Friday, March 21, 2008

Mend on Wednesday

I was lucky enough to win a collection of "Penny Squares" on ebay. As the seller mentioned, they are in rough shape.



They are stained, dirty and poorly stitched. They are not a complete set either. I am still happy to have them and the Wednesday block intrigued me. Sunbonnet Sue is mending as she rocks a baby's cradle with her foot. She appears to be mending pantyhose, but they weren't invented until well after this block was done. They are probably some sort of leggings for the baby.



Her bonnet style is different than the bonnets drawn by Bertha Corbett. It looks like the early postcards done by Bernhardt Wall. So I went looking through some Wall postcards and found this one from 1905.



And there is the image from my penny square! She is mending a baby's romper.

So I decided to make a redwork pattern from the design. Here is a link to the PDF file.

I simplified the hands in my drawing. The original penny square had fingers. I'll have to keep looking for more days of the week.

Enjoy,

Kim