Turn of the Century Strip Quilt Top

You can get the idea of how a border design was created with rows of triangles and then a final row of squares going around the quilt's parameter.  The rows of triangles at the bottom don't create the wonderful zigzag pattern found on the sides. 

Bottom right corner.  Alternating the placement of the prints in the side borders creates the wonderful zigzag design.

The pink and yellow plaid on the black background is not a woven fabric, but a bright neon novelty print of the 1890's.

A few bars were exclusively light colored shirting and light color prints.  The light/dark sequence was eliminated.

I was thinking about the direction of quilt making today and I thought about the majority of new patterns coming out on the market or in magazines utilizing large geometric shapes that are easy to piece together.  Let's not forget that I just did a Sticks and Bricks for my daughter for her wedding which was just rows of different size rectangles pieced together. Certainly there are intricate patterns currently being painstakingly created by the many talented quilt artists across the globe.... but then there are just these simple quilts the designers or magazines will categorize as simple or beginner quilts - easy patterns using quick strip piecing techniques to make it even faster to assemble.

When I first think of 19th century quilts, I visualize intricate patterns pieced together or time consuming applique.  But, then, there is this category of bar or strip quilts which is the easy or simple pattern of the era -  sometimes referred to as utility quilts.  Random patterns assembled in order to create a usable household object.

The bars in this top are all hand pieced and the bars added to the long fabric border strips are machine pieced.  Maybe these strips were left-overs from another quilt project that got too large?  Maybe hand piecing the strips was an enjoyable activity, but adding the long strips was just the right kind of task for the sewing machine?

The end result is a very primitive quilt with a masculine feel.  Now this is what I would call a farmhouse primitive; just the kind of quilt made for the farm hand for his bunk.

Flying Geese and Four Patch - Vintage Blocks and New Quilt

In the 1980's and 1990's vintage patchwork made their way into household decorations.  Recently I purchased a box of vintage blocks where this type of quilt recycling had been taking place as the quilt blocks were cut into the shapes of pigs and cats.  I'm guessing they might have been for Christmas ornaments for a tree since primitive items were extremely popular.  The strips of flying geese had been salvaged from a quilt that may have out lived its usefulness.  The sides of the blocks show the thread remnants from carefully removing it from the quilt.

The four patches in the box had never been put into a quilt, however, they had been washed as the edges were a bit frayed from the activity.

I decided I wanted to combine the sets of blocks and give them a new life by putting them into a wall hanging.  The strips of quilt blocks work well creating a strippy quilt design or bar pattern popular in the 19th century.

Many  of the strips of flying geese blocks would be perfectly straight and then suddenly a curve would start veering to the right or left.  How were these ever put into a quilt?  I would think there were either some major puckers and gathers OR, this quilt never hung straight.  None of the geese measured the same size.

While none of the flying geese were a uniform size, I was able to work three strips of them into the quilt.

The flying geese strips were older than the four patch blocks.  Here you can see a geese of early purple dye, possibly Perkins Purple.

I machine quilted it in diagonal cross hatching.  This would have been a quilt design used by quilt makers machine quilting their quilts at the turn of the century.

Here it is finished.  It measures 23 21/2" x 33".  I believe the blocks now have a new life and can bring a little piece of history into someone's home.