In Which I Test Gravity, and Gravity Wins

Welcome to Treadlestitches!

I started out this week on the right foot.  I had 3 quilts my friend Joey had quilted for me back in March 2023 (more than a year ago!) that were waiting to be bound.  It was long past time to get that done, so I started on this one, an 1800s reproduction medallion.  

On Sunday night, I sewed the binding on the back, and started doing my usual machine binding on the front, but it just didn't look right with this reproduction quilt.  So I ripped out the little I had done, and planned to finish the binding by hand.

On Monday, for Veterans Day, I made two of these blocks for our guild's Block of the Month.  These will be donated to a local group that makes quilts for veterans and their families.

That was the last time I did any machine sewing.

Tuesday morning, while bringing a load of laundry down the stairs, I tripped over the cat (he was lying on the bottom stair) and managed to break my toe.  (No worries, Snicky the cat was fine, just freaked out.)

In the grand scheme of things, although painful, this was a minor accident.  I broke the smallest toe on my right foot.  On the intake form they wrote "pinky toe" so I guess that's the technical term.  X-rays confirmed a tiny break.

If you're familiar with sports injuries, you might already know about the recommended treatment.  It's called a buddy wrap.  The injured toe is wrapped with a special tape to the uninjured toe next to it, to help the break heal in the right position.  I'm so glad my poor toe has a buddy to help it!  I hope all the other toes aren't angry with me for making this happen to their friend.

Wearing shoes is still painful, so they gave me this boot.  Eventually I'll be able to get back into my regular sneakers.

So things are under control, and I'm able to do almost everything I normally do.  

Except driving.  AND MACHINE SEWING.  (Nooooooo!)

  Good news, though, I got the medallion quilt bound.  And it was very pleasant to do.

I made this quilt as part of an online "class" by Barbara Brackman on fabric prints from the 1800s.  The stars in this quilt were made with prints first published before 1850 (mine of course were repros).  The bird print in the center (see also the first photo on this post) is a copy of a print by John Hewson, an English fabric printer who came to Philadelphia in the late 1700s.

This is the back, a repro pillar print, first popular in the early 1800s.  I chose the blue binding to go with both front and back.  (Joey's quilting is amazing!)

Now I can stop feeling guilty about a least one unfinished object!  

But it's still too painful to work a foot pedal.  So what about cutting up scraps?

Our quilt guild has been gifted a LOT of fabric lately, including scraps and cut pieces.  Wednesday night after the meeting I took home a bag of 2.5 in. x 4.5 in. rectangles, and found all these fun Hot Wheels prints in it.  I cut up some light fabrics and some other car prints to make a kit of 20 Windmill blocks.  I found a good backing in my stash, although I will need to piece it to make it long enough.

Do you see the post it note?  I have been doing this lately whenever I cut out a quilt.  On the note I put the details about it, including the measurements, border ideas, etc.  Then I put it all in a clear plastic bag.  When I have time to work on it, I don't have to wonder what I was thinking, or do the math again!  Revolutionary.  (Why on earth did I never think of doing this before?)

Once the kit quilt reaches the quilt top stage, I put the post it notes in my notebook.  Now I have all the details if I want to make something similar again.

I tried driving yesterday with that boot on, and it went okay, but my foot was sore when I got home.  Maybe I will try machine sewing sometime this weekend.  I hope I'll be successful soon.  If not, there may not be an uncut scrap left in the sewing room.  I might even have to resort to hand applique.

Take care, everyone!  And watch out for cats!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

 

 

Living in the Past

I love history.  I love quilts.  So naturally, I love quilt history.  And by that I mean REAL quilt history, based on facts and scholarship.
One of our most famous quilt historians is Barbara Brackman.  Her Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns is used as the definitive reference for most of the quilt documentation projects which are digitized at the Quilt Index.  She also has a terrific blog.  Here's the link:  Barbara Brackman's Material Culture
I had been neglecting my blog reading for a while, and just stumbled across something wonderful last November.  It was Barbara Brackman's Stars in A Time Warp Quiltalong.  It started in January of 2015, and featured a post per week on different fabrics and prints in quilt history.
It was like taking an in-depth class, for free!  Each week participants made 6 in. star blocks using reproduction fabrics of the type featured in the blog post.
Since I started late, I could progress through the lessons at my own pace.  I rooted through all my scraps and yardage, looking for just the right pieces.  I unearthed fabric from the basement, digging for treasure.  My sewing room looked like a bomb went off.
And here is the result:

This is quilt #1.  It's a medallion set, with most of the fabrics reproducing the earlier part of the 19th Century.  The center is the bird block at the top of this post.  The bird is a reproduction of a chintz made by John Hewson of Philadelphia.

It's not a big quilt, which would have been more typical of this time period, but it fits a twin bed.

It was so much fun choosing the fabrics!  The center of the star above came from a scrap of curtain fabric I bought at a flea market.

Many of these fabrics have been in my repro stash for years.

This border is from 2000!

So that's the first quilt.  Here's the second one:

It was hard to get it all in one photo.  There are borders on all four sides, BTW.

Most of these reproduction fabrics copy the last half of the 19th Century.  I tried to use 4 fabrics in each block for the sake of variety.

The center of the blue block above is a toile with scenes from the life of Abraham Lincoln.  The fabric in the corners of the Lincoln star shows clasped hands and says The Union For Ever.

Stars in A Time Warp is still up!  Here's the link:  Stars in A Time Warp

So how am I going to quilt them?  I think I want quilting designs that work with the time periods.  Got any ideas?  I'd love to know what you'd do.  Leave a suggestion in the comments.

In other news, there's a "new" old sewing machine in my sewing room.

This is my Singer 9W.  She's been on a shelf in the basement for a few years, waiting for her turn to get back to work.
I had of course cleaned and oiled her and got her sewing when I first bought her, but this is her real shake-down cruise.
The Singer 9W is a sort of hybrid between a Wheeler and Wilson and a Singer.  In fact, she mostly takes after the Wheeler and Wilson side.  Singer took over the Wheeler and Wilson factories after they went out of business in 1905, and produced the 9W until around 1913.  So my machine is at least 100 years old.
The good news is, she works very well!  She has a nice consistent stitch, and so far not a smidge of tension troubles.  However, there are some things that I'm having to get used to.  For instance, the hand wheel turns AWAY from you, like a White, not like a Singer.  And the bobbins are very interesting.

The Singer 9W takes a round, flat bobbin.  This shows it in place.

This is what it looks like when you take the bobbin out.  It's hard to see here (not a good photo), but the bobbin goes in on a little lever, which you close when the bobbin is in place.

Winding the bobbins is a tad primitive.  You guide the thread onto the bobbin with your fingers, moving it gently back and forth to fill the bobbin evenly.  It reminds me of the Singer model 12 in this aspect.
In the photo above, you can see two bobbins on the machine bed.  The nearer one is an old bobbin, original to the machine.  I have 2 old bobbins, plus some newer ones originally made for a Featherweight.  Some of the Featherweight bobbins work, and some don't, because they are just a tiny bit too big to go in the machine.

I'm a 21st Century woman, and I really wouldn't have it any other way.  I like being able to vote, having better health care, occasional airplane travel, radio, television, telephones, indoor plumbing, oh, yes, and the internet.  But it's fun to wander through the past and discover how things used to be.  And if it involves sewing and quilts, sign me up!
Happy Quilting!