New Books and Antique Fabric Study

Not much work gets done around here when New Books arrive!!!  I first go through new books looking at all the photos and reading the captions.  Then, I go back and Read!  And make Notes!  Feels like I am back in school!

The "Chintz Book From the Poos Collection" is new from Quiltmania.  Great (the Best!) closeup photos of Chintz for studying!  Will provide many hours of reading and learning!  The book on the right is "Interwoven Global" from the Metropolitan Museum Exhibit of the same name.......look at the cover......it is Fabric in the Indigo Resist method!  What a wonderful idea to cover a book in Fabric!!!

Now for some antique fabric study!  This 1790-1800 quilt is owned by my friend Judy Roche and I had the Privilege of analyzing it at one of our quilt study days!  Cannot imagine why I did not take a shot of it lying on the bed for an overall view!  I will try to do that later!  The Quaker quilt is a medallion style with the brown chintz fabric below as the center.  

This is the wide border.

The center is surrounded by a broken dishes blocks, 4 patches and others in a random pattern......no matter the fabrics are the Star here!  The quilt is signed in one corner on the back "Ellen A Fell", likely a descendant of Margaret Fell, the Mother of Quakerism (1614-1702).  The handquilting is 2" diagonal grid with brown thread.

Some damage is with the brown fabric but for a quilt made from Many Brown Fabrics, it is in wonderful condition!

As I was about to fold the quilt for the storage box, I noticed through a tiny break in a seam that the sewing method was what we call English-Piecing......not EPP (English Paper Piecing).  It is a method I've seen done on American blocks made as late as 1870's......I have some and will find them for a future post.  Observing English Piecing from the back of blocks, the narrow seam allowances appear to have been folded (even creased) and then with two squares such as in 4-patches, right sides together,the seam are whipstitched together in the method popular today (and nearly 200 years ago!) with the construction of hexagon blocks.

Getting ready for a quilt show in Belfast Maine..........the Giveaway box of Scraps is Full and will give it away soon!!

Jo Morton and Linda Collins visited the shop!

 Got a call that Jo and Linda wanted to come to the shop on Monday as they are traveling around New England and Pennsylvania.  Nice to visit with them and talk quilts!  Very rainy day Monday but Tues/Wed have been perfect Fall days so I hope they are enjoying their travels!  And, yes, they both found fabrics they liked!!

 Linda brought along some Show & Tell...... on the left is the beginning of a quilt from  "Small Pieces, Spectacular Quilts" by Kinch and Storms......the little squares are 1/2"!  The quilt on the right is the result of a swap of 16-Patch blocks between American and Australian friends.......actually may have been made from Leftovers............can't remember!  Linda is the Quilts in the Barn Lady from Australia! 

The Tumbler quilt uses Jo Morton fabrics.

Linda gave me the little coaster made with precious Dutch fabrics and the red fabric is vintage!  I love it!  Below the coaster is a Fabric Postcard I received recently as a Thank You for the donation of crazy quilt fabrics.....velvets, satins, etc.  I donated them as part of my purge from the sewing room that I blogged about earlier......More about that later!!

Fabrics received in the shop this week......Josephine by French General.

 Bordeaux and Sienna from Paula Barnes!

 Two purples and a pink from Party of Twelve by Judie Rothermel.

The Just Judie contest winners (300 entries) have been announced and the two Honorable Mention winners were sponsored by my shop!  Both made beautiful quilts!  This one is by my friend, Wendy Reed......used over 600 Judie fabrics!!  Beautifully pieced, appliqued and hand-quilted!!

This quilt is by customer Denise Isherwood from Connecticut.....another original design beauty!

Check out the Marcus Fabrics Blog to see all the winners!

Sewing Room Cleaning/Organizing/Surprises

I can now "walk into" one of my walk-in closets!  Did a major purging of old clothes (and found some new ones too!) because there was no longer space on the clothes rod and things were piling up on the floor!  Not only clothes, but fabric, books, papers, etc.  Feels so good to see it neat again!  OOOoops....looks like some fabric is still piled on the floor!  Oh well!  This closet is where a lot of the "how-to" books and older Brackman/Thompson and Smithsonian fabrics live.  My fabrics are mostly stored by collection except for the first shelves I had built (that I thought would be adequate for a while but they weren't!) where they started out being organized by color.  Collections moved in soon after.......Most of the Time I can find what fabric I am looking for............I am amazed that when this room (oldest child bedroom that was used by 6 kids in succession!) was remodeled from an old attic that two walk-in closets were created.  One is at the top of the back stairs and it needs organizing but not today......or the foreseeable future!

Some of the Surprises I found while cleaning.....rabbit dolls that I made for a local craft show some friends and I did here in town from 1988 until 2001.  Did not remember that I had any left!  Might be good gifts sometime!

And I enjoyed making/dressing cloth dolls!

Made this little log cabin in the early 1990's and one of the surprises I found was a huge box of 1" strips I used for it.........they were hidden by the dolls.........oh wait...there were some Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls.....must have forgotten to photo them......loved those dolls!  Made one for each grandchild as well as to sell at our show. 

More little Railfence blocks......love making these as Leaders/Enders!

Have been working on little Railfence and log cabin blocks lately when I just feel like sewing!  Most of my scrap strips start out at 6-61/2" and will have a couple inches left over after working on the 3" Railfence blocks......they go into one of these little boxes to be used as the second strip on the 3" log cabins.   Have lots of the boxes and it's a good thing I started saving them when I did.......the flimsy little boxes that you have to assembly yourself now are worthless!  Isn't it awful how as soon as you find something you like, and can use/reuse, it is changed....and not usually for the better!  

Found a box marked "Auction Goods".......from probably 20 years ago.....guess I did not go all through it back then as I found things I did not remember ever seeing......one of which is this mail in a brown paper wrapper..........

It turned out to be a catalog from the 1940's......clothing, furnishings, quilts.....will add to my very small collection of old pattern catalogs.  Love the dresses!  Which I hardly ever wear nowadays!

From the back cover, it seems appliqued "Tree of Life" quilts were popular then!

Found this Amish "cheater" panel to make small quilts.  Also collect "cheater" fabrics, both old and new.  Too many things interest me!!

This little strip of an old quilt I have no recollection of......sure wish I had the Whole Quilt!  Those are pretty early fabrics!

Finally Found It! And a 1790-1810 Quilt!

For weeks I have been looking for the quilt top that I took these blocks from.  You know how it is when you can't find something......it's all you can think about!!  It is a top that evidently was used as there are threads along the edges where a backing was removed.  Can't find any holes indicating ties though.  I guess it's from the late 1800's.  I removed these 2 blocks and triangles last year but got a bit discouraged as the quiltmaker, while her stitching was not very close, backstitched every few stitches......making it tedious to remove!  Thought I might make something small from some of the blocks.  There are a few fabrics missing that I thought someone must have removed, but upon closer inspection, found that the fabric was brown and has rotted away leaving only the seam allowance.  Have no recollection of where I got it!  Keeping good records is a serious downfall of mine!  Like I said, I could not find it and was on a search after finding the little blocks in a stack of books.....where else would I put them for safekeeping?  As for the top, in a fit of neatness, I had put it along with others neatly in a box in the shop attic.  I Looked In That Box last week and did not find it.....today I dug deeper and found it on the very bottom!

 This quilt is a real treasure.....belongs to Kathie L (owner of a quilt previously blogged and anonymous winner of my last scrap box.)  That reminds me..... box #4 is nearly full and I will give it away......stay tuned.  

This wholecloth Pillar quilt dates from 1790-1810 (date is from the appraisal form) and is from here in Maine.  Edges are quite worn from being much used but for about 200 years old, it's not bad!!!  Quilting is in concentric diamonds.  The background is what I would call robin's egg blue but it might have a technical name that I do not know.  Looks more green in the photos....from the flash I suppose. CORRECTION!  When time elapses between taking photos and viewing photos, Memory does not always work right!  Upon looking at the quilt again, it IS green and the pencilling on the leaves is Blue!    

Close up of the Pillar.

The repeat is 12 inches.

Here's the long-tailed Bird!  Sorry about the flash.....will try to do better later!

This is the back (imho as I would consider the Pillar the front)....a nice chintz.  Quilt might never have been washed as it still has glaze.

Chintz closeup.

Found the original 1830-1850 fabric for my reproduction quilt!

The light floral fabric is the alternating block for a Sawtooth Star I made several years ago.  Last month while going through some books at Quilt Study Day, I found the original!  The quilt is in the James collection now at IQSC in Nebraska.

This is the original.....didn't In the Beginning Fabrics do a wonderful job of reproducing it!!

My quilt using the Floral Bouquets and Fancies line by In the Beginning in 2000.

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Back later with some Suprising Finds in my Sewing Room cleanout!!

Finding Stuff...Hexagon Progress....Basketmaking

Have been doing some sewing room purging and re-organizing lately....found some amazing things.......some I didn't even remember owning!

Found this fabric-covered Sewing Box that I made many years ago......I think the pattern was in an old Chitra magazine (either Quilting Today or Traditional Quilts) about 20 years ago.  I was truly surprised when I opened it to take a photo.....There are two more hexagonal boxes nested inside!  Completely forgot about those!

Here is what is seen when the box is opened.......a cute small box

that opens to this....... revealing the smallest box!

Must have spent quite a bit of time making this and never used it!  Can only use so many sewing boxes!  And I don't have enough sewing tools to fill it up!  I remember the old VIP large print fabric that I used.....

Have my first two rows of my Hexagon quilt stitched together.....can't believe how much Faster this is compared to my slow stitching on my Applecore with its curved seams!

When I began experimenting with which way to press the seams, I had a pleasant little surprise!   Little "Tumbling Blocks" appeared at the seam intersections!  Probably lots of folks have already discovered this......makes such a nice smooth finish for the top of the quilt.....hardly any bulk!

Made this little quilt top recently (started with 5" squares) to showcase the red/brown colorway of Jo Morton's "Savannah" line.  That border fabric is luscious!

This little log cabin table runner was made in the mid-90's from a pattern by Jo Morton.  In another life, I was a Basketmaker .......loved it.....made over 1000 baskets but haven't made any in a few years because of arthritis.  Also made dolls!  The little 3" Topsy-Turvy doll is a pattern by Gail Wilson of nearby New Hampshire.  The basket she is sitting in was made in a workshop with Martha Weatherbee in 1988, also in New Hampshire.......a miniature Shaker basket with 1/16" black ash.  The miniature Backpack was made of chair caning for a Christmas tree ornament.

Two kittens have been added to the menagerie around this place.  They are so active and funny......my 12 yo Maine coon cat really has her nose out of joint over them!  

Manny

Tommy

This log cabin quilt (guess by now you know how much I love log cabins!) hangs in the quilt shop bathroom............love that old fall leaves fabric from Hoffman!

Will have some more old fabrics to study next time!!