Something Old, Something New

Welcome to Treadlestitches!  It's the last Saturday of the month, and time for airing some quilts from my collection.

It's a pink parade for April, which has been pink month at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  I'm not really pink's biggest fan, so I don't make or buy a lot of pink quilts, but these called me to take them home.  Sadly I have no information on the original makers of any of these quilts.

Doll quilts always catch my eye.  If in perfect condition, they can cost a fortune.  But if it's in perfect condition, doesn't that mean a child never played with it?  Very sad.  The ones I buy are well loved.

This little one is kind of wonky.  Maybe a child made it?  Or a mama in a hurry?  All the work is by machine, including the quilting and binding.  It's hard to date quilts with only solid color fabrics, but I'm guessing around 1900, give or take 10 years in either direction.

Next up, a quilt that's both old and new.  I bought the blocks in an antique mall, and set them together with plain white and reproduction fabrics.

Even though pink is not my favorite color, these little blocks just insisted on coming home with me.  My guess on an age for them is circa 1930. 

I was apparently too lazy to make a label, but at least I wrote some information in the border.  Good heavens, I finished this 18 years ago this month!

Have you ever seen a quilt like this before?  Hundreds of quilts were made from this pattern, published in newspapers in the 1930s.  It's called The Alphabet Quilt, and the designer was Florence La Ganke Harris, who wrote under the pseudonym of Nancy Page.  

This is the announcement of the series from the newspaper.  Some of the papers ran contests for completed series quilts.

The Nancy Page column published a quilt block each week in the late 1920s through the 1930s, with the fictional Nancy advising her quilt club on how to make that particular block.  For the series quilts, Ms. La Ganke sometimes changed the format.  The Alphabet Quilt is being made by "Aunt Mary" for her young niece Joan, and Mary is sharing her progress with her friends.

Here is one of the newspaper patterns.  Quilters often cut them out and saved them, maybe planning to make the quilt someday.  (I can definitely relate to that!)

Most of the blocks in the quilt are simple applique, meant to be familiar to a child.  The last block is very unusual.  Ms. La Ganke gave quilters a choice.  They could either embroider X Y Z to finish the alphabet or they could do as this quilter did, and embroider the word YOU to make it a signature square.  (Either way, they would have 24 squares instead of 26, and could put it together 4 blocks by 6 blocks.)

This is the reason I bought these blocks on Ebay many years ago.  The maker has embroidered the name of the intended recipient, Billy Shannon, on the left, plus Mama and 1931.  In pencil she has written the word "from" just before Mama.  I felt like this project needed to be completed.

When this came to me, it was a UFO from at least 70 years ago.  All the blocks were done, and the pink frames had been added.  (Pink was not considered an exclusively girl color in the past.) 

I'm sorry that Billy Shannon never got his quilt.  I finished the blocks with vintage fabric, including the backing and binding, and did some simple quilting.  If I had any idea who the family was, I would pass it on to them.

Florence La Ganke designed many other series quilts, among them the Magic Vine, which was redone by Eleanor Burns a few years ago.  Patterns for these quilts and/or copies of the originals can be obtained from online sellers.  Check out this article on Nancy Page (Click HERE) by Wilene Smith for more information on Ms. La Ganke herself.

And now for something completely different.

I love to catch my young grandsons playing together peacefully.  It's not always like this! But they really do love each other.

In the week ahead, I'm wishing you peace and love.  And happy quilting!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Angela at So Scrappy

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Cynthia at Oh Scrap 

 

Trash and Treasures

Welcome to Treadlestitches!

It's spring in Wisconsin.  The robins have been back for at least a month, and this plump fellow likes to perch on a tree in our backyard just about every morning. 

With spring comes spring cleaning.  I've had more time for it this year, with less babysitting, so I am taking it more seriously.

Do you have one of these?  It's a yarn monster!

For the last 2 weeks, I've been cleaning out my basement stash, sorting out what to keep, what to sell or give away, and what to toss.  Above is a nest of yarn ends, from the bottom of a box.  It was easy to decide to throw the yarn monster out.  Other decisions were tougher.

In a box of embroidered linens, I found these vintage dish towels.

Most of these date to before World War II.  Cute little figures are outlined on towels made from flour sacks.

See the little bear on the upper corner of this sack?  All the little bear embroideries are done on these Sunnyfield flour bags.  I wonder if the maker thought the lettering would wash out.  Although the companies confidently promised this would happen, it often didn't.
At one time, I thought I might cut the embroidered bears, ducks, etc. out of the towels and make them into quilt blocks.  I could still do that.  For now, I've washed them all and stacked them in the pantry.

As I was sorting through things, I happened to set some little embroidered blocks next to these tiny scraps.  Hmm.  I loved both of them.  Could I put them together?

Well, yes I could!

On the back you can see the pinked edges of the little scraps.  The small size, pinked edges, and multiple colorways of each print make me believe these were swatches, sent by fabric companies to stores and seamstresses to assist in ordering yardage.

The blocks are rectangles, 5 in. x 6 in. before being sewn together.  The embroideries are kittens, puppies, one chick and one rabbit.  I bought them on Ebay many years ago.  The seller lived in the next town over, and actually delivered them to my door.  She didn't know anything about who made them.

I used a vintage bunny print for the border, also reclaimed from the basement stash.

Right now, I am debating how to quilt it.  I know it won't be a donation quilt.  Embroidery doesn't fare well with the frequent washings donated children's quilts need.  I may use it on the wall in our extra room.  It measures about 30 in. x 36 in.
There is still lots to do in the basement, but I was sidetracked this week by a different kind of project.

The United Way is sponsoring MaskUPMKE, an effort to assemble face masks for local use.  (Click HERE for more information.)  Each volunteer takes home a box like this.

Here's what's in the box--rolls of mask material, perforated for each mask, and latex-free rubber bands.  We assemble the masks in our homes, and return the box with the completed masks.

Here's what they look like.  The first one you make is yours, to wear as you work.
It's not official PPE, and not very pretty, but if it helps at all I'm glad to do it.

Here's what the box looked like this morning before I taped it up and dropped it off.  There are 692 masks in here.   If you live in the area and are interesting in helping out, they are taking volunteers at least through next week.  They deliver and retrieve the boxes from your car trunk to minimize exposure to the virus.

More treasures of spring--the rhubarb is up, and looking very healthy after all our rain this week.

And the tulips are blooming!
All of these are good reasons to keep going, and keep hoping.  Times are tough now, but there are better days ahead.
Stay safe this week!
Cheers for reading,
Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:
Sarah at Can I Get A Whoop Whoop
Angela at So Scrappy
Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday
Cynthia at Oh Scrap

Daisy Quilt Finish

Hello!  I'm back this week, with a quilt finish made possible by my friend Joey.

I'm calling this quilt Summer Daisy.

I bought the petals on Ebay many years ago.  They were already cut out, and the edges were hand-basted, ready for applique.  I top-stitched them to background blocks, and added a stem made from purchased binding.
Some of the fabrics are really weird.  Check out the Bambi-like deer in the flower above.  The fabrics date to the 1950s and 1960s.
I finished this top literally years ago, and it was in my stack of shame when Joey last visited.  We pieced a back, and she took it home to quilt for me.
Isn't the quilting wonderful?  It was done by Joey on her long arm machine.

She did a kind of loop de loop in the sashing and border that really sets them off.  Thank you, Joey!

 I still have to sew the binding down.  I'll be doing that this week, while waiting for supper to cook, or during the baby's naps, if he takes any.  He's still too little to have a set schedule yet.

I also have a flimsy finish!  These are the nine patch blocks I made with vintage prints and solid colors (vintage or new).  I added a simple border of squares.

There are 99 blocks in the quilt, 9 across and 11 down.  I alternated between blocks with 5 print squares and blocks with 5 solid squares.

Many of these prints are from the 1930s.  We tend to think of the 30s fabrics as pastels, but there were lots of crayon box shades then, too, especially in solid colors.
All of this has put me in a vintage mood, so I started working on this.

I bought a bag of vintage scraps at the last Elkhorn flea market.

Here's what was in it!  Lots and lots of scraps, mostly from the 1930s.

I am going really Old School on this lot.  In the foreground of this picture, you may be able to see two red plexiglass templates.  One is an equilateral triangle, and one is a right triangle.  The templates are designed to be used with a rotary cutter, but they're not very big, and I don't really like using the cutter for these small shapes.  (Blood is just so messy, and I don't want to spend the evening in the Emergency Room.)  So I'm actually Drawing Around the Templates and Cutting the Shapes with Scissors.  Not very modern of me, of course.  (Neither is sewing with a treadle.  But I digress.)
When I first learned to quilt, this was the way it was done, although our templates were not made of such nice stuff, usually just cardboard like cereal boxes.

I'm making progress!  I've got a stack of each kind of triangle, plus a pile of tiny pieces I might use for something, and a pile of shreds that need to be thrown out.  I've been listening to speeches on television while I work, but I can imagine the original owner of these scraps tracing and cutting while Benny Goodman plays on the radio, or President Roosevelt comes on for a Fireside Chat.

We have had the best of weather today, a rain shower that watered the gardens and cleared the air, and lovely summer sunshine.  August starts next week, and summer will be on the way out.

I wish you the joy of summer today, and of course the joy of quilting.

I'm linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts today for Finish it Up Friday.