Optical Snowball Quilt Top, 1950s

1950s Optical Snowball

See yesterday's bowtie quilt for a similar yet different one.  This quilt top was made a decade earlier.  See how the colors are different, and have for example, complimentary color wheel colors in the turquoise and chartreuse?  (This is one of my fave color combinations).  See how the plaids are more "American Western"?  If you look at the turquoise and chartreuse "bow ties" in the lower righthand area, you'd see similarities with yesterday's quilt.  But look at how the circles are really round.  Quilters scream and run away at the thought of piecing round shapes.  Think about how round shapes are the opposite curve of the piece they're being attached-to.  Like putting in a gathered sleeve, you never quite know if you're on track until you get to the end and check to see if there is fabric overhanging on either side.

I adore this quilt.  Why?  Because the use of the black checkered gingham fabric makes me crazy!    Big round postholes are like a textural collage on the surface.  And in other places, the pattern drops mistily and indistinctly into the background.  Now look at the block below the red square.  Its like spaghetti or wheels in motion.  You can tell that the woman who made this quilt was not over-intellectualizing the process.  She just put things together any which way.  We could speculate that a quilt like this was made by a woman who learned her skills in the depression era, when it didn't really matter what the right way was... a seamstress just did whatever conserved the most fabric and minimized the most waste.  It was Lllooonnnnggg before the days of fussy-cutting quilt fabrics.

This quilt is small twin or personal quilt size.  It is a top only.  It would be for sale for $75 as a top, or $250 quilted and backed in the colors of the buyer's choice.  It could be edged out with a border of historically-accurate fabric to make a full, king, queen quilt for $450.  It is hand-sewn.