Some Things Old, Some Things New

From the old cedar chest - this is a piece of redwork I bought at a flea market in Germany when I was there about 8 or 9 years ago. I am not sure what it is, but it is fairly long and just has the embroidery on one end along with a fringe trimming. I don't know what it says!, but it is very prettyFour cute potholders, especially the dress. Can't remember where I got them, but they are so cute. Not place for displaying them in my little kitchen, but maybe one day one of the girls will love these also.

This, and the picture below, are from Ray's mother's things. She had pinned a note to it saying "This belonged to my mother". I don't think that her mother embroidered it, but really can't say that with absolute certainty. It is all done in a chain stitch.

The rest of the piece - it is very pretty. As with the first redwork, I don't know what this one was for. It is too large for a pillow.

I do know about this little piece - it is something I did fifty years or more ago and is stamped cross stitch. It was framed and hung in my kitchens for a long time, but finally I took it out of the frame and used the frame for something else. Fun to look through the old things.

On to the new - I was looking at someone's blog the other day and she was talking about a foot that shirred or gathered ruffles. I have seen some darling quilts made with the ruffles. One of our guild members just made one in blues. My Bernina did not come with that attachment. I entered a phrase in the search box that I thought would send me to a site that had these little gadgets. Bingo! I found one. The attachment wasn't too expensive - with shipping and all it was a little over $20. That's not too much for a new toy. It was here in less than three days. So, I have done some ruffling!

Once you get your strips prepped, it's amazing how fast and perfect the foot does the ruffling. It takes some time to do the edges of the strips, but it's not that bad. I just did a close zigzag along each edge. I searched for how to do a ruffled quilt and did find instructions for one done on a Babylok serger so that gave me guidelines on sizes, etc. Don't you just love the internet?

(Click to enlarge)