Hope Chest 2

My youngest daughter turned 13 this past weekend.  For her birthday, her grandmama gave her a hope chest.  It is just like the one her sister received last year.

She has already filled it almost full with table linens, afghans, quilts, and kitchen linens she has either made herself or been given as gifts.  She will continue to work on items for her future home and place them lovingly in this chest for it represents her desire to one day be a wife and mother.

It sits in her bedroom in a place of honor.  It is the first piece of furniture she will have in her own home one day.  There it can hold priceless treasures from her life:  special baby clothes from her babies, photos of her family, cherished gifts.

As I mentioned in another post, I have the hope chest my grandma bought to store her son's clothes in during the Great Depression.  It sits in my bedroom and reminds me of her every time I see it.  It is my desire for my daughters to remember their own grandmama in their future lives when they see their hope chest in their homes--to remember the investments she has made in their lives, to remember the legacy of love she has given them, to remember their heritage of faith in the Lord even when times are hard.

Hope Chests

I have a hope chest in my bedroom...though I didn't get it until long after my marriage.  It was given to me by my grandmother, who bought it in 1929 when her son was born.  She used it to store baby clothes in.  I cherish this wooden chest.  I use it as a place to store photographs and special mementos.

My daughter received her very own hope chest this past Christmas.  It was a gift from her grandmama who had it built just for my daughter.

It is longer and wider than mine, but built the same.

She uses her hope chest to hold the items she makes, buys, or receives as gifts that will one day be used in her future home.  The chest keeps those items in one handy location, protects them from getting dusty, stained, or misplaced, and will be a beautiful piece of furniture in her home.

Kitchen Linen Set for the Hope Chest--An Overview

For my daughter's recent birthday, I made her a kitchen linen set for her hope chest.  I began with a foundation piece of fabric which I sewed into an apron.

 

 

Using that fabric and its colors, I decided to make potholders, dish clothes, and trim dish towels.

I began by making potholders.  I used the foundation fabric for the top of 6 potholders.  I backed two with a reddish orange fabric, two with yellow fabric, and two with brown fabric.  The potholders have two layers of batting inside to protect hands from hot pots.  I also quilted the top fabric, batting layers, and backing fabric on the sewing machine so they could be washed without the batting breaking up inside.

Next, I crocheted 6 dishcloths in yellow, 6 in brown, and 6 in a reddish-orange cotton yarn.  These are very simple to make, using only the single crochet and double crochet stitches.

Every kitchen needs dish towels, so that's the next project I undertook.  I used 3 brown dish towels and 3 yellow dish towels I bought at the discount store.  For these, I then used a thin baige cotton thread and crocheted a small flower.  I hand sewed 3 flowers at the top and bottom of those towels.

I found some baige dish towels online and used 6 of them to fill in the kitchen set.  For those towels, I cut 2 inch wide strips of fabric in the foundation fabric and in the reddish orange fabric.  I ironed under 1/4 inch on all edges, then sewed those strips down near the bottom and top of the baige dish towels, using the foundation fabric on 3 towels and the reddish orange fabric on 3 towels.

That means this set has 12 dish towels total, 18 dish cloths total, and 6 pot holders total in addition to the apron.  At some point, I'd like to add some pot scrubbers in the selected colors of brown, yellow, and reddish orange.  These can be crocheted out of netting.

Aprons

Aprons--such a simple little item, yet they serve a big function in a busy household.  Historically they were used to keep one's clothes clean in order to reduce the laundry load in a time when all laundry was washed by  hand.  They still serve that same purpose today, particularly useful when you are frying up supper on the stove or having guests over and are busy with last minute kitchen food preps.

Aprons can have pockets added to the front, which is very useful when you are going from room to room, tidying up.  If something isn't where it belongs, you slip it into your pocket and then when the current room is finished, you can replace each item where it belongs.  Those pockets are also useful to hold your cleaning supplies, clothes pins (when hanging laundry on the line), tissues/hankerchiefs, etc.

Aprons bring back many memories for me.  I spent many hours with my grandma growing up and she always wore an apron in the kitchen.  I have a couple of her old aprons now.  They are old and faded, some falling apart.  She was born in 1907 and died in 2000, so her aprons were old and very much used when I inherited them.  But I keep them still, hanging on a nail in the corner of my kitchen.

Here is one of my Grandma's aprons.  You can see it is stained and ripped.  But it still has meaning to me.

This is an apron a dear friend, A. Morton, made for my oldest daughter several years ago one Sunday afternoon.  She used ribbons for ties and added a cute ruffle at the bottom.  I used this apron as a pattern to trace on old newspaper and I use that newspaper pattern to make little girl aprons to sell.

These are some of the adult aprons I made to sell this past Christmas.  I simply enlarged the pattern I use for little girls.  I use ribbon ties at the waist and one at the top.  I also add a ribbon loop at the top so that the apron can be adjusted to fit the wearer.

These are some of the little girl aprons I have made the past year.  Aprons are a fun and quick sewing project...and easy enough to be one of the first few items a young girl sews herself.

And that brings me to this apron pictured above.  It's one I have made for my daughter.  It is the basis of a kitchen linen set I have made for her hope chest.  I'll be showcasing that kitchen linen set on the blog the next few days.

Crocheted Bedspreads--Teaching My Daughters

I learned to crochet when I was a young girl, but I never really did anything with it.  Many, many years later, I determined to learn to crochet again.  My first projects were making dishcloths.  After that, I made king sized bedspreads, done in a double crochet.  I made one in camo yarn for my boys and another one in pink for my girls.  Next, I made 3 more and gave them to my mama, my mother-in-law, and my father-in-law for Christmas one year.

Then I decided my girls needed to learn to crochet.  It's a very useful skill, much like quilting.  You can make many different things using crochet.  We began by learning to make chains.  They made chains for months and months, learning to get the tension right.  We took those chains and glued them around cans and containers, making pencil holders and treasure boxes for their daddy, brothers, and granddaddy.

They then moved on to making a simple dishcloth and did up a set of 12 for their hope chests.  My oldest daughter also made 3 dish towels by simply adding length and width to the dish cloth pattern.

At that point, my girls began working on a bedspread in their favorite colors (purple for oldest daughter and pink for my youngest daughter), using a double crochet.  It took forever!  But they finally finished them and were so proud of what they had accomplished!

Our next project was a bedspread using the granny square.  We determined that they needed to use colors that would match the quilt they had each made.

Here is my youngest daughter's afghan.  As you can see, it matches her quilt, pictured below.

This is my oldest daughter's afghan. 

It matches her quilt, pictured below.

All they need now, to finish this bed linen set, is  a set of sheets and pillowcases, embroidered in a coordinating pattern.  Oh, and perhaps we'll add a matching dresser scarf.

 

Learning to Quilt--Teaching my Daughters

Once I made a quilt or two, I decided my daughters needed to learn quilting as well.  It's such a useful skill--being able to take scraps and bits and pieces of material and turn them into something useful and beautiful.  A quilt brings warmth to the bed and body, fills a need to be creative, and makes you feel so good inside when you look at what you've made.

I wanted to make things very simple for their first few projects, so I purchased charm packs--precut 5 inch squares in coordinating fabrics.  We planned 18 rows of 18 squares each.  This gave us enough overhang on each side and the bottom.

I also used a ruler to mark 1/4 inch on each side of the squares.  This was so the girls could easily see where they needed to sew the fabrics together.  They spent months handsewing those squares together.

Then I took those rows of squares and machine sewed each row together--this was mostly because it had taken so long to get to this point and I could tell they were getting discouraged and thinking they would never finish.  Once the tops were pieced together, we sandwiched the top, batting, and backing fabric together, pinning them together with large safety pins.

At that point, I ended up putting them aside for just over a year...but this past fall I pulled them out and machine quilted *in the ditch* (a term that means I sewed in the seam where two fabrics were joined together).  We used the backing fabric to form the binding and I machine sewed that down as well.

This is my oldest daughter's quilt. 

This is my youngest daughter's quilt.

We made sure to embroider their initials and the year in the bottom corner of each quilt so one day their granddaughters and great granddaughters can see these quilts and know who made them and when.

Crocheted Bedspreads/Afghans

I love to make useful things.  I enjoy keeping busy, but I enjoy being creative even more.  Last year, I decided to make each of my daughters a crocheted bedspread.  These were done in their personal favorite colors and were made to be put aside in their hope chests to use in their own homes one day.

I needed something fairly simple, since I had two to make.  I also wanted something that would reflect each girl's personal tastes.  And I wanted it to look good.

I choose the same simple pattern I use for doll blankets--a gaint granny square.  I did the center color much larger than normal so I could add a crocheted flower to the center.  I choose to alternate colors in the granny square, but kept it to two colors only.

My oldest daughter loves purple, so I used purple and  cream to make this bedspread.  I put a double Irish Rose in the center of each square.  There are three rows of three squares each.

My youngest daughter loves red, so her bedspread is done in red and white.  I didn't make the center of her squares quite large enough, so she has a single crocheted flower in the centers.  Again, there are three rows of three squares each.

Both bedspreads are finished with two rows of double crochet all the way around.  These will fit a double bed with some overhang on each side and at the bottom.

Our aim is to complete a quilt for each in a coordinating color along with an embroidered sheet/pillowcase set and perhaps even an embroidered dresser scarf.