Boo!

Isn't he cute? He is battery operated. Mary at Quilt Hollow blog posted a photo of the little guys she found at Lowe's for $5. I was at our local store yesterday and look who found his way into my cart. Thanks, Mary, for the idea. He will do double duty come Thanksgiving when his light will turn off and he can face a wall and just be punkin-y then.

He is sitting on another blogger pattern creation. I made this up from Kathleen Tracy's book The Civil War Sewing Circle. It is the scrap squares doll quilt on page 25. I was going to make it scrappy like in the book but that can wait for another day.........thought it would look good in some deep browns and a chedda' for the fall season. It's very seasonal when you see it in person. My camera makes the whole picture too bright. This would be a great easy and fast
pattern to make in any fabric to match any holiday for your decorating. I'm seeing Christmas fabrics........and Valentine's...........Easter............patriotic holidays...................it doesn't end! Fun!

Lovin' those pillars............

What is not to love about pillar fabric? For sometime I have been noticing them and decided to purchase a few reproductions slowly over the summer. There has been talk about them in blogland, too, so I will share some photos of my purchases. I understand Barbara Brackman/Moda have a new pillar out in a couple colorways but I have not been able to see it yet in the few shops around my area. I will be on the lookout!

Here is a pillar print repro by Blue Hill in brown tones. What could make a pillar print even better? Add eagles. Ooooooooooo! This is from their American Independence line.
Then there are these two beauties from Andover from their Winterthur Toile line. One appears to be black on a darker tea-dyed background. The other is a brown on a lighter tea-dyed
background. Both are wonderful and hard to pick the better of the two I like most.


Here is my most recent purchase. This lovely blue/brown beauty is by Windham and from their line The Presidents Collection.
There is a backstory to this piece. In the recent quilt book STARS! A Study of 19th Centry Star Quilts by the American Quilt Study Group, published by Kansas City Star Quilts, a quilt on page 79 caught my eye. A pillar print! This quilt was reproduced from a larger quilt by Florence McConnell. I was able to make contact with Florence and she graciously shared the maker of the pillar print with me. Although I could not find it in the red colorway she used for her quilt, I did find it in the blue which is just as pretty to me. Thank you, Florence! As a side note, this
is a great book if you like to reproduce antique quilts..........a keeper for sure.

If pillar prints appeal to you, here is a good start for you to google away or to look closely thru the inventory at your local quilt shops. Right now I am happy to only look at my small
pillar collection but I'm sure it won't be long before the scissors and rotary cutter come out to make some great projects with them.

Tumbler

The large tumbler top is finished and will be added to the "needs to be quilted" pile. It will make a nice long lap quilt for recliner naps when finished.

Tumbling back to the 80's

Way, way back in the dark ages before the internet opened up rapid fire ways to see quilter's projects and ideas, we had magazine photos as one of the main ways to find inspiration. I had a good sized fabric collection back then but when the idea of wanting to make a charm quilt
popped into my head, there needed to be a way to exchange charms other than with local quilt friends who had the same fabrics I had. In some of the quilt mags of the day, you could find in very tiny print on some obscure page next to bad advertising, requests from ladies who wanted to exchange charms one for one with anyone answering their ad.
I happened to answer a few of these request ads and if you wanted your request to be passed around to even more traders, it was done. All thru the mail. Some wanted 5" charms, some 6", always prewashed. It was always one for one. Every now and then someone didn't play by the rules and would send nasty and not quilting cotton fabrics where I would send it back to them for not playing right. :-)

Here is my tumbler charm quilt made from those exchanges that were so fun to receive in the mail.

And a closeup of some of the 1980's calicos of the era: My tumbler quilt has charms traded from Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Minnesota, Michigan, Mississippi, Ohio, Nevada, Arkasas, New York and Washington. I also received packages from Australia, too. Getting the mail was so fun that summer.

Since I have been seeing big and small tumbler quilts on blogs for months now, earlier in the year, I also made a small doll size one, called a thimble quilt.

Now I am cutting tumblers from blues and browns to make another and maybe I can show my progress on the next post. In the meantime, here are the tumbler and the thimble one together.
Who knows, maybe a blog reader was a charm trader with me back in the day and has one of her trades with me in my quilt.

Primitive eagles reproduced

A number of years ago on an online auction site, an old eagle crib quilt was up for auction. The eagles were primitive and appliqued in red and green. I bid on it knowing it would go very high and out of my budget. I kept it in mind, tho, for a future project.

Then a year later, it was up for bid again. O my gosh! I bid a couple times and it went out of my reach again. There was only one solution: draw a similar eagle and make my own. I could afford that! Decided to make mine red and blue. Then I thought to make it more prim style, I would applique an uneven jagged edge around it all and it would look more like "me".

Here it is, out of the cupboard for this post.
Here you can see the funky, wacky prim sawtooth border.
Looking back, I wish I would have put more quilting in the outside border. O well, don't dwell on it now. When I made it in 2003, it was to commemorate Ohio being a state for 200 years. And just to make my own of that antique beauty I saw online years before.

One last look at an eagle..........
Always will be drawn to eagle quilts like many quilters are. I'm sure this won't be the last one I make.

Bradbury centennial quilt reproduced

For years I admired the Bradbury centennial quilt posted on the Smithsonian site.
I had also seen photos in some books but never a good close up until I found it online. I had collected various patriotic prints from different companies, designers and lines for ages to make my version. Last year I made mine. After Kathie posted
pictures on her blog July 24 th (www.inspiredbyantiquequilts.blogspot.com) of the same print I used on my backing, I decided to show some closeups of my repro quilt.

Since some fabric companies are making new fabric lines reproduced from an antique quilt, this is one I wish they would make a new fabric line from. I would make it again! Where I could not find a close enough repro print, I made up my own, such as in stripes.

This picture shows a couple more blocks with one featuring the same George Washington print a friend was kind enough to trade with me for.
George again:

And more assorted prints used in other blocks:
Finally, the backing which shows the same print Kathie used on the back of one of her little quilts.

On the Smithsonian site you can click under the quilt photo to see closeups of the quilt and the back. I had fun making this.............it's not an exact replica, but a good repro for my tastes to have my "own" quilt like this antique one. I would love to see it in person. In fact, I had so much fun making mine, I didn't want to stop and added an extra row. You may have to look close to see where it is.

Too hot to quilt!

O my............we are sweltering in Ohio, just like I am sure most of the country is. Can't stand it anymore; cuts into stitching time, right? (We have NO a/c at home and fans barely help at 95 degrees.) Just to post something and wish for cooler weather, I will show a picture of the reproduction crib quilt top I basted a couple weeks ago. I only have the center applique piece hand quilted now. Last year I took this class over at Good Wives Co in Marion, Ohio...........my
favorite quilt shop. It's a 40 minute drive for me but so worth it. The last local quilt shop here closed a few years ago so I drive to Good Wives. They have just what I like.


I changed the corner blocks on mine as I did not want to make the carpenters wheel blocks the original had. I needed something easier to get the top done. Streamlined it. I kept the color placements the same, tho. This is so pretty in person and I am looking forward to having it done and draped everywhere. Now to wish the heat away so I can go back to quilting on this!