Irene

My Great-Grandmother was named Irene.  She was hilariously funny, didn't take crap from anyone, and called it like she saw it.   She lived in a different era than we do today - one that managed to merge fashion with comfort in a delightful way.  Irene never wore pants.  Ever.  In the 24 years we were a part of each others lives, I only saw her wear dresses.  There were two kinds of dresses in her closet: Church Dresses and House Dresses.

I love a good summer dress.  One that's light, fun, washable, comfortable to wear running errands, yet fitted enough to wear out for dinner.  So I started a quest to create the Perfect House Dress.  There was much trial and error, but I think this is it.

I call it the Irene Dress.

Irene 1.0 and 2.0, plus Irene Jr.

It's a simple style with rounded, retro-inspired collar.  Pullover with tie at the back.  A bit of elastic in a casing gives the shaping, combined with pleating detail.  There is a small pleat at the back neck, too, but I forgot to take a picture of the backside.  Sorry!

Collar detail and pleating

The Irene Dress began as Simplicity 2029, which is a sleeveless top.  The collar and front pleating is directly from that pattern.  Everything else is my own design, including additional length and shaping, back pleat, and the empire waist with elastic casing.

My daughter wanted one too.  Instead of trying to downsize my pattern, I bought McCalls 6501 for hers.  It's similar, but without the empire waist or pleats.

I remember my Great-Grandmother for something other than her dresses, too.

Cookies!

She always always always had tea and cookies ready to share.

Miss you, Grandma.

Quilt Blocks are like Mogwai

Sure he looks cute and harmless, but remember what happens when the three rules weren't followed?  They multiply.  Everywhere.

That is kind of whats happened with the Craftsy Block of the Month around here.

My Mom visited just over a week ago, and she is also doing the BOM.  April's blocks were those nasty little hexagons which involved English Paper Piecing, and needed to be stitched by hand (she's a rule-follower, which is probably why her block looks so much better than mine).  So she brought her blocks along to work on while she was here.

Perfect, aren't they.  She is using a fat quarter bundle of coordinating prints.  It's going to be just stunning!   Especially if she uses hot pink sashing between the blocks.  But this is her quilt, not mine, so I'll try not to insert myself into her design decisions (too much).  These are all Mom's blocks so far:

On to my quilt.  Remember the drama around the hexagons?   I absolutely did not want to English Paper Piece anything, let alone hand stitch all those stinkin' hexagons together.  Well, my Mom was diligently working on hers, and my Daughter said, "I can do that!" and she did!  She learned the paper piecing technique, and she hand stitched my second April quilt block.  I am eternally grateful and I owe her Something Important for doing that block for me.

This is the block she did.  Fabulous job!  And she's only NINE!  

I finally found time to go back and assemble the March blocks, and they were delightful!  Scrappy, mis-matched, creative little bundles of fun.  Check it out:

These are all my blocks so far:

Lastly...

Having block patterns and colorful fabrics all over the place motivated my daughter to launch her own block of the month journey.  I bought her two fat quarter bundles in pink and lime coordinates, and she got right to work.

She's learned a lot about geometry, seam allowances, chain piecing, and pressing technique.  She also loves the steam feature on the iron for some reason.  Weird kid.

She has the above four blocks finished so far, and the octagons are ready for hand sewing. 

At the end of this journey, we will have three multi-generational quilts to display!  I'll post pictures throughout the process.