On the Oldie but Goodie side!

Can you tell these are ginormous hexie baskets?

We had quite a bit of vintage show and share at our workshops at Country Crossroads in Orange Park, Florida ---and I saved their photos for a special show and share all of their own –they deserve it!

Today seemed to be the best day to relax and post them all.

Oh dear, it’s been two weeks and I am going to forget names ---Vickie? Veronica? Oh, forgive me…it starts with a V, that much I know…is hiding behind the quilt on the left.  You can just see her head peeking out behind the far left top basket.  This is a family quilt, one her mother or grandmother started, but evidently didn’t know where to stop or how to finish it because it is still NOT DONE.

So much patience..what looks like large white areas, are all pieced from solid white hexagons, and V has memories of this quilt being worked on when she was young.

I love family pieces like this.  Sometimes they don’t even need to be finished.  They are done as is.  These are the kinds of things that I call “folders” ---just fold it to display the best part and put it on a shelf or a quilt rack – somewhere visible where you can touch the stitches of those long gone and remember. 

Not everything is better finished!

Grandmother’s quilt!

Close up!

What a feat of piecing and scrap bag color!

Marcia’s string quilt!

Marcia brought in a whole stack of vintage quilts to share with us ---since we were in the midst of our Crumbs Crumbs Crumbs workshop – this one was very appropriate!  Check out these fabrics:

1930s scrap bag!

Love those polka dots!

Jewel Stars, Also 1930s!

And this one blew us all away --

1930s postage stamp…pieces so tiny!

Check it out!

Think about it…this was not strip pieced.  These squares were cut individually with a template, pencil and scissors.  Seams do not match in many places, but our quilter was not concerned about that..it’s the over all mosaic appearance of the design that matters.

The maker very effectively used purple and pink as defining rows, and then filled in the colored area with every scrap imaginable.  All hand pieced.  STUNNING!

1920s Crazy Quilt Blocks!

These blocks were so beautiful, and so fragile!  Gifted by a neighbor, Marcia talked to us about what she would like to do with them.  These can not be made into a quilt.  Silks are shattering all over the place, but perhaps a couple of the best blocks can be saved and framed acid free for preservation.  The others?  Just carefully stored and used as a reference of stitches and fabrics from that era. 

Not all quilts can, should or need to be finished!  The best way to preserve these delicate blocks is to layer them with acid free paper and save them in a climate controlled environment.

I’ve uploaded the blocks into a slide show so you can see the detail of each one.  Watch for the egyptian motifs in several of the fabrics, that helped us date the blocks. 

There is also a very small red cross patch appliqued onto one block – a symbol from WWI.  See if you can spot it!

Click the image below if you are unable to view the slide show on your mobile device.  You’ll be taken to the photo album for viewing.

Marcia's 1920s Crazy Quilt Blocks, March 2015

Last evening we had a group dinner over at a friend’s house –it was a an F night!  Loads of FOOD, FUN & FARKLE! 

It was a great evening out – I’m glad we did it, but it wore me out something fierce, and I was straight to bed by the time we got home.

On the recoup-ing front here yesterday:

I cut hexies!

The variety of reds and neutrals was running desperately low in my busy bag, and I fly again on Tuesday to Oklahoma…so I restocked.  Happy to see those nearly “vintage” fabrics find a place and be gone!  I now have lots more variety to play with.

For those asking, I cut from 2.5" strips, stacked up 8 layers high, tracing a template with a pigma pen to the top layer, and cutting through all layers at once with scissors. Since these are for English paper piecing, they only have to be rough cut, not perfect.

You can find more info in my Hexagon Tutorial found under the Tips & Techniques tab at the top of the blog.

This section is done…..

Ready to be added here!

((This leaves only two more fill in sections! Hooray!))

Feet up and adding this satellite to the “Mother Ship!”

I was here in my chair, just like I promised ---taking it easy and stitching away.  On the telly:  Fisher’s Murder Mysteries on Netflix.

Every day I get a bit better, but this was a rough one –cough is still present.  The bronchitis has my voice rough and deep and there is still an elephant, albeit a smaller one sitting on my chest.  I’m doing everything I can to get past this.  Lots of rest, lots of fluids, and this thing will soon be past me.

One restful Sunday, coming up!

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