Treasured Finds..

Of course you KNEW that quilts would have to come home with me, right?

These are two "not so beauties" that had enough personality and pioneer spirit and the whole feeling of "making do", that they had to come home with me.




The first one is this basket..maybe you caught it in the slide show below. I LOVE baskets..adore them! And this one just really spoke to me because it is slightly color controled (but it breaks it's own rules!) and even though one of the baskets is shredded. I think it's still a good "display" piece.

The baptist fan quilting of COURSE caught my eye. Look at that texture! Those lines are less than an inch apart..probably closer to 1/2", and that is why this quilt didn't fall apart any worse than it has with the wear and use of the years. Let's face it...more quilting means less migration of batting, and a longer lasting quilt. If you just outline quilt something 1/4" from the seam lines, you leave all this empty un-protected space allowing the fabric to wear out between the stitches. If you just outline quilt, you leave even the seam lines unanchored. When the stitching crosses the seams like this, it reinforces the whole quilt.

The second one is STARS! I love how the diamonds are divided across their bellies :c) It almost makes circles. This one VERY MUCH reminds me of a Talula Gilbert Bottoms quilt. If you aren't familiar with Talula, well what can I say. Follow the link above to Amazon. I saw the book Legacy for as low as $3.95 used, and $7.00 new,but it didn't look like there were many copies left. She was the most inspirational lady I have ever read about, a life full of quilts, and a hard life at that. Most of her quilts were utilitarian in nature, but I love each and every one. She started post civil war, and quilted through the 1930s.



I'm pretty sure this is a newer "old" binding on this quilt. It's more like a feedsack era print than what is in the quilt itself, and it is not as yellowed. So someone somewhere decided that the borders (or at least the binding) on this piece were too worn and needed to be replaced. Oh, the life of a quilt! I wish it could talk and tell me the stories, the lives of those whom it covered in it's journey to me.



Of course I love the plaids, the stripes, the shirtings, the chambray and other work-clothing-related patches. It tickles me when stripes go any which way with reckless abandon. I'm not sure if the sashing was more RED before it mellowed into the red/pink, but it's got the same colorway going on as my album blocks quilt, which I NEED to load in the machine and finish the quilting on.

I've got some other goodies, but I think this post is long enough for now! It's DS Jeff's 19th birthday today. My baby is 19. Wow.

I'm doing his favorite dinner....grilled pork chops, baked potatoes and all the fixin's...salad, home baked rolls, and angel food cake with strawberries for dessert. What more could a young man want? (An I-phone for one...Keep dreaming!)