Cake for quilting!

Recently Bunty, Liz, Muriel, Jane and I went for a coffee and a quilty chat at a local gift and garden shop. While we were advising Liz on her 'Dear Jane' blocks, the waiter noticed what we were doing, and uttered those immortal words, 'I've got a quilt. It's old and it's not finished.' Visions of Victoriana (and hexagons!) filled our minds, but we said - genuinely- that we'd like to see it, and could he bring it for the next time we met.

The next meeting duly came around, and the waiter arrived with a bulging black bin bag. Our hearts sank. Then he revealed a lovely quilt which had been made 20 years ago but not quite finished. It had a little hand quilting still to do, and a binding to put on. What could we do but take pity on the poor thing and rescue it from its bin bag?!

We all pulled together and finished the quilting, then pulled the calico backing to the front to make the binding. We also organised a label, so all is good. We have been promised free cake for a future visit - a good return of skills!

And here are my first Orca Bay blocks finished. Since I'm starting with half the blocks, there are 118.5 of them here (I need 112). Glad I didn't make all the 224 for the full quilt! Can't wait for the next installment!

Fourth finish (and a bonus!)

Just because I haven't posted recently doesn't mean I've been idle - the weather has been so dull and dreary that I didn't think any photos I took would be worth looking at! Well, the sun is shining today, so I've had my camera out.

Here is my fourth Linus top finished this month. Hooray! I think it was originally a strippy quilt in progress, but looks good enough with this bright pink binding, I think. I've just quilted it in the ditch to emphasise the design.

I've also been steadily working on the old hexagon quilt which was made by Emily Glass in the 1890s. I've made it up as a coverlet (no wadding), and just hand quilted round some of the lozenge and flower shapes to keep it all together. I was going to applique it to a border fabric, but in the end have folded the top and backing under, and sewn it edge to edge, as many of the old English quilts were finished.

The backing has been made up from white fabric and the pieces of fabric I printed the information I have found out about the quilt, as well as a photo of the quilt as it was when I inherited it. I am determined that the history of the quilt will go with it.

Here is a bit closer look at the back, and I have written the 1891 census record on with a Pigma pen.

The top and bottom are still in the pretty zig zag formation, but (after taking advice from knowledgeable quilty friends) I decided to fold the other edge over to make it straight. All the fabric is still there, but folded under, as so many of the old English quilts were finished. I'm so delighted that it's now in a state for people to enjoy, and if I hadn't taken the papers out, I would never have found out about the maker of the quilt!

I've also been seduced into more piecing by donations to the Linus fabric. This small bag 6"x8" had scraps presumably left over from the Bramble Patch challenge fabric 'Authentic'. It was a shame to scatter these bits into the mile a minute box, so I decided to have a go at making something from them.

There was just about enough to make Bonnie Hunter's 'I spy a 4-patch' design. Very sophisticated colours for a Linus quilt, but I'm sure a teenager would love this.

And here it is at the moment. I'm auditioning border fabric.

Shall I go for the black as a narrow border, then a wide green, or vice versa? What do you think?

Regional Day

Things here have been pretty busy. DD has gone off to Brighton to start her MA course (means : washing, ironing, packing, cajoling, jollying, driving to and from Brighton, unloading, unpacking, feeding etc ) and nearer to home I have been front of house manager for the local production of 'Whose Life Is It Anyway?' (means : rushing home from work to be at the venue for 6.30, staying all evening to look after the audience and then on the final night host the after-show party and drink till 3 am.) Tough week! Luckily, both events went off very successfully, so now I can relax and maybe do a little sewing!

I did find time to sneak off to the Quilters Guild of the British Isles Regional Day for Northamptonshire with Ruth. It's the first time I've been to a Region 7 day, and it was very friendly and enjoyable. Apart from the delights of the delicious array of home-made cakes, they had two speakers! In the morning was Ferret and after lunch was Katherine Guerrier.


I had seen Ferret's fantastic quilt 'Herd Mentality' at the NEC, but apart from a rumour that she made quilts featuring nudes, knew no more. She was delightful. Modest, young, down to earth and very inspirational, she showed a wide variety of different techniques and ideas. Her journey as a quilter (from using polycotton and bedsheets and binding her quilts with satin ribbon) was much like many of ours, but the range of her work and colour sense was uniquely her own.

Here you can see her with several of her quilts in the background. Apparently her nudes cannot be exhibited in some shows (she named Paducah) but I didn't think they were disturbing myself.

After lunch, I don't think I was the only one who struggled to keep awake during Katherine Guerrier's talk. It wasn't that her talk or quilts weren't good, but more the fact of lunch (and home-made cake) weighing me down. Katherine is the archetypal scrap quilter, and to see how her quilts developed into the wonderful kaleidoscopes of colours that they are today, was fabulous. I tried to get a photo of her, but the numbers of people wanting to look at her quilts,

and buy her books was too great.

You can just see her at the back in a white blouse and blue scarf.

I took the opportunity to seek advice about the old hexagon quilt. Margaret Armstrong, from the Quilter's Guild was kind enough to look at 3 hexagon quilts that people had brought along. The other two were silk and one in particular (which had been bought in a junk shop for £20) was a poor shape. Margaret felt that none of the quilts were museum quality, and said that it would be fine to replace the missing and damaged parts of mine with reproduction fabrics and thereby realise its original maker's intentions. I have emailed the Quilter's Guild twice to see if they would like it, but have so far not had a response. I'll hang fire for a while and see if I can get another opinion, but I think Margaret is probably right.

Jars

I had always fancied making a jars quilt (remember when quilts with jars full of insects were all the rage?), but never managed to collect enough suitable fabrics for one. So I was doubly delighted when I received a collection of jars which Karol-Ann kindly sent me for Linus. Apparently they has been in her UFO box for two years, and she didn't think she'd get round to using them. (Makes my UFO collection seem positively antique!) Thanks Karol-Ann for donating to Linus, and also thanks for giving me nearly enough blocks to make a jars quilt without having to buy lots of different fabrics!

Here are the blocks ready to play. I loved all the blocks, but had to reject this one as I'm not sure it's suitable for a Linus quilt!

I added a few blocks of my own and here is the basic arrangement ready for a border. The royal blue you can just see on the right is probably going to be the colour for the border as it needs something gutsy but which won't take the emphasis away from the jars.

Many thanks to all those who commented on my quandry about the old quilt I had been given for Linus. I found out who had given it to me, and it turned out to have belonged to a 91 year old lady who had recently died. Her daughter had found the quilt amongst her mother's things, and given it to a member of an embroidery group who she knew was a quiltmaker. It was she who had given it to me. After a lot of thought, I have decided that it will be better to find a museum which would like the quilt. I know it will end up in a box, but at least it will be an acid-free box in a temperature-controlled environment. It may not see the light of day much, but that means it will survive longer. If that fails (there are hoards of unfinished hexagon quilts in the UK) I will think about putting it on ebay for a collector to look after and love. OK?

Another old quilt

On Saturday I went to Rocheberie Quilters in Rugby. The members of this group are a very generous bunch, and make lots of Linus quilts for me, buy items from my rummage box of unwanted stuff and bring lots of surplus sewing-related things to keep the aforementioned rummage box in good health. Saturday was no exception. The rummage box donations dish had £19.75 in it at the end of the day, some unsold pieces from the sales table were added to the box, I had two Linus quilts to take home and someone gave me a partly completed hexagon quilt to use for Linus. I am always pleased to receive donations of any kind for Linus, and felt sure that I could cut the good part of the top about to make a suitable quilt.




Here is the quilt, displayed on my lounge carpet! Unremarkable hexagons, with the papers still on the back. I decided to take the papers out, wash it and complete the bit that was missing, as it was quite a good size and wouldn't take much work. When I turned it over, I had quite a shock, as the papers had been cut from old letters, and the writing looked to be copperplate and not very modern at all. Some of the papers had writing going across and then down, on top of one another. This was done to save postage and paper, in the Victorian era.

Then I found papers which had presumably been cut from envelopes, with postmarks on them!

This one is a handstamp from Warrington 92, which must be 1892

and this one Bathearton (?) Dec 91 which must be 1991! This proves that the papers are nearly 120 years old, and the fabric must be at least that.

The fabrics don't seem to be remarkable, but this puts me in a quandry. What do I do with it? I am loathe to give it to a museum, where it will end up in a box, and would rather finish the quilt (with reproduction fabrics) and make it into a quilt or coverlet, as the maker intended. Did I ought to try to contact the person who gave it to me (sorry, I didn't take note of who it was!) and give it back? Or can I finish it, put a donation into Linus and keep it myself? All suggestions gratefully received.

Old quilt layered!

I finally got round to working on the replacement old quilt I've been working on. (I'm embarrassed that it was January when I last did anything for it, but I have spent a lot of time in between head-scratching and researching - honestly!). I couldn't seem to get the last frame sorted out, then finally decided that the plain border I had put on, was too wide. It finished off the quilt, so anything added looked superfluous. Once I'd chopped a few inches off that, I was inspired again.
Well, not that inspired, as you can see, but I think the flying geese border finishes it off quite satisfactorily. I've used a combination of reproduction fabrics, fabrics which look like they might be reproductions and some vintage fabrics. I hope the lady will like it. All I've got to do now is quilt it!