Nancy Drew Quilt

Recently I posted about how much I loved Nancy Drew mystery stories growing up, and still collect vintage books in the series (although I much preferred Trixie Belden). Several years ago my mom, who is a master quilter with her own shop, was telling me about a quilting method that interested me: making quilt blocks by tracing pictures on fabric and "coloring" them in with crayon, melting the crayon with an iron, and then embroidering around the edges of the picture. With this method the sky is the limit on your creativity in what pictures you draw or theme you use!

I was excited because I had long been thinking on how to put together a Nancy Drew or Trixie Belden quilt. I ended up deciding to go with Nancy because many of the books in her series have a particular "object" that is the main focus of the story, making it easy to choose pictures for the blocks. I chose my 14 favorite Nancy Drew books and found clip art that I could trace onto fabric and color for the drawings. Then came the hard part: embroidering each of the drawings. I was a novice embroiderer (I would say I still am!), so many of my stitches aren't perfect, and I often became impatient with the tediousness of it all and gave up for months at a time. I think it took me over a year to finish this thing.

But the end product was exactly what I had envisioned! I chose blue for the main color because everyone knows blue is Nancy's favorite. For the center, I used the famous very old-style orange and blue silhouette of Nancy with a magnifying glass. This was her emblem long before the yellow hardbacks that I collect began to be printed: beginning in the 1930's Nancy books were printed in blue hardbacks with orange lettering and the famous Nancy silhouette always on the front. 

This is by far the one craft item I have ever done of which I am the most proud! Allow me to show off ever-so-briefly:

The Moonstone Castle Mystery:

The Secret of the Wooden Lady:

The Secret of Shadow Ranch:

The Clue of the Broken Locket:

The Secret of the Old Clock:

The Scarlet Slipper Mystery:

The Ghost of Blackwood Hall:

The Mystery of the Tolling Bell:

The Clue in the Diary:

The Clue of the Velvet Mask:

The Mystery of the Brass Bound Trunk:

The Sign of the Twisted Candles:

The Clue of the Dancing Puppet:

The Password to Larkspur Lane:

And last but not least, the old-style Nancy silhouette:

The only sad thing about this quilt is that in the house I live in now I no longer have a wall big enough to hang it on for display! That and with two small kids and four furry animals around I just don't quite trust that it won't get something spilled on it or scratched by a cat. So it sits neatly folded up in my closet. Hopefully one day it will have a prominent place for display again!