An Old Beauty

The sun has been shining here!  And it's been warm!  Just glorious.  I think it's almost summer, finally.

Here is an old quilt that was for sale at a local quilt guild meeting a few months ago.  A group was trying to raise money with this; I believe it was going for $70!  I wish I'd had a extra $70 to give it a good home.  So instead I took some photos.

I could have taken a photo of every single block, as they were all different and scrappy.

Lots of good shirtings and indigos!

This block has been appliqued with a running stitch
 instead of a blind stitch.

And some great cheddars and chrome yellows.

These were big blocks too - probably 16 to 18 inches or so.  There are 22 vanes per block.

I boosted the brightness and the contrast in these photos in the hopes that some of these old fabrics would show up a little better.  The fabrics appear to have faded quite a bit, but the quilt wasn't very worn.  It was more like it was made with previously used fabrics.  

Also, the quilt appears to be almost whole cloth.  There is one seam in the white background fabric up the middle of the quilt, but I can't see that there were any "blocks", the plates are just appliqued on the whole cloth.  The first clue about that for me was that the plates are very close together.  

And one more thought . . . the centers of the blocks don't seem to be appliques, but rather that the plates were appliqued onto the ground both on the outside of the plate and the inside instead.  What a curious quilt!

Interesting!  I've never seen a Dresden plate made like this one before!  Does any one have any ideas on the time period for this quilt?   I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

Vintage Eye Candy

I've been sewing and sewing, but since I'm only making parts and pieces so far, there are no photos to share with you.  So, since I'm sorely lacking in any good blog material, I thought I would share some pictures of vintage quilts with you.  Unfortunately, in the case of these quilts, I didn't manage to get a photo of the entire quilt, but I got some closeups, mostly because I love looking at all the vintage fabrics!  I hope you'll enjoy them too.

These quilts were in the bed turning in our local quilt show in October.  If you don't know what a bed turning is, I'll explain.  When I first came to the Pacific Northwest, I'd never heard of a bed turning.  I had visions of putting a bed with wheels in the middle of the floor and turning it all around.  To perhaps view a quilt on the bed from all angles?  *giggle*  I had no idea!  I'd never heard of or seen a bed turning in California, but I've seen them done at a lot of the quilt shows in this area.  Do you ever see them where you live?  I'm just curious.

Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt

How a bed turning is done:  First, you take all the quilts and layer them on the bed.  Then the audience sits on chairs placed around the bed while one person reads the story about the quilt (from the owner or maker of the quilt) while two other people (the "holders") hold up the top edge of the quilt to show it to all the viewers.  Then the holders "turn down" or fold the quilt down to the foot of the bed to expose the next quilt in the pile.

GFG closeup

Usually the quilts tend to be antiques or vintage but this year our theme was "quilts with stories".  Because, really, isn't that what we all want to know?  Who's grandma made it, where and when did they live, or did you find this for an incredible price at Goodwill or a yard sale?  Whatever your story was, we wanted to know.

sorry about the shadow

I love these bright fabrics, and the rather random placement of some of them.  Fun!

Isn't that misplaced polka dot fun?

We had a lot of people come to watch the bed turning, which we had 3 times a day during the quilt show.  There were a lot of people who didn't know what a bed turning was, but they came out of curiosity and just loved the little show!   There was a lot of comments and interaction between the audience and the reader and "holders" and that was fun.  No one else wanted to be the reader so I usually read the stories, which meant that I didn't get to see the quilts very well.  The last showing on the last day, I had someone else read the stories and I was a "holder".  I took these photos as we were folding up the quilts after the show.

quilt with string blocks

This was an interesting quilt.  It was found at a garage sale a few years ago.  It has another quilt inside of it!  In places you could kind of see another pattern through the top fabrics, and there were some fabrics where you could see some printing, which I think must have been feed sacks.  This quilt was very heavy!

string stars

This quilt is owned by the same person as the other string quilt above, and was also purchased at the same garage sale.  It also has another quilt inside!  I'm guessing both quilts were made by the same quilter.  This quilt was a little more used and there were a couple of spots that were coming unstitched so that I could peek inside.  I could see another quilt inside that was pieced and quilted, but quite worn out.   Both of these string quilts were the ultimate in scrap quilting!

By the way, the oldest quilt in our bed turning this year was a top, purportedly made by the mother or grandmother of Meriwether Lewis of Lewis and Clark fame.  It had been passed down in the family for many generations.  It was very thin and frail fabrics, and it was believable (to me) that it just possibly could have been from the late 1700's.  It was a pieced pattern (all by hand, of course) in burgundy and white solid fabrics.  Dumb me, I didn't get a picture!

Grandma's Comforter

I'm going to try to do a quick post here.  It's supposed to be mid-90's today, the office is upstairs and in about an hour the sun will be on the window and it will be almost as hot as the face of the sun in here!

Anywho, this post is to show Nifty Quilts my Grandmother's comforter, which is similar to the one she found last week at Goodwill.  Once I got this out and really looked at it, it's a much simpler pattern than the comforter she found, but there are some similarities in the fabrics and the stitching.

Here's an overall picture of the comforter. This past spring when I went to visit my sister, she gave me this comforter that my Dad's mother made.  We never knew Grandma, as she passed away before I was born.  Mom always had this around and we often used it to cuddle in when we were sick.  I hadn't seen this comforter in many, many years.  I was somewhat surprised to find that this isn't as big as I remembered it.  Isn't it funny how we do that?

Here are 4 blocks.  On Grandma's comforter is the same embroidered stitching on every seam, just like on Nifty's, with what appears to be perle cotton.  Also, Grandma tied all over with wool yarn - the same pattern all across the quilt.

Here's the back, with the silky fabric.  It seems like rayon to me, but I'm not positive.  It's gotten pretty faded at the edges.

A closeup of the fabrics.  The plaid is a twill fabric (unknown content, but I don't think wool), and the dark blue seems to be a lightweight wool.  

Here's the only "make-do" block in the comforter.  The patch is a dark green velvet, which I think my Mom added.  It looks to me like the fabric my sister used to make a prom dress one year.  In Real Life, it's not such a stark contrast to the rest of the fabrics.  Maybe you can see that there is knife-edge finish on the comforter too.

Here's a little peek into the inside of the comforter.  The poor old thing is getting a few holes in it!  Anyway, this looks to me like a cotton batting that is encased in what appears to be cheesecloth!  The batting doesn't go all the way to the edge of the quilt, but the "cheesecloth" does - all the way around the quilt.  Interesting, no?  I've never seen batting quite like this.

I don't know when my Grandma made this comforter, but it had to be sometime between 1903 when she married and the late 1940's when she passed away.  I suspect she made this in her later years.  Any help in dating this would be very welcome!

Hope you enjoy this, Nifty!

OK, now I'm going to try find a cool spot to spend the afternoon.

Back Home

I'm home from Nevada now, and have an icky cold with a cough. Ugh. I got sick about a week after I got there. Now DD has it too. My DH was sick the whole time I was in NV and he's still sick. So, we're not having too much fun here at the moment. I think I'm starting to feel some better, and my symptoms are managed well by a decongestant and that miracle drug Mucinex. I've been getting enough sleep, and I think I'm almost over it. I hope. *fingers crossed*

I'm still trying to get caught up with myself. Doing laundry, going through the mail. . . you know, all those fun things that pile up while you're gone. I'll get there soon, hopefully.

This is a quilt that my DD found at an antique store in Nevada a few years ago. It was too hard to get a decent photo this trip, so I found this one that we took at the time. I think this photo was taken before we washed this, so most of those brown spots disappeared. I got to use this one while I was at her house!

This quilt is pretty hard to date. It could be 15 years old or 100. Those colors are very typically Pennsyvania at the turn of the century (1900's) or so, and a timeless pattern. A variation on an Irish Chain, I think. (If anyone knows the correct name of this pattern, I'd be interested to know it!) The fabrics are in good shape, but not new. Some of the little squares are starting to show some wear, so I don't think it's real recent. She got this for $35!! Good deal!

Here's a closeup so you can see the fabrics. They are the same through-out the quilt. Also, it's all hand quilted, and nicely done.

We got a computer virus last night. Ugh! DH got it cleared up in 5 hours of working on it. Thank God, as I have no idea of what to do. I really, really detest the people that get their jollies by infecting other people's computers. I think they deserve a whole special place in Hell. "Nuff said.

I did manage to get in the quilt studio for a bit yesterday, as I just HAD to sew something! I got 10 blocks finished (but I had them about 1/2 done last month, so not too big of a deal). No pictures yet, but maybe in a day or 2. My quilt studio is a disaster and I need to get in there and clean it up before I start any serious sewing. And I need to start some serious sewing! I'm just about back to full capability for most sewing, and I'm way behind on some projects. The hard part is deciding where to start!

Strings & Things

I finally finished Thing 1 from my Spring String Fling. This top was started way back in March at my quilting retreat in California. I finished all the blocks at retreat and then had to put it on the back burner when I injured my thumb coming home. I couldn't iron the blocks or cut them to size until my thumb healed. I'm calling this Thing 1 as I have two other string quilts in the works. I showed you those blocks here (scroll down a little ways).

You may notice that my red strips don't always meet at the corners. . . that's because I was deliberately casual. I like the way the red "sashing" works, it seems to give the quilt more of a 3-D effect, and it was easier than doing "real" sashing.

I found this border fabric in my stash - I've had it at least 15 years. I bought it when I worked at the fabric store. I'd decided the quilt needed a black & white to really set it off (no other colors really worked very well), and this one has random red dots that really work well with the red sashing and inner border. The places where the white line is thicker is actually a printing flaw, but I like the way it looks. It's random, and it reminds me of a UPC code!

Most of these strings are from my 20-year collection that I was saving to make a string quilt. So, other than the foundations and a few fabric scrap donations at retreat, this quilt is entirely from stash. What's amazing to me is that I started with 2 large bags of strings, and I've made 5 quilts and Kate has made 3 quilts from them. I'd never have guessed that those string would go so far! It just goes to show you that you can make more quilts with just the bits most of us throw away, because most of those strings were trimmings from quilt backs and 'straightening the fabric' cuts.

By the way, those red strips for the inner border and the blocks is from way back in the early 80's, as well as I can figure. I bought it to use in a Log Cabin quilt for my son, when he was in 6th grade. He's 36 now, which makes him older than I was when I bought the fabric! Oh my! That is possibly Too Much Information! I marked the strips with a posterboard template and cut them with scissors, as my favorite tool, the rotary cutter, hadn't been invented yet. I never made the Log Cabin for my son and have moved those strips 3 times. I decided it was time to use them up. I have less than one strip left now.

I have more strings left still, but I'm really tired of looking at them now. Anybody want some strings??

I got my Bundle of Love for Iraq in the mail yesterday. It looks like there will be A LOT of these Bundles of Love for Iraq. So many that air support may be needed! That is just awesome! And, Mr. IBOL has a very funny blog too. I'm really enjoying reading about how this project is taking off.

I got the little doll quilt that I showed in the previous post all apart. I thought I'd share some photos of the "innards". The little "thimbles" were all sewn together by hand, but the rows are mostly sewn by machine, except this one. Some of them have hand-basting, and then machine sewn. These are little tiny stitches!

This little tiny red scrap was hidden in the binding that I removed. And I love this tan fabric - it somehow reminds me of kelp.

I found out why the little quilt was so uneven and lumpy. The quiltmaker didn't have the best accuracy when sewing the 'thimbles' together. I tried to press it evenly, but it just wasn't happening!

Check out this cool old fabric! I love it. It looks like rope, doesn't it?

I'm currently tieing the quilt together with new batting and backing. I'll show it again when I'm done.

Here is Dunkel, holding down Thing 1 for me, here in the office.

And here is Shade, begging for some pets and kisses.

Time Flies

Wow, it seems like forever since I posted last, and I have too many things to show and tell about!

Last week I wandered into an antique shop with nothing in particular in mind. Way back in a corner, I found this antique quilt! It was marked $30 and I had a long discussion with myself as to whether or not this needed to come home with me. In the end, I settled for a couple of pictures! Cheaper and easier. I just couldn't justify the purchase with all that fabric sitting at home. I (theoretically) can make my own "antique" indigo quilt.

It looks to me like an Irish Chain or variation thereof, and done in a scrappy manner. There were a few squares that have disintegrated into almost nothing, and those look like they weren't indigo fabric. (You can just see one in the upper right in the photo below.) The quilting is done in straight lines, which I think is kind of unusual in an antique.

WARNING!! SPOILER ALERT!! To my sister: if you are reading this, STOP NOW!! DO NOT SCROLL DOWN!!

Ok, the rest of you are good to continue. *grin*

I checked a book out of the library recently, and it really excited me. I thought these projects looked like a lot of fun.

As I was reading this book, the author mentioned seeing a well-known quilter on a TV show, demonstrating her little fabric books. She mentioned no names. But it dawned on me that she must have been talking about Gwen Marston. And I remembered I had Gwen's book about this! So I had to go find it.

Here it is!

Then, I had the brilliant thought "It's almost my sister's birthday. Hmm, could I somehow combine these two ideas?!"

So, the secret project idea was born and is now in process! I've just gotten started, and I can't wait to get back at it. (I had to take a couple of days off for other things, darn it!) I think this is gonna be fun, and I think/hope my sister will like this. She's also a quilter, so it figures that she would. We usually like the same things. *fingers crossed*

I bought some batiks the other day. The one on the left (purple) is going to be the quilt studio curtains and sewing machine cover, the green one was just because I fell in love with it.

I went to the Alliance for American Quilts web site with the Gwen Marston interview and looked around. You can search the interviews based on the interviewee, and there's more people on there than I've heard of! I found the interview with Roberta Horton, who's been as big an influence on my quilting as Gwen Marston. You can read it here. It's interesting to me that, essentially, both women are telling quilters "Make your OWN quilt". I hadn't realized that that was the true common thread until I read both interviews. Don't copy someone else's quilt, make one that reflects you and your life. Both of these quilters are basing this advice on their studies of antique quilts. And the quilt that Ms. Horton brought to the interview, "Frau Horton Frau Horton", was free-pieced figures! I've seen photos of the quilt, (you can see it here - scroll down about 1/2 way down the page) and hadn't realized that it was free-pieced. How cool! Another link between her and Gwen Marston. I love finding these common threads to the things that have influenced me.

A little side note here. My daughter plays classical Spanish guitar. She lives in another state now, and I really miss listening to her play. She sent me this link to You Tube. You can hear Andante Largo's beautiful classical guitar playing. The song my daughter plays that I miss is called "Jeux Interdits or Romance". I think it's beautiful, and I hope you enjoy it too!