Vintage Double Wedding Ring & Gettin' There...

Sigh.  The Universe was teasing me by putting this on my work calendar as soon as I came home from Tobermory, where I'd been working on my own D.W.R.

There was a fascinating story that came with this quilt.  The gal who brought it related that when she was a child the quilt was made by a woman who was invited to live with her family in the mid '40s because she had nowhere else to go.  She stayed with them until she passed away in 1955. When my customer got the quilt top out of the closet it needed to be washed.  Since it was all hand pieced, some of the seams frayed to the point where I needed to make a few repairs.

Love vintage fabrics.

Some of the fabrics were worn so badly I did a bit more repair work, using my stash of '30s reproduction prints.

You can see the quilting beautifully on the back.

FIREPLACE UPDATE
Almost finished.  The brick is painted a lighter shade of the wall colour.  The concrete hearth & mantle are painted the same as the wall colour.  All I need now is some 1/4 round trim down the sides where the brick meets the wall.

And why is it, whenever I put on my painting duds, someone unexpected comes to the door? That day (in the link) it was a customer, but this year - one day it was the internet guy, and another day it was the neighbour. I have been wearing that same oh-my-God-what-was-she-thinking outfit for painting for...20 years?  I have to do the pants up with a safety pin now because the elastic is no longer elastic.  If it's warm weather I might switch out the old shirt for an old t-shirt.  Still, not attractive. 😝

When it comes to jobs like this I don't always listen to "the experts".  Several people (and The Internet) told me I had to wash all this brick with a scrub brush & TSP, then I had to prime it, and THEN I could paint it.  Yeah, um, no.  I vacuumed it.  Then I painted it.  One watered-down coat on the brick, two watery coats on the cement.  In six months maybe I'll have to do it again - time will tell.