March 10th, 2010
Today the quilt top I’m pulling from the quilt top cupboard is antique Album block top.
This top is hand pieced and dates to around 1880’s-1910. It contains shirting, indigo,
homespun, Turkey red, and Congo red.
It also contains poverty patches and some of the blocks had a similar fabric substituted when the quilter didn’t have enough of one fabric to complete the block.
In this top you can see that Congo red was used.
Congo red was introduced in 1884. It was developed as a cheaper alternative to Turkey red. Fabrics dyed with synthetic dye could be direct dyed, or used without a mordant.
Congo red is almost the exact color as Turkey red but was one third or one fourth the price. It looked wonderful in the store, but when exposed to light and air it faded to peach or tan. In some cases the red faded to almost white.
It was found that rinsing the red dye with common table salt helped make the dye more color fast. This is where the idea of adding salt to our bleeding reds of today came from. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work on the red dyes used today.
Can you just imagine how our quilter of yesteryear felt when she realized that the red she used in her quilt top wasn’t color fast?
Sometimes a bargain isn’t a bargain?
As you can see in this block containing two different fabrics, she was trying to economize and make do with the fabrics she had on hand.
Here I show the back side of a block so you can see the way bits of fabric were joined together to get a piece big enough to cut her pattern pieces from. This is affectionately known as a “poverty patch”. I find them very endearing when I see them. 
Tags: Album block, Congo red. Turkey red. vintage fabrics, poverty patches, shirting. indigo
Posted in The quilt top cupboard | 17 Comments »
March 3rd, 2010
The top I’m pulling from the quilt top cupboard today is a Hexagon Star or another name is Dolly Madison Star.
The top is hand pieced and dates to around the 1930’s-1940’s.
This top isn’t very big.
If I squared off the unfinished edge of the left hand side the top would measure about 54″x 68″.
Unfortunately there is some soiling on one of the setting hexes.
I haven’t tried sponging it so see if the black marks will come off.
I wonder if this is why the top is unfinished..or if the quilter ran out of fabrics, or enthusiasm, or time? I suppose there could be any number of reasons for why the top went unfinished?
I wonder if someone will find my unquilted tops some time in the future and ponder why they were left undone? 
One of the fabrics is pretty unusual to me.
This fabrics has matches and lit cigarettes! Not very acceptable these days?
I don’t have any immediate plans to do anything with this top. It’s one that I picked up at yard sale a couple of years ago. I don’t remember what I paid for this one..but I know it wasn’t much.
Tags: Dolly Madison Star, hand pieced, Hexagon Star, vintage fabrics
Posted in The quilt top cupboard | 11 Comments »
February 28th, 2010
I have a new finish!
I started an applique project a while back. They’re Little Baskets inspired by the ones in When a Cold Wind Blows by blackbird designs.
The book wasn’t in my budget so I drew up my own basket.
I do a few baskets in between doing other things.
I decided to try doing a doll quilt with little baskets. I drew up a little basket and appliqued them to 2.25″ squares. That odd size made the math for the setting triangles a little tricky, but it all worked out. This one finishes at 13.5″ x 16.5″.
I decided to add triangles to the top corners for holding a dowel for hanging.
Once the top was quilted and the binding was sewn to the top side I cut 3″ squares..then folded them into triangle. Those are then stitched on in the seam allowance of the binding.
Then the binding is turned to the back side and hand stitched as usual.
With these triangles added I can easily slip a little dowel in to hang the little quilt.
The advantage is that I can hang the little quilt with just a tiny finishing nail. The little quilt can easily be taken down and a different little quilt of any size can be hung in it’s place.
The dowels are very inexpensive and no fancy hangers are needed.
I learned this method years ago from a quilting magazine. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the source so I can’t give credit to whomever thought of this. I didn’t know to save the source info, just the method. I had no idea that years later I’d have a computer in my home and would be posting this on a blog?
This isn’t the place that I’ll keep this little quilt hanging. I took a trivet off the kitchen wall and popped the little quilt in it’s place to show how none of the mechanics for hanging the quilt show.
I think this method would be especially good if doing a wall of quilts where you wouldn’t want a bunch of hangers showing?
How do you hang your little quilts?
Tags: doll quilt, hand applique, hanging a little quilt tutorial, little mini baskets, pink and brown
Posted in Doll quilts | 16 Comments »
February 24th, 2010
Today the quilt top I’m pulling from the quilt top cupboard is a nine patch. It’s a very simple design, which has been popular throughout time.
This example is not the sort of quilt that would be considered an heirloom quilt because of it’s simplicity and the common fabrics that have been used, but it’s one of my favorites.
This is the sort of quilt that was common in many homes and has a simple relaxed look that I really enjoy.
There are three blocks in this top that have the double pink as the dark squares at the corners. This gives a very different look to the block which is one of the quirky things that draws your eye in.
This top has 6″ finished blocks. It was hand pieced and dates to 1880-1910. The fabrics are double pinks, indigo prints, shirtings, homespun plaid, turkey red and cardinal red prints.
This top measures 68″x85″.
I remember buying this one at a yard sale. We arrived just as the sale was started and i scooped this little charmer up for $4. It made my day!
Tags: double pink, hand pieced, indigo, nine patch, shirting, vintage fabrics
Posted in The quilt top cupboard | 12 Comments »
February 21st, 2010
I’ve also finished the top I made for my Husband for Christmas. It was a challenge deciding how to quilt it. If I had just outlined the appliqued portion there wouldn’t be enough quilting in the center, especially if I quilted the log cabin portion “in the ditch”.
I decided to just quilt a grid over the top using brown thread. That made the thread seem to disappear on the Bear section. It also made the quilting even overall. If I had quilted the log cabin section as I normally would, that portion would have more quilting. It’s always best to try to have the quilting even throughout.
I’m not crazy about how this quilt turned out. I made the center portion first, then added the log cabin blocks which I had made in the past. Since I was trying to fit the blocks to the center size I wasn’t able to add a dark brown narrow border around the center section, which I would have preferred.
However, my Husband is happy with it, so that’s what matters?
Tags: Bear Watching finished, hand applique, hand quilted
Posted in Pieced and applique quilts | 16 Comments »
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