Flannel for Body and Sole

Four yards of blue flannel dotted with white sheep have been in my stash for so long that the original purpose for purchase is lost to memory. Usually such a nice piece of cloth would have soon found its way into one project or another. But not this yardage, as sweet as it was I could not bear to cut it into strips.

Blue Birthday nightgown
just before I popped it into the mail

I have been working on another toothbrush rug, this time coincidentally in flannels. The goal was twofold: one to use up flannel from my stash, two to provide a warm non-latex non-skid rug for my daughter’s cold stained concrete floor. Searching for flannel in red, white and blue was how I stumbled upon the long forgotten blue sheep-dotted yardage.

Our little granddaughter is a Laura Ingalls Wilder and Beverly Clearly type of girl. Her mother and father spend countless hours reading books aloud for her. She loves dressing up and hearing about yesteryear and long-ago people. Long flannel nightgowns are her bedtime delight and her birthday was fast approaching.

My collection of patterns includes those for the nightgowns I sewed for her when our daughter was young. Every Christmas Eve new home-sewn pajamas waited beneath the tree for each of our children. A lovely tradition, my own grandmother did the same for my sisters and me when we were young.

Combining two projects made sense. First I would sew a nightgown for our little girl and then I would use the scraps in toothbrush rug already in progress.

Our little girl was thrilled to receive the nightgown and her parents are thrilled at her new eagerness to don her nightclothes.

I will show the rug at my monthly Rug Group meeting. Then it will go into the mail to our far-away little family. It is filled with scraps of many memories that my daughter might recognize including scraps from a few of her long-ago Christmas nightgowns, flannel shirts her father wore, and pajamas from other family members. Do you think she will notice the little bits of blue sheep-dotted flannel included in the rug? Do you suppose she will feel our love for her and her family with both sole and soul?

Warp On/Weave Off,
RepWeaver