Hello 2013!

Hello 2013! 

My goal for the New Year is reorganizing, cleaning and making efficient use of my time in order to spend more time sewing!

Forget about shedding those gingerbread cookie pounds, no lofty ideas of being nice to mean dogs on our street, no delusions of grandeur; just spending time sewing. 

Through the estate sale tubs and onto Etsy, I am listing vintage finds from the previous year.  I'm anticipating filling the tubs with new finds in 2013 and there is no time like the present to make way for the new year!

Chimney Sweep blocks, also known as an Album block, date from late 19th to early 20th century.

A Sisters Choice block from a group of blocks measuring in a variety of unfinished sizes.  I am theorizing family and friends contributed blocks as they are machine and hand pieced.  As I see it, it is like sharing a recipe and no one you share it with makes it the exact same way.  Friends quilting are no different than having friends in your kitchen.

Fabric cut into 3 x 6 inch quilt blocks from possible salesmen samples of fabric.  Again, another theory, and this time I am theorizing the seamstress was going to make a bars or Chinese Coin quilt.  

A pound of mid twentieth century fabric from a frugal household.

And of course, vintage spools of thread.  Since I wrote about the quilt from nylon, I'm coming across nylon thread, nylon blanket binding, nylon trim, etc.  It is as though the gods of nylon are flooding me with inspiration which I am ignoring.  Did you know that Emerald Green is the Pantone color for 2013? 

Please feel free to theorize about what was going on with the prior owners of these vintage items.  I know for me, theorizing sounds more exciting than cleaning and reorganizing!

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.