Bonnet Girl Quilt Top Finished

Last week I showed my vintage Bonnet Girl quilt/summer coverlet (I think of it as my Sugar Sack quilt :)...last summer I shared the tracing of the embroidery design and some blocks that I embroidered. Well, I finished the blocks over the winter and here's my interpretation of that vintage quilt.

I stayed with the bar lay out but that's about it. I used Robyn Pandolph fabrics for the bars and wide border. I embroidered with many different color flosses and I added a lot more detail to the dresses. I loved doing it-it was dressing little dolls.
Bonnet Girls have lots of different names...these could also easily be called Umbrella Girls...here are some close-ups.
Check out the pantaloons above...I love doing French knots!
I couldn't resist filling two dresses with lazy daisy flowers.
I think this is one of my favorites...like a delicate dotted Swiss.
I used two different background fabrics for the blocks...they're Kona cotton but I don't remember the exact shades. One is beige and the other pink. Its very subtle.
If you too would like to make a Bonnet Girl (or Umbrella Girl!) quilt, you can download the embroidery pattern here.

I think I'll post cutting and sewing instructions for the quilt and a tutorial on outline embroidery this week-end.

I'm linking to Finished for Friday at Lit and Laundry and Sew and Tell at Amylouwho. Be sure to stop by both and see the wonderful things made and sewn this past week.

More Bonnet Girl Embroidered Blocks

I've been working on more Bonnet Girl blocks...these are just so much fun! I've made this one delicately colorful! I really like how the French knots look going further up the skirt-it reminds me of dotted Swiss fabric from when I was a girl! (I had a red dress with white dots.) I couldn't resist-I had to google dotted Swiss fabric-it was first made in Switzerland! :) in 1756 and is usually a light/pastel cotton fabric (batiste) and the dots are either woven or flocked on. You can see some pictures of dotted Swiss fabric here. (I remember my dress was flocked. Remember when flocking was really popular?-my mother had flocked wall paper in our hallway.)

This girl's dress is an all over floral-maybe nasturiums and her bloomers are a very delicate gray blue "lace". She is all ready to go for a walk in the park to look at the changing leaves-dressed in her Fall finery!

This is really fun, now I don't just get to dress up my "dolls", I can make up stories about them too!

Remember, if you'd like to make some Bonnet Girl blocks-the free pattern is on my sideboard.

Embroidered Bonnet Girl Free Pattern

On Tuesday, our computer went kaput! Fortunately, it gave us some warning-it kept restarting itself-so our resident IT Guy was able to save all our files before it died completely. His diagnosis: the motherboard was shot! We took it in and the shop agreed-turned out they were able to get us a new motherboard and since it was 1/3 the price of a new tower, we went with that option. DS spent yesterday getting our files reinstalled...actually it is still on-going-I'll want to do something and he has to come and install whatever it is he forgot to do (like hook-up the scanner!)


Remember I said I'd show the blocks I've started embroidering and upload the pattern that I traced from my vintage Embroidered Bonnet Girl Quilt...

Here are the two blocks that I've completed...I'm really having a good time "dressing" the girls! They're all done with outline stitch, French knots and Lazy Daisy stitches.

I've used two different background fabrics...a beige and a pale pink. You can see I've added some extra decoration to the girls' dresses , their umbrellas, and even their bloomers! This is so much fun!

You can download the pattern here. Please let me know if you do embroider one or more-a whole quilt's worth like I'm going to do!-it will be so much fun to see and share our "fashion" ideas.

Here's a pix from the original vintage quilt-just so you can compare and see the wonderful possibilities in dressing these girls...I'm telling you-this is as much fun as playing with dolls!