American Sewing Guild

ASG or American Sewing Guild started in late 1970′s and became an established non-profit organization in 1985. The guild or incorporation is an educational branch of the American Home Sewing Association which is probably the oldest sewing organiztion in the USA (and a parent company to the dreaded ESPC, LOL). The guild today boasts of well over 130 chapters all over the USA with an astounding number of over 20,000 members.  The members voluntarily host and sponsor local events dedicated to the promotion of educating sewing and community service projects ranging from children’s hospitals to cancer associations and clinics. I became a member of the guild in late 2002 when I learned of its existance. If you are a lover of sewing whether by hand or machine, modern or vintage, do find out if there is a guild in your local area. One of the most proudest moments of my life has been creating, giving and sharing with others and I know there are many like minded friends. For more information visit http://www.asg.org

Years ago on my Projects page I had a webpage dedicated to a project specially created for a fundraising at a local show for the local ASG chapters. In cleaning out some of the older archives I decided to bring it here to the blog. I had to laugh at some of my attempts back then at multi-hooping but it worked.

American Doll Bed:

When my American Sewing Guild decided to create something special for the Working Women Survival show at St. Louis, they chose the American Doll as their theme. It was decided to create a wardrobe for the doll as well as a bed. My husband, who is a craftsman in woodworking came to our rescue. We gave him the dimensions to create a bed that would co-ordinate with the early 1800. What he created was so beautiful that I decided to create the bedding for it. Here are the pictures of the finished doll bed complete with bedding. I chose cream color satin as my main fabric for all the bedding and a tan color satin for accent. The bed measures 24″x18″ and is made out of walnut which was steel wooled and finished by my daughter. The whole project took approximately one month. I had been working on a new design collection which was perfect for the quilt. As the collection had cutwork designs in it, I decided to use the lighter color satin for embroidery with the darker color satin underneath for accent as well as for the border around the center design and binding. The completed design medallion in the quilt measures approximately 11″ square. It took me three hoopings (6×10 hoop) using 12 designs all for the 4×4 hoops to create the center medallion. I added the darker satin as accent border around the center lining the medallion with the darker color satin as well. The lighter satin was then added all around the darker borders to finish the quilt top. The quilt was stippled quilted using monofilament thread as I wanted the satin to create ripples without showing any threads.

 This satin was bought years ago (do not know exactly but definitely over 15 years ago) in Pakistan. The satin had a lot of watery movement to it and is very soft. The darker satin was bought at Jackman’s in St. Louis for another project and was left over but worked perfectly as the co-ordinating color for the quilt. The mattress was made of feathers which were placed within the warm and natural batting and then hand sewn to create the effect of ticking. The bed sheets were all made from the cream color satin as was the bed skirt. The bolster was also made from the light color satin with the darker satin used in the ends. I was able to find matching tassles which I used on the ends of the bolster. The bolster was also stipple quilted as were the matching pair of darker satin square cushions.