outdoor quilt show

Every year there is an outdoor quilt show in my city. It's held at a park - a historic village. It's always wonderful but this year the weather cooperated for a perfect day. There were close to 500 quilts to look at - some of them beautiful antiques. It is not a judged show so I always like to put a quilt in it. I've posted about this one before - its my Lucy's Geese quilt. Machine pieced and hand quilted. It was displayed indoors - in the living room of one of the historic homes in the park.
This next one is made by a friend of mine - it is exquisite!! It was displayed indoors too and I love the bear rug that looks like its just about going to attack. :0)

This one is just so original!

I could have looked at this quilt all afternoon - it had so many great blocks - beautifully done. (it was a bit windy)

This one I just liked the combo of the applique and the piecing. It's so pretty.

I will save the antique quilts for my next post. My parents are here visiting this week so I don't know when that will be.

Happy Quilting!!

I'm still here

Soccer season keeps us pretty busy for May and June. Everyday I try to sew a few pieces together, applique a shape or 2, or handquilt a few threads. This is the latest block from the BOM challenge with the guild I belong to. It took me 3 days to make :0) I know life will not always be this busy...

Happy Quilting!

wedding quilt

I've been working on my new quilt - the brown and pink one - but I want to have several blocks made before share any pictures of it. So here is another quilt made by my grandma - my wedding quilt. Skip ahead 70 plus years from the last quilt of hers I posted about- this one was made in the 1970's. Can you tell :0)
While embracing new materials, it is constructed in the old way. Handpieced from poly/cotton broadcloth. It is handquilted with a thin polyester batting. For binding the backing has been brought around to the front and machine stitched down.

My Grandma loved making quilts. She had 7 grandchildren and made each of us a wedding quilt well in advance. (for my sister, the wedding quilt was completed before she was born) When I was a young girl we drove across Canada to visit my Grandma every other year. I liked to ask my Grandma to see the wedding quilts. She kept them stored in a cedar chest in her bedroom. We had to wait until the work for the day was done, the supper dishes washed, dried and put away - only then would we go up to her room and she would spread the quilts out one by one on her beautiful 4 poster bed. I remember liking my cousin Marilyn's best - it had appliqued ladies with parasols on it. I think she rather enjoyed this request from her Little Miss Muffet (her nickname for me) to see her quilts. Years later when she moved from her house into a senors apartment the cedar chest was sent out west by train for me to have.

She didn't label her quilts but she did embroider the name of the intended recipient and the year it was completed on the back edge. (I don't even do this much) Sadly she passed away several months before I got married. She was nearly 99 years old and had lived a long full life ... with many quilts to show for herself. My husband and I don't use this quilt very often - it's a little bright :0) On cool evenings in spring and fall we use it over our regular quilt to save getting the down duvet out again. This spring we have used it a lot!
Happy Quilting!

a couple blocks

I've set aside the corn and beans quilt to catch up on a couple blocks for my guild challenge. This card trick block I tried to do something tricky :0) playing with the value. I'm not sure it really worked - oh well.
This block is one from the Civil War Diary quilt book I think.

And this last picture is a small project I have been handquilting. I'm hoping to finish soon - it takes time to go around the flying geese blocks.

I washed up a pile of fabric today to get started on a new project (Yipee!!) A single bed quilt for my little darling - my youngest. She's still in a crib for now but it won't be long now and it takes me awhile to produce a quilt of that size. It's going to be brown, pink and cream and I think I just might start cutting tonight. :0)

Happy Quilting!

corn and beans

I decided I had made enough of these blocks and it was time to sew them together.

Here is the result. I think I should have put pink in it :0) ... I'm missing pink. My last scrappy quilt had a lot of pink in it so I left it out of this one on purpose. I plan to put a border, a pieced zigzag border, and another border on it.

Also, I finally started making these little 9-patches as a leader and ender project. I'd been cutting 2 inch squares since last fall - just a couple from whatever fabric I had out. It is definately more fun than just using a little scrap to sew on over and over again. Christine over at http://onceuponaquilt.blogspot.com has a really lovely 9 patch quilt in her blog header. She's started a 9 patch block swap that makes me wish I lived in Australia :0) The blocks are going to be made with reproductions and I just love that.

old quilt

It is now soccer season at our house - a very busy time! I still want to keep my blog up so I will post about this - the oldest quilt in my house. It was made by my grandma, her sister and perhaps her mom around 1905-1910.
My Grandma pieced this quilt top by hand with her younger sister when they were just children - less than 10 years old. It is made from old work shirts and other old clothes. It was made to be used, to keep family members warm at night - a utility quilt. The wool inside this quilt was hand carded from local sheep - perhaps even from their own farm.
I remember talking to my Grandma about this quilt the last time I saw her - she was 98 years old. I wasn't a quilter at the time - there are so many things I would have asked her. Over her lifetime she made many beautiful quilts. I own 4. This one is the most humble.

This picture shows how fabric was used from the front of an old work shirt. The pocket is left on and turned to the inside :0) Life was so different when she was a child. I can't imagine setting my 2 older daughters aged 10+7 to work making a large quilt like this. They have each sewn a doll quilt but that was just for fun.

Happy Quilting!!