Saturday, October 29, 2011

It's that time again . . .

Blogger's Quilt Festival!  Yay!  And a big Thank You to Amy for putting together and hosting this fun on-line event again. 

Welcome to Indigo Threads, if this is your first visit here.  I hope you'll enjoy my entry into the BQF, and that you'll visit again!



Amish Center Diamond
28 inches square
 My entry into the BQF is in the "an oldie but a goodie" category.   I made this waaay back when, in 1988 according to the label I actually made and put on.  (That's a miracle in itself!)  That's 23 years ago!  Wow, I can't believe it's been that long.

I had been quilting about 8 years by then, and Roberta Horton's book about Amish quilts, "An Amish Adventure", published in 1983, had gotten me excited about Amish quilts and their use of color.  I made two quilts in the Amish style,  a smaller, simpler wallhanging for my Mom and a doll quilt, before I decided to do this one. 

When I started this quilt, it was before rotary cutters and the nifty plastic rulers that we have now.  This was all measured with a yardstick and marked with a pencil, then cut out with scissors.  Practically the Dark Ages!  But somehow, it all fit together.



Good cottons in solids were hard to find then, so the purple and the black are both poly-cotton, I think.  I used a polyester batt, which was all I could find then.  Now, the black is suffering from some migration of the batting through the top.  It's not super visible, fortunately.



It took me 2 years to hand-quilt this quilt.  When I was working on the black borders with black thread, it was so hard to see what I was doing that I could only quilt on this sitting in bright sunlight.  Nighttime was too difficult to see to quilt - again, long before Ott lights came along.  I quilted this without a hoop or a thimble, as I never got the hang of using either.  I felt like I had better control of my stitching without the hoop.  And whatever finger I put the thimble on just seemd to end up sticking up in the air, well away from the quilt top!  LOL 


This quilt is starting to show it's age now.  I had it hung on a wall for a long time, and thanks to the bright California sun, it has faded some.  But it's still one of my favorites.  This was the best and most extensive hand-quilting I ever did.  Now, I quilt either on my Bernina or "by check" (longarmer).  I love the feel of the quilting - it's so soft and cuddly.  I suppose this quilt is my "heirloom" quilt, just based on the work and love I invested in it.

Don't forget to check out the rest of the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  It's so fun to see everyone's quilts and read their stories!

19 comments:

  1. Your quilting is spectacular. I wish I had half your talent. Great entry!

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  2. I love this quilt so much! I remember the Dark Ages of quilting, lol. I still love to quilt by hand, and try to do one per year. If I did them all that way, I'd be snowed under. Gorgeous quilt, hon!

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  3. How fun to learn about quilting just a few years back. I'm a relative new to quilting so I had no idea how life without plastic rulers were LOL. It's a beautiful quilt - I can understand why it's been on your wall for a long time.

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  4. Your quilt is a beauty! I did some quilting in those jurassic ages without cutters and rulers, but very simple ones. You did a great job. The quilting is amazing too.

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  5. It's a lovely quilt. There is so much work involved. your quilting is lovely.

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  6. Wow, that's a powerful lot of quilting! Definitely a quilt to be proud of.

    You started quiltmaking slightly before I did. I realized pretty early on that it was the piecing, not the quilting, that I enjoyed the most. ;- )

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  7. This is a lovely quilt! Thanks for telling us about it. We often forget how spoiled we are for all the 'mod cons' of the quilting world today. Your hand quilting is superb.

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  8. I know how it is using black thread on black fabrics! Fun to hear about your quilt it's beautiful! I'm glad we have so many fun tools and fabrics to use now.

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  9. Sharon, this quilt is really beautiful! Love the Amish style and the handquilting!

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  10. I love this quilt!! Amish quilts are so wonderful and your hand quilting adds a whole other dimension. Thank you for sharing your beautiful quilt.

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  11. How wonderful that you picked this "oldie but goldie" !! Yes, I can perfectly well understand why this is one of your favourite quilts. The handquilting is outstanding. Thanks for sharing !!

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  12. Wow! This is a very special quilt, especially because of your quilting. Thank you for showing it!

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  13. Ah, I love the graphic simplicity of Amish quilts. And isn't it cool to look back and reminisce, how much easier and fun it is to quilt today vs "back then" ;-)

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  14. Oh - Amish quilts. Simply the best!

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  15. lovely, lovely, lovely. great handquilting too!

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  16. I'm VERY impressed Sharon!!! Your quilt really turned out great considering you used 'primitive tools' to construct it!! HA!
    Of course you know I'm REALLY carried away with your hand quilting...EXCELLENT!!!

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  17. Lovely , lovely quilt and how wonderful to have had it for so long. Lovely hand quilting! Thanks so much and have a great day

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  18. Beautiful quilting - thanks for sharing!

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