Swooning With the Oldies...

Despite all the quilts and "quilty things" I get up to, there is nothing that makes my heart skip a beat like a vintage quilt. Appreciation for old quilts is what got me started in quilting to begin with. And I had the opportunity to spend quality time with a number of old quilts, and the women who also love them, when I attended the quarterly meeting of the Florida Quilt Study Group. Calendar conflicts had kept me from attending for many months, so it was a real pleasure to rejoin the group.

Take for instance this stunning Ocean Waves quilt, brought by group member Jill. The sheer number of those tiny, tiny triangles fills me with admiration for the long-ago quiltmaker. Just look at all those prints! The amount of blue used in this quilt seemed to really set off the other colors and make them sparkle. And if this Ocean Waves whets your appetite, take a look at The Quilt Index to see more... Ocean Waves with Redwork, with dark background fabrics, in pastels, you name the variation and you'll find an example. The Quilt Index is a quilt documentation resource that provides information and images on quilts housed in museum collections as well as those held privately. Just type in the pattern of interest, and pages upon pages of references and images are yours for the browsing. Warning: you can spend a whole afternoon or more just wandering through the site! But it's so worth your time, and your many questions will get answers.




A quick and admiring glance at a beautiful antique like the vertical strippy (my absolute favorite setting) tied quilt, above, is one thing, but an up-close look truly provides a fascinating glimpse into history. The photo shows the backing folded over and lying on the quilt top. The quilt contains century-old fabrics, including mourning prints, ticking, and even the very early (late 1700s?) piece, shown at right. Well-known quilt appraiser Teddy Pruitt also attended the group, and offered lots of tid bits about these old quilts. That's right... not only is Teddy's profession old quilts, but she spends her recreational time with them, too. Good for her!

Below right is the backing full on (love those pieced backings!), and another photo of the quilt top. The block photo at center shows my nomination of a fabric to be included in a line of reproduction prints. That green with the amorphous blob is a print I'd use again and again. Well, I could go on and on, but you probably want to go spend some time at The Quilt Index and at Teddy's website. So much to see, so little time.

And More Vintage Quilt Tops....

Awhile back in February, I showed you some vintage quilt tops that were given to my friend Mary. Those were just the ones in the top of the sack. There were still more quilts in that sack to ooh and aaah over.

But before looking at two more of the quilt tops, I wanted to note an interesting coincidence. After seeing the photo, several people mentioned to me that this Basket top (above, also shown in the earlier post) is like the Scrap Basket Quilt seen on the cover of the current issue American Patchwork and Quilting Magazine, a publication of Better Homes & Gardens. The baskets on the cover quilt are done in a yellow/gold print, but the layout and the Double-Flying Geese border are the same. The timing of seeing the old quilt top and the cover quilt in the same month is really something!

Well, here's the first of two more vintage tops. This scrappy quilt is made from the block pattern known as Mexican Star, according to Barbara Brackman's Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns. Alternate names for the block include Mexican Rose and Panama Block. The Brackman book characterizes the block as a "Nine X". This means the blocks "have a diagonal orientation within the square", and that "the blocks are divided by diagonal seams to make 8 or 9 major shapes." This may be my favorite of the tops Mary was given. But then again, I may have already identified my favorite in the previous post. Suffice it to say that I just love all old quilts.

This quilt top is lively with plaid and striped shirting prints. The light-colored sashing between the blocks and rows adds nice contrast and quiets down what could be a "busy" quilt design, giving the eye a resting place between the blocks. The quiltmaker used dark blue and burgundy prints sparingly but effectively to create strong contrast within the blocks. This is a beauty, but sadly we don't have any history on it. It's a reminder to me about remembering to label quilts (and maybe even tops?). I know it's important, and I'm always curious about the story behind a quilt. But, sorry to say, I'm not 100% faithful at labeling my own.

Scrappy quilts are my favorites (there's that word again!), and this One-Patch is really appealing. It looks random and unplanned, but upon a closer look, you can see that the quiltmaker concentrated green print and blue squares toward the edges of the quilt top. It's subtle, but appears to be part of a plan.


I once heard a speaker on vintage textiles advise us to "treat old textiles like you'd treat your favorite grandmother... not too much heat, not too much light, handle gently with great care." Now that's good advice.