Ending the Year With a Beautiful Quilt...

Many of my "regular readers" are familiar with Karen Azevedo and the gorgeous work she does on  linens.  She is a long-arm quilter from Ft. Collins, Colorado and we have become very good friends.  She is as obsessive as I am with linens  and loves all things vintage and romantic.

She set aside customer's quilts for a bit this month  to indulge in some time for herself and to work on this fabulous linen.  It is stunning...breathtaking...and I knew you would love it too.

I've had my nose practically on top of my computer monitor trying to see more details and figured out if I cropped/enlarged parts  I could see more so I saved a couple close up shots for you.  Please notice, too, that Karen is an obsessive beader (like I am) and she has added jillions of little beads in the centers of the flowers on the front as well as to the back label.

Thank you, Karen, for continuing to inspire all of us.  Karen's story is below~

I purchased the linen from Etsy and found that Cindy (the seller) was selling it due to her downsizing.  She said her daughters were not into the linens as most kids these days are not, and she was moving to something smaller so needed to rid herself of some things.  With our few conversations back and forth over the pond, she did give me her mother's birth and death dates as well as her mother's husband's name.  I found a little label on one corner of the back that turned out to be her mother's sister's name.  I tried to reflect all of the known information on my label.  I did a little research on the Yorkshire Region in the UK and found that this area was a major contributor to the production of linen.  According to Cindy, everyone in the area handmade embroidered linens or owned ones such as this during the 1940's/50's.  So we don't know who made it originally.  It was quilted with Superior's silk thread and I used both cotton and wool batt (Hobbs).  I can only imagine how at least 3 ladies, Hettie, Edna, and Cindy, prior to myself, have enjoyed the beauty of the linen.  When sending photos of the finished linen to Cindy today (12/31/12) she responded with "Thank you so much, my heart felt thanks to you for making it so beautiful, your work is truely amazing and my mom will be thrilled to know her memory is a part of it, God Love You.