A Golden Oldie

This is the story of a quilt.  It's the oldest UFO (unfinished object) that I have personally made. 

We're going all the way back to the spring of 1988, when I accidentally joined a Friendship quilt group at a large quilt guild.  I say accidentally, because I signed up for a machine piecing group that met in the evening, but due to low turnout it changed to a hand piecing group that met during the day.

If you were quilting back then, you probably remember the raging debate about hand vs. machine piecing and quilting.  (If you weren't, you might think that was insane, and you'd be right!)  Machine quilting was in its infancy, and machine quilted quilts were often not even allowed in quilt shows.  Completely ridiculous, of course, but a very stuffy crowd was in charge in those days. 

My first quilt teacher was Nedra Whittington, whose name appears on the block above.  In her class, we pieced and quilted by hand, so I had the skills needed for the Friendship group.

We met once a month (I think).  The organizer drew our names out of a hat, and assigned us a month when the others would make blocks for us.  When it was our turn, we brought already cut out pieces for our blocks (with the seam lines marked for hand piecing), and handed them out, two sets per person.   The finished blocks were due at the next meeting.

I was just starting to get into quilt history then, and this was my favorite book:  Remember Me:  Women and Their Friendship Quilts, by Linda Otto Lipsett.  Ms. Lipsett collected friendship quilts and researched their makers.

This was my favorite quilt in the book.  It's in the chapter entitled A Piece of Ellen's Quilt.  There are no patterns, but it was easy enough to draft.  The block is called Snowflake in the Ladies Art Company catalogs of the 1890s to the 1920s.  It has lots of other names, too.

I wanted to make a bed sized quilt, and I knew I wouldn't have enough blocks with just the ones from the Friendship exchange.  So I started making more blocks.

Friends not in the group made blocks for me, too!  This one was made by Elaine, a dear friend who shared my love of antique quilts.  Take a look at the print.

Above is a photo of the quilt in the book.  Elaine found a reproduction print of this fabric, and made her block with it!  The colors are different, but the print is the same.

My friend Nancy signed her block with the exact date, and a heart!

I had lots of extra blocks that needed signatures, so I carried them around with me and got other quilters to sign them.  The second red block above was signed by Maxine Young, owner of my favorite quilt shop, the Fabric Shack in Waynesville, Ohio.  (It's still going strong, and has a great online store, fabricshack.com.)

My grandmother signed this block.  It is especially precious to me now that she has passed away.

I love this one, too!  My oldest daughter had been doing some hand piecing and wanted to sign the quilt.  She picked out the colors, and did some of the stitching.  You might be able to see that she included our zip code with her signature.  She was 9 years old then.

So how did I let this become a UFO?  When the blocks were all finished, I hastily sewed them into a top.  It was very badly done, and I knew it, even at the time.  Diagonal sets are not my favorites, and I had used a striped sashing, which emphasized all the flaws.  I said a thing to myself that one should never say--"Oh, it'll quilt out."  No.  No, it won't.  After a few years I admitted to myself that the striped sashing would have to go.

A few months ago, I finally ripped the top apart, and this week I got it back together with different sashing and added a border.

This is more what I wanted when I started this project all those years ago. 

It's not a huge quilt, but it fits nicely on a twin-sized bed.

I'm so happy to have this much done!  All day I've been thinking of a line from Bookends, a Simon and Garfunkel song.

"Preserve your memories, they're all that's left you."

Little Buddy and I are yelling for joy around here!

I'm wishing you joy this week, in whatever you do.

Cheers for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Sarah at Can I Get A Whoop Whoop

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Sailing Away

Welcome to Treadlestitches, my little corner of the world.

This week, we went to the Lake Michigan shore with our oldest daughter and her children for an afternoon.  (Her husband is working from home, and no doubt appreciated the quiet time!)  The weather was perfect, the company was wonderful, and it was so good to actually go somewhere, even if only an hour away.

My daughter's family comes to the shore often, and a favorite activity is looking for beach glass.

We all got into the act, even Grandpa.  It's like a treasure hunt.

The kids (Middle Buddy and Girl Buddy?) swam a little, especially our grandson,  but the water is just too cold for most of us.  We got our feet wet, but that's about all. 

After we got home, a squirrel bit me, and I just had to drop everything and make this little sailboat quilt.

The unpieced blocks in the quilt are made from fabric leftover after the last quilt I finished.  I was cleaning up the scraps when the squirrel attacked.   There were sailboats in the dark blue print.  What if I made sailboat blocks to go with it?

Years ago, I made this tied comforter for my son.  I had come across it recently in the mending pile.  The blocks in the old quilt were 12 in. finished.  For the new quilt, I used the same traditional design, and just made the blocks 6 in. finished.

Want to see why the old quilt was in the mending pile?  The border fabric ripped in the washing machine.  I will have to replace this section.  Since it's a comforter, it will be easier to fix than if it was quilted.  The real problem will be finding the right color fabric.  When the virus is less of a problem, I'll take the quilt with me to the quilt store and just get the closest match I can.

Here's my patented method for choosing fabrics for boats and sails and backgrounds--just dump out the 2 in. strips on the floor and root through them!  Messy quilty fun.

Look what I found in my stash for the back--happy whales and crabs.  The border is a lighthouse print that I had completely forgotten about, and the binding has white anchors on red.  I quilted it with a serpentine stitch done with Mrs. Pfaff's built in walking foot.

This little quilt will go to Jack's Basket.

When I recovered from the squirrel bite, I made 6 more blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  This is my Text Me A Quilt project.  I neglected to make dark green blocks last month, because I just didn't have much of any dark green scraps.  I need more blocks, though, so I scrounged up whatever greens I had.

These are some "weird" greens that didn't fit any particular category, muddy green backgrounds with Minecraft and dog prints.

These are a little darker, with ants and the Peanuts characters playing golf.

It's really fun playing with all these prints.

Summer is here in full force, and everything is blooming, even the weeds and wildflowers.   I love this time of year.

In the week ahead, I'm wishing you joy in the little things, and courage to do what we can to help things get better.  Have a great week!

Cheers for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

Housing Developments

Welcome to Treadlestitches!  I got a little carried away making house blocks this week.  It's almost a village.  In this photo, it kind of looks like they're built on a hill.  Or having an earthquake.

This one is Bambi's house.  There's a dear little deer in the pink print.

Here's a flower house, with Bo Peep and her sheep in the windows.

I call this one the toy house, because the items in the pink print look like toys (or maybe cartoons?).  There are birds on the roof and cats on the door.

The cats just cannot be denied!  This house is made of a dog print, but there are cats in the windows and the background.

This house quilt is one of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilts, and the color of the month for June is pink.  Usually, I made 3 of these houses per month.  But, I didn't made dark green houses last month, because I ran out of decent greens, so I need to make some extras to stay on track with the math.  And you know how careful I have always (never) been about math.  I had enough scraps to make 4 pink blocks, plus...

A blue bear block, and ...

a blue floral house, with a pink bunny roof.  I used pink in each of these blocks, just for fun.

So, after 6 months of the RSC, this project has 18 blocks.  Which is exactly what it was supposed to have.  I think.

The houses are new construction.

 This is a remodeling project.

Years ago, I bought this unfinished quilt at a flea market.  It was in two main pieces, with two unconnected rows.  I loved the colors, and the way the quilt maker arranged them in a kind of rainbow.  I naively thought I could just sew the pieces together and finish the top.

Sometimes, there is a very good reason a quilt was never finished.  I believe this quilt maker ran out of the aqua color in the sashings, right when she needed three long strips of it in the middle.  I feel her pain.  The top was so close to being ready to quilt.  It would have needed setting triangles around the edge, but they could have been a different color.

After lots of thinking, and looking at quilts online, and drinking a couple of gallons of iced tea, this is what I decided to do with it.  I had no hope of matching the sashing with new fabric. So  I'm rippling out the sashing, and setting the little blocks into double nine patches.

That fabric on top is a real hoot.  It looks like kids' drawings from kindergarten.

Check out the back of the blocks.  The machine-sewn seams are pressed open.  The blocks measure 4.5 in. unfinished.  As you can see, I'm working with the pink blocks this month in honor of the RSC.

The prints in these blocks date from the 1930s through the 1950s.  One of the things that drew me to this project was the variety of fun prints, like the one above.  I'm afraid that little sunbonnet girl is trying to herd those cats.  (I have had similar experiences.  I don't recommend it.)

More cats!  These three blocks are all cut from the same fabric, which might be a Puss in Boots print.  Poor kitty is terribly cut up. 

Like lots of remodeling projects, this is going to take a while, and make a big mess.  This is the "little half" of the top.  The other half is just like this, plus rows of yellow, purple, red and blue.  As I free the blocks from the sashing, I'll be making them into Double Nine Patch blocks, so I can alternate ripping and sewing.  It will be a lot of work, but I like a challenge.

We definitely live in challenging times!  I'm wishing strength and hope for all of us, as we forge ahead this year.  As always, I take comfort in music.

To quote Paul McCartney:

        And when the broken-hearted people living in the world agree,

        There will be an answer, Let it be.

        For though they may be parted, there is still a chance that they will see,

        There will be an answer.  Let it be.

(My littlest grand-buddies hanging out together.)

Stay well!

Cheers for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

Plugging Away

Welcome to Treadlestitches!  The Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month for June is pink, so I'm starting with my double pink reproduction quilt scraps.

I often complain about not liking pink.  But not when it comes to reproduction prints!  I absolutely LOVE these.

The Shoofly blocks I'm making are very simple, just what I need right now.

I usually make 3 Shoofly blocks per month, but I just couldn't stop with the pink, so there are 4.  The math will work out.  (Probably?)

This one is my favorite.  I don't have favorite children or grandchildren or pets, but I think it's okay if I have favorite quilt blocks.

I'm not worrying about directional prints for this quilt, and if you look at the pink fabric on the corners you can see what I mean.  When quilters long ago made scrap quilts, they mostly didn't worry about fussy cutting all the stripes and directional prints to make them line up.  I'm with them, scraps is scraps, let's just cut them and use them up.

More pink!  This is a salmon-pink nursery print from the 1930s or 40s.  Weirdly, there are only 3 kinds of animals on it--elephants, giraffes, and mountain goats.  (Mountain goats??)  It was part of a child's comforter with matted batting that I bought at a flea market and took apart.

The salmon pink backing is on the reverse of this little quilt.  I blogged about the quilt HERE when I finished the top.

I thought really hard about hand quilting it, I really did.  But I know myself.  If I set it aside to hand quilt, it might wait a long, long time.  Plus I'm starting to have some arthritis in my hands.  So I machine quilted the blocks very simply, did a cable in the border, and bound it.

Now it can hang on the wall, and I can enjoy it.  If I hadn't cleaned out my stuff in the basement, I never would have made this quilt, which saves those embroideries and the little swatches.

As long as I was finishing little quilts, I got this one done, too.  These are the 1930s four patch blocks left over from the bigger quilt, and also a basement project. 

Check out the back!  No, I didn't piece it, it's a cheater print!  This one dates from roughly 1940s-1960s.  It was in my stash of vintage fabric.

Surprisingly, "printed patchwork" was made as early as the 18th Century in Europe.  It was even called "cheater cloth" in a 1910 catalog.  (Click HERE to learn more from quilt historian Barbara Brackman.)

I don't make a lot of wall hangings anymore (maybe since I've already got lots?) but it is nice to have some new ones to display.  I'll keep the four patch up until I get out the July 4th quilts.

This is my first post with the new version of Blogger.  Sigh.  In real life, I like a certain amount of change, but not in computer stuff.  However, it isn't as bad as I thought it would be.  And that is probably the best thing I've ever said about a software "upgrade".  I'll keep plugging away.

And that's what I'm doing every day, just hanging in and plugging away.  We have two epidemics in this country--Covid19 and police brutality.  I am encouraged to see so many people stepping up and speaking out.  I know change is possible, if we respect each other, reject violence, speak clearly and calmly, and work together.

I am comforted by this quote from anthropologist Margaret Mead.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

Cheers for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Cynthia at Oh Scrap