Four Patch Fever!

Sometimes the simplest things are the best. Simple shapes, simple designs, and MEGA repeat of pattern. I love a quilt where the design repeats and repeats and repeats and gives SO much to look at!

This little basket is just chock-full-o-four-patches just waiting for future projects. I just can’t stop making them as leaders & enders even when I don’t know where they will be used.

Oh the possibilities!

And these are the kinds of quilts that just warm my heart when I find them.

Yes, this is day three of Antique Mall Roadshow! I told you there was way too much to appreciate to do it in one post!

Isn’t this just a sweet country quilt!? And the colors are still very springy. The 4 ptaches were about 6” in size I think, and it was just adorale with the plaids and prints in it. It had some really bad spots, so it would be just a “fold and display” piece, and I have SO MANY of these at home that I’ve pretty much relinquished myself to just bringing home PICTURES to drool over. Maybe they will inspire someone to turn to their scraps and rereate their own version. I just love the simplicity of 4 patches!

And THIS one had to be my favorite of ALL:

16 patches! I was nearly giddy yesterday when I saw Lynn’s post at Klein Meisje Quilts because she just finished piecing her OWN 16 patch top! I left her a message to come see this one today, and I hope she does! Unfortunately, THIS one was priced out of my range, and I would have loved it. But you know?? Who says I can’t make one!?

Just look at these wonderful fabrics! The red and yellows really spark for me…it has fabrics through the 1950s in it.

Lots of solid red, just like I love it! Yep, I took LOTS of pictures of this one just because it was such a happy quilt! You can click the pics to biggie-size them and get a closer view.

In some places she even joined 4 blocks that had a common theme together! See the pink rose fabrics in the center of the pic? Whether this was intentional or not we will never know…but I like it! I do!

I of course LOVE the ginghams in here. I have never met a gingham that was not happy. Even a black gingham is just crisp and cheerful and I love seeing them mixed with all the other dress prints and solids…Isn’t this a wonderful quilt?

There is more 4 patch love going on here in this basket! All of this “stuff” was displayed on TOP of the quilt, and I didn’t bother to unpack the tub to get the quilt out, but this too, with its 30’s prints and solids was a definite eye-catcher for me!

Here is another case of really having to keep an eye out for possibilities. Do you see what is hiding in this picture? It looked to be SILK!

And it was just LOVELY when it was unfolded! All Square in a Square, playing off the positive/negative aspects. But---the silks were VERY shredded. And it made me sad that this was folded and stuffed into a pile with an old sailboat on top

These stripes created kind of an optical illusion…and I love the black/white/grey combo with little spots of color. It looks almost modern, doesn’t it? You can see some of the shredding going on…..

This little Stringie caught my eye! It’s a rainbow! I love how the red corners make “butterflies” where the block quarters come together. These are probably more “hatchet” blocks than strings, they look fairly uniform. and the rainbow of sashings? I can see this on a child’s bed when it was made, just so HAPPY!

I love quilts displayed on ladders and racks and furniture and…..Don’t you just get all excited at these treasures?

Even the Double Wedding Ring seemed to be sporting it’s best Easter Colors! I love the purple in this one. I made ONE double wedding ring quilt in my early quilting years. I cut each piece by hand, tracing a template I had cut out of a butter tub lid. Jason was about 3 when I started it. I hand quilted and finished it a couple years later. How those rings laid flat I will never know! But I know this – I will NEVER make another one! It’s in the closet somewhere…..

I loved the feel of this one..the weight of the batting, the density of the stitching, and the fact that it has been used and washed and loved and used and washed and loved.

Easter will be quiet here. Jason has to work, and Columbia is just far enough (3 hours) away that it makes it difficult to do the trip in one day ---drive up in the morning, stay a few hours, and drive back in the evening --- so it will be just DH, Jeff and I at home. And that is fine with me. I plan to sew, to reflect, to love those around me, to appreciate with gratitude, to slow down, to be.

I am missing the things we used to do when the kids were little. Color eggs, have hunts, fill baskets, hang decorations. But I remember them all, and maybe sometime in the future there will be a next generation to do these things with.

Okay, and before I get too weepie and sentimental. It’s time to go clean bathrooms!

Happy Easter, Everyone!