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.

Pin Wheel Quilt

Pinwheel Quilt

Somehow along the way I have sort of lost track of my quilt provenances.  I don't recall how I came to own this lovely bright happy quilt top.  It is small and it is oh-so-badly stitched (by hand).  But it is darling, and one day if I ever find the time to take it and quilt it up....

Pop Art Vintage Footballs Quilt

Pop Art Vintage Footballs Quilt

Does anyone have a clue what this pattern is called?  This is a magic quilt.  It appeared in my collection and I have totally forgotten how it got there.  It contains those great 1960s or 1970s  cottons, although some of the fabrics may date back to an earlier time.  Here you find those difficult curved lines and points that have all but disappeared from contemporary quilts, because they are not so easy to execute on a sewing machine as by hand... and what woman today has the zillions of hours it takes to hand-sew a quilt top?

This one is hand-pieced, and hand quilted in shells with a thin soft cotton batt.  The binding is a half-inch self binding, but one end has a flat crisp 1 1/2 " binding with no batting inside of it.  I'm guessing that its function was to help the bed maker to find the top of the quilt because it is different there.

I'm so grateful for the women of our past who were quilters and left us these big soft wrinkley warm huggy pieces of art, all vibrant and complex.  This one is especially 'woofy' and it doesn't lay flat.  It gets a new surface of puffiness every time it is smoothed one way or the other.  Some quilts are too fragile for use because they might never survive the washing.  But they can be stabilized if they are batted and backed with new fabric and machine quilted with plenty of stitches to nail down the remaining surface fibers so they cannot shred.

Propellers Quilt Top

Propellers Quilt Top

Here's a quilt top in my collection. Its a mystery.  I suppose the good thing about forgetting where something came from, is in being delighted to pull it out and see just how lovely and delicate it looks.  I'm supposing that this might be a quilt from the 1960s because it is geometric and has some pop-art qualities.  You could get an entirely different look if there were no red dots and looked at the green diamonds as being within a leaf.  I'm wowwed when I see curvy lines perfectly set on point, because its *real* hard to get that right.

This photo hardly shows that the quilter ran out of her Christmas-themed green and the edges are casually substituted in a blue print with peach-colored calico middles in some places.  The top is unfinished at the edges.  It is entirely constructed by hand and was either a family quilt or purchased in or around Cherokee County Oklahoma.  It is made in 6-sided hexagons which are then joined to the main body of the work, in cotton.

If anyone knows the name of this pattern, it might assist us in determining when it was made, so feel free to post a comment.

Navajo Diamond Quilt Top

Navajo Diamond Quilt Top

In my collection of quilts, I have this simple quilt top that I purchased on eBay.  So often, those who sell quilt tops are descendants of the woman who made the top.  That was probably the case with this top.  I loved its bright simple lines and wanted to see how the quilter had executed the points.  It is a huge top--- Queen or King sized like a bedspread.  It is made from some bias-woven cotton in clear distinct monochrome-dyed colors of commercial fabric.  It was made probably within the last ten to fifteen years.

Because I have so many quilts and so little space, I would like to sell it as a quilt top ($150) or finished quilt ($450) and would work with the buyer on selection of backing, batting and machine quilting design.  I'd suggest a plain solid back matching any of these colors or an Indian print with a one-inch wrapped binding, with a low-loft or 80/20 cotton poly batting in white or black (or a wool batting if the purchaser lives some place cold for most of the year).  This image was retouched because the top was wrinkled from storage.  I can send detailed pics if requested.

Chenille Crazy Quilt Sampler

Chenille Crazy Quilt Sampler

Quilts made with leftover pieces of fabric are called charm quilts, and this one is just that.  It is made from a lot of my early hand-dyed fabrics.  The fuscia, turquoise and smoky-colored paralellagram was created using a shibori wrap dye technique.  In the lower righthand corner is a postage stamp rectangle of squares, about an inch or two inches big.  I see some red stripes that evoke an abstract flag idea.

You may be familiar with foundation pieceing... it is where you start with a muslin square and build the surface layer by sewing pieces in strips across it.  This is sort of one big huge foundation piece on a scruffy old acrylic fleece $10 used nubby blanket that had worn out beyond being comfortable.  I started piecing pieces onto it because it was scratchy.  As the pieces were added, and sometimes later, I added commercial chenille yarn between and across the fabrics to give it a windowpane or stained glass effect.  This was kinda cool-looking, but it also served a purpose of bonding the surface to the underblanket where there were wide expanses that would have otherwise hung loose.

This is the back of the Blue Quilt featured here some time last month.  It is quite different from the calm, soothing and elegant opposite side.  I usually use it with the blue side up.  I am not particularly fond of this side of the quilt as a favorite... it just happened to have been made at a time when I was less selective about which quilts I keep and which quilts I give away or sell.  It breaks my almost-rule of never working with the color red.  Early on, I did a few quilts with red in them but found it to be unsettling or unattractive as a quilt color and have stopped using red as a personal design color.

One Square Comes Lately

 

After making a fun quilt, its just as fun to photograph it, because you can see it in a different context. This quilt, I had no intention of creating a pop art effect on. But look at the square on the right hand side in the middle of the picture. See how it looks dropped-in later or on top of the rest of the quilt? Its an optical illusion. Working with stark contrasting colors gives that dimensionality sometimes. This is just a quilt top, but if someone wants it finished instead of doing it themselves, I'll consult with you for an appropriate thickness, batting fiber, backing color and fiber to match your room, and thread in matching or contrasting vivid colors--- which ever you might prefer. Quilt Top $100; Finished Quilt for any size of bed $450

Labyrinth Quilt Top

 

Puzzle Garden or Labyrinth Quilt

Here's a cheery quilt top, recently finished.  Some tops, I just put back into the closet to save until someone chooses it, so I can have it finished to suit the new owner.  This one is made of commercial fabrics with black and white accents.  It is called Puzzle Garden or Labyrinth because it reminded me of those cool formal gardens in England where one could take various twists and turns to arrive at the middle.  It is available for sale, if anyone is interested.  $100 top only, or $450 fully completed with your design decisions in any bed size, and that includes shipping or delivery. 

Quilt Top For Sale

Before it is even listed on Etsy, here's a great new quilt top for sale.  For $450, you can select a border color (Black?  White?  Stripes?  Cherry?) and choose the solid color you'd like for the back (Cherry?  Black?).  You can pick between batting of  natural cotton, loftier 80/20, or several fluffy lofty thicknesses.  And you can choose a contrasting dramatic thread color, a variegated, or a blending monochrome white or black thread color.  You can pick freestyle quilting or a more orderly pantogram design.  And your order will be shipped in time for Valentine's Day.

Just contact me by calling 918 787 5016.