Mid 19th Century?

This post has two of the quilts that Gail brought over yesterday with more pics:

Check out Barbara Brackman's post on her Civil War blog this morning about quilting designs. Look at the sampler quilt, second picture down that has an appliqué design very similar to this one. The quilt she has pictured is dated to the mid 19th Century... could this quilt be that old? I think it could. It is completely hand made with cotton batting.

The large appliqué blocks are set on point. Here is a picture of one of the corner setting triangles with a corner of the border. I neglected to get a picture of one of the full setting triangles. I hope to get a chance to get more pics when the weather is better and we can lay out the quilts for photos of the entire quilt.

Here you can see some wear on the center flower of a full block. This quilt had some stains and some of the hand stitching is missing.

The Tree of Life Quilt looks to be made by the same person? The cotton batting feels the same and thread and the stitch length of the hand quilting is very similar. The quilting design is different. This quilt has a more distinct quilting design. It's also in better shape. It had some wear and stains along one of the folds and the binding was also worn. Other than that, in excellent shape.

The blocks are all hand pieced, hand quilted and the binding is attached and sewn down by hand... a completely hand made quilt.

In the alternate blocks there are quilted feather wreaths. Odd was that not all of the wreaths were in the center of the block and some were... here is a close up

There is a star in the center of each of the wreaths.

There were small pinwheels in the corners of the quilt. The original binding was pieced with both the tan and red fabrics. Again, I hope I get a chance to take full pictures of Gail's quilts. We were so excited and there were so many quilts to look at I missed getting pictures of all the details.

Next post I will show all the pictures of the Redwork quilt. Gail would love to find out more about her quilts and is busy trying to get more info from her family. Click on my first post to see a picture of each of Gail's quilts.

We are getting more rain today. Another good day for quilting :0)

Antique quilts!

The most amazing day! Gail, who I recently met thru my quilting business and then again yesterday when she attended my class, mentioned that she had some "older quilts' and could she bring them by one day. Sure! Well she called and came by my studio today and brought her quilts. WOW is all I can say. I took some pictures but seeing them in RL was Amazing!!! Thank you Gail for sharing your quilts! Following are some of the pics I took...

Appliqué quilt~ Hand pieced, hand appliqué and hand quilted. Cotton batting

Here are the 2 stacks of quilts with the Tree of Life in the foreground

30s Butterfly with button hole stitch

Redwork ~ Hand quilted. Cotton batting

Silk patchwork ~ foundation pieced onto a cotton fabric. Not quilted.

Wool and Velvet Crazy Quilt with Feather stitching - tied

1930s Maple Leaf

30s Maple Leaf quilt looks to be hand pieced, the stems are machine stitched along the edges.  Gail remembers that this quilt top was quilted later, it has a newer muslin backing and binding, it is tied and the only quilt with polyester batting. The fabrics are definitely 1930's. I have more pics of the blocks with different 1930s fabrics and will post them all on another post...

 These were my two favorites ~

Close up of appliqué, you can see some of the fabric wear

border and corner setting triangle of the appliqué quilt

Tree of Life ~ hand pieced, hand quilted, cotton batting

I will post more pictures and details with close ups in a new post. I took more pics of the Redwork too, each block is different and IMHO made by a group of quilters as they don't look to be all stitched by the same person. There is one more quilt not pictured here yet, that has me stumped. None of these quilts have any type of marking or labels... if any one out there in blogland has any ideas/opinions about these quilts, Gail and I would love to hear from you! TIA

March UFO finish

Finished the binding this evening on my March UFO 

for Judy's 2012 UFO Challenge at Patchwork Times

Simple Scrappy Pleasures ~ 40 x 44

Quilt #8 ~ This little quilt started out as a 2002 BOM from Claudia's Quilt Shoppe. The pattern is still available! Made with throw away scraps from a company where I worked as a seamstress in the 1980s, most of the fabrics are vintage calico. The backing is also vintage, a larger piece I purchased at that time.

I did add a yellow fabric that was probably from the later 90s and the solid navy blue binding is new. There wasn't enough of the navy blue fabrics for the binding and I felt it needed to be dark. Looking at it now, I am sorry I added that yellow in 2002. It would have been good that all the fabrics were from the same time era.

The borders are quilted with spools of thread, the inner border is quilted with small baskets (hard to see blue on blue) and I used a feathered meander in the center. Added a sleeve so I can hang this one along with Connected Friends. Happy with a finish and one more quilt rescued from the closet :0)

Next up is UFO # 10 ~ Another BOM called Galactic Twinkle. Poke here to go to Judy's Patchwork Times to see what other quilters have completed for March.

This morning was the first session of a quilt class I teach at Cathy's Sew and Vac. The quilt, Black White and Red All Around is designed by Kathie Holland. Here are the fabrics I pulled to make the quilt along with the class:

Gail is making hers in browns and tans, Kathy in blues and creams and Kathy T is doing black, white and red. Thank you Kathie for your permission. Everyone loves your quilt design!

Temecula Quilt Co posted the last Blessings Basket block and tomorrow will post the final part to finish the QAL. Looking forward to then...

Design Wall Monday 3.26.12

Up on my wall this morning is a little QAL by Temecula Quilt Co.

Celebrating their five year anniversary they started this QAL the beginning of March called Blessing Baskets. One more block to go and then setting blocks. 

These basket blocks are 4 inch finished

This was a fun little project to pick up over the weekend to satisfy my desire to start a new project :0) Finished size to be 18" x 18". I picked some fabrics from my stash after being inspired by Aunt Reen and an appliqué project, Evening Blooms she is starting with turkey reds, blacks, browns with a cream. Yummy!

A cold rainy weekend, we need the rain and the garden is loving it. Nice quiet quilty weekend started off with a nice surprise on Friday evening. From a CL ad, Michael and I checked out a quilt for sale, we met Jerry. I promise to post a picture soon, it's a large quilt, handmade Double Wedding Ring made by Jerry's family. His grandmother hand pieced the top and then it was hand quilted by other family members, mother, sister and cousins. The scalloped binding is done by machine. As cool as the quilt is, meeting Jerry was the nice surprise.

It didn't take long to discover that Jerry was all about the Blues. My all time fav, SRV was represented in his collection as well as decor. Clapton, Mayall, Bloomfield as well as the originals. On the wall was a photo of Buddy Guy, he had an original play list written by SRV and lots more. It was amazing. Quite the collection of CDs and DVDs. He is a wealth of Blues knowledge. Rekindled my love for the Blues as I thumbed thru my collection, searching for recordings that Jerry didn't already posses. He gave me a recording of Mike Bloomfield and Johnny Winters which I thoroughly enjoyed while working on my Blessing Basket blocks on Sunday afternoon.

All sorts of blessings in life and you never know where they will take you :0)

JT2 Grandma's Favorite Compass

This is my version of Block 23 ~ Unit 6 for Just Takes 2:

JT2 ~ Block 23 ~ Grandma's Favorite Compass

Original instructions/pattern call for this block to be hand pieced. As much as I would love to hand piece, I decided to machine appliqué the red pieces onto a white background piece, using the same method I came up with to make the Turkey Tracks and the four hearts block. Not as pretty as needle turn, but not as flat as fusible and no raw edges. As promised on our Flickr group, here is a tutorial on how I made this block...

From the hand piecing templates only use A, D and F. Using freezer paper trace six of A, six of D and one of F. Press the freezer paper to your color fabric. The pieces are small enough I used some of my red scraps :0)

 Using a rotary cutter and ruler, cut a scant 1/4 inch seam allowance

 With scissors or a small rotary cutter cut the curves

Cut the tip of the points leaving a small 1/8" amount to turn

 Using a glue stick, put glue on the curved edge and the point

 

Using a wood cuticle stick, pull the fabric over the edge of the freezer paper, smoothing it out as you go. Fold the tip down without folding the paper

Using small scissors (not your good embroidery scissors because of the glue) trim away some of the seam allowance. Add glue to one side

and pull the fabric over the edge of the freezer paper with the cuticle stick. Smooth the fabric and get the points flat. Trim more seam allowance if necessary. Repeat with the other side.
Note: Use a fresh glue stick. What makes this easy is the glue is "gooey" which makes the fabric easy to manipulate. If the glue stick is too dry, it doesn't stick or is too stringy.

Glue the seam allowances of all 13 pieces including F. Once the glue has dried, use a seam ripper to make a small hole in the paper. With scissors, start at the hole and cut away the center of the paper, leaving a small edge of paper under the seam allowance. Be careful not to cut through to the fabric.

Prepare a 13+ inch square of your background fabric with a stabiliser. I used a iron on/tear away by Sulky. A wash away would be even better! Lay pieces on the right side of the background fabric 

Glue down the pieces with a water soluble glue like Roxanne's basting glue

 Once the glue has dried, press if necessary. Now you are ready to sew the pieces using your favorite appliqué machine stitch. *(You could hand appliqué at this point, that's how I made the 4 hearts block.)*

I used a button hole stitch and started with the small points (A), going all the way around each, one at a time. Next start at one corner of the large points (D) sew all the long edges going from one point to the next. Once all the points are done, continue into the middle and stitch the curved edges without taking it out of the machine.

Turn it over, tear away the stabilizer and Ta Da! Done!

Note: if you don't want to leave in any of the freezer paper, use a temporary water soluble glue stick, don't cut the center of the paper away before stitching. After stitching and removing stabilizer, cut into the back of the backing fabric behind the pieces and remove the paper. This method of machine appliqué is from Beth Ferrier of Applewood Farm. She uses mono filament with a different stitch.

It's been a great week. We got rain. I quilted my UFO for March. Just have binding and a label left to do. Have a quilty weekend!

Design Wall Monday

JT2 block 19 ~ Feathered Star is on my design wall this morning...

My first feathered star... I've always wanted to make one and considering how much I love to make HSTs, odd it's taken me this long to try one!

One of the things I DO like about JT2, it does take me out of my comfort zone!

I lost a few points and most of the outer star points don't have 1/4 inch seam allowances so they will be lost when this block gets set in.

For my first Feathered Star I am happy with this one :0)

The next set for JT2 has a variation of a Mariner's Compass! Oh joy!... to be hand pieced! Oh oh... out of my comfort zone again! Click Just Takes Two for info on this 2012 Mystery QAL. Check out my progress on my JT2 page.

To see what other Quilter's are working on go to Judy's Patchwork Times. 

Have a wonderful week!

National Quilting Day

Happy St. Patty's Day

 And more important

* Happy National Quilting Day *

In celebration of National Quilting Day, the Alex Anderson/Ricky Timms Quilt Show online has episodes free to watch.  www.thequiltshow.com