing her first jar of vintage buttons, and at the end of her post are all the other links.