Love those Antique Beauties!

I love haunting the corridors of antique malls all across the country and seeing what things are "local" to where I am.

If I'm in Tennessee I'm looking for things FROM Tennessee...if I'm in Ohio, I want to see things that have a history and connectin to Ohio.

Quilts are household items, so it's hard to tell if one as "local"origins or not. People tended to bring their quilts with them when they moved from place to place.

I do have my favorites that tug at my heart strings though-

These quirky ones! The TRUE scrap-baggers, where a quilter was forced to work strictly from what was in that humbe scrap bag ----look closely at this section…there is lots of “substitution” going on in several of the blocks…ran out of this blue? no problem, we’ll throw in a red and a peach instead! And aren’t those fans wonderful?

Floor space was limited, but we did what we could to lay it out. We determined that these top and bottom borders were actually “whisker guard” casings over the inner border and binding. Tops and bottoms of quilts are usually the first to wear out, and often times a “whisker guard” was stitched in place to keep the oils from grandpa’s beard and the tugging of hands pulling the quilt up in the night from doing more damage to the quilt.

In this case, the quilt dates to about 1900-1920. The whisker guard fabric looks almost like a bark cloth, late 1940s-1950s. This was a family quilt with many generations sleeping beneath its warmth.

There was a bit of a churn dash theme going on too….we found another one, so adorable!

What a difference a few changes makes! Smaller blocks, though still quite scrappy ---on a field of pink with 4-patches as cornerstones…and a gently curved binding. DARLING!

Here’s a better close up --- lots of fun 1950s fabrics in this one.

Loved the display of old luggage sitting here, but what really caught my eye was the luggage tag on the middle case with the CLT marking ---

Piedmont Airlines!

Piedmont Airlines were very busy here between 1948-1989 when they became part of USAir.

So how long has this tag been hanging on this piece of luggage? I wonder where they had traveled to?!

Which reminds me of how we had to LUG suitcases without wheels in the “olden days”. I’m sure glad I don’t have to do that now! Well, in a way I do --- all the quilt bags. But that’s what the little rental carts are for and I don’t hesitate to pay my 4 to 5 bucks and wheel them in!

Sherry spied a very nice trip around the world, also in 1950s fabrics! I love the leaning of the strips and how the rows of color go. There is something to be learned when making a trip around the world. You can’t just go light/dark/light/dark/light or you get something that looks like a checkerboard! But see the center where you have more intense color up against color? That’s where your eye will be drawn.

LOVED the orange up against the black! I think it’s that tartain plaid up against solid green that makes this look kind of Christmassy, but other than that, it really didn’t.

ALWAYS STRINGS!

This is a String Snow Ball, the strings are pieced and then quarter circles, much like with a Drunkard’s Path are pieced to the string pieced units to fill in the corners. Really fun old fabrics in this one…but it’s pretty hammered in the wear department!

I just loved the displays hanging over the railing!

Log cabin, Grandmother’s Flower garden and a great double-framed 9 patch on a field of blue.

This one! I wanted this one! But I think I’ll make one instead. I’ve already drawn it out in my mind……oh this one will be fun!

I love that there are borders only at the top and bottom…Did you notice?

A very busy and cool many trips around the world postage stamp, and a pair of double wedding rings on either side of a woven coverlet.

A wonderfully hand quilted dresden plate with bubble gum pink sashings. This one was really sweet and in great condition!

Can you resist a red and white double 9 patch? This one was shredding pretty badly in places, but look at the texture of that quilting!

I love a double Irish chain in blue and white! And the diamond border..NICE!

Such a variety of indigoes in this one…and the quilting was very fine.

This one was interesting --- it was an older top that someone had machine quilted --- a LONG TIME AGO.

It has very basic loops and figure 8s in the quilting. Longarm quilting machines have been around for decades, the upholstery industry had used them forever for doing quilted bedspreads, etc, so there is no way in knowing how long ago this was quilted. It was not recent. This quilt has been used and loved and washed and used and loved and :::rinse & repeat::: It’s in very good condition.

I love finding machine quilting on antique quilts!

So what came home with me? I’m not ready to divulge that bit of info yet! You’ll have to wait for that reveal in an up and coming post!

The hip feels “okay” this morning, but I haven’t really done much moving around yet. So we’ll see, but I’m hopeful. Ive got a repeat visit with the chiropractor this afternoon….and then I’m heading over to Barrister’s Block for the next 2 installments of Randy’s Sow-A-Long that came out yesterday! I wanna sew!

Happy Thursday, Everyone!