Imaginarium, a Scrap Baby Quilt

Imaginarium, a charm quilt for baby

This is a baby quilt, made from leftovers from a quilt which I am making for myself.  It is a little fancier than most charm quilts.  Charm quilts are named for their 'charm' because they are made from scraps which sometimes do and sometimes do not blend well.  Charm quilts tend to be more funky and campy than their sister-quilts-- matched piece quilts.  A unique feature of this quilt is that it has some of the prairie points and flat trim from the big quilt, and it adds interest and detail. 

There are some jokes or funny parts to this quilt that will make you laugh if you're a quilter.  I'll let ya in on the secret.  A beginner quilter might make borders such as the stripe and print here, and might attach one edge backward or going to same direction as the other side as I have done.  Experienced quilters would never do that because it violates the rules of symmetry.  However, Fluffy I am and Fluffy I do, so here the borders on both sides are going in the same direction.   It was a conscious choice. 

Another quilter's joke is that in places you'll find prairie points or flat trim, and not in other places that one would expect to see the same thing.  So happens that I made up some extra length of these and attached them to sashing, only to destine them to the cutting-room floor. 

Here I have followed the old legal maxim of equity, known to law students throughout time from Black's Law Dictionary (or Prosser on Torts) "You take your victim as you find him."  In law, it means that a tort defendant is liable for the outcome even if a tort Plaintiff or victim is extraordinarily impacted.  If you trip a waiter with brittle bones simply in revenge because of poor service, you must pay the price of the damage you do, even if an average waiter would not suffer greatly from being tripped.  Likewise, I've 'taken my victim as I found him' in my scrap pile.  Some strips with Prairie Points don't have a full row.  Well, tough cookies.    My goal was to quilt up that mess in the floor.  The result is that you have a few unexpected things happening on this quilt.

This juvenile quilt top is for sale as a top ($100) or fully custom machine quilted, batted and backed with the contrast or match fabric of your choice ($300).    

Diamond Four Patch Postage Stamp Quilt

Diamond Four-Patch Postage Stamp Quilt

This quilt probably has a different name.  A classic Trip Around The World pattern is like this, but without the large diamonds.  I lost my notes about its provenance.  See how, over time, the black squares have shredded with wear and tear?  

In guestimating the age of a quilt, textile historians look at a couple of different factors.  This quilt was originally done all by hand and then finished or mended by machine.  When did women have time to do such intricate work?  We know that in the early 1940s,  World War II caused more women to enter the work force.  The checked calico bolt cloth is typical of those wonderful aprons and dresses of the 1930s and 1940s.    I'd tend to think that this was from the Depression Era, because I've compared it to Depression-Era quilts found on the internet.  You can research the quilts of a particular time by looking in Google Images. 

This quilt is lined not with cotton batting but rather with cotton flannel.  The back is plain muslin.  The binding is half-inch blue machine-sewn cotton fabric or binding tape which is cut on the bias for a smooth fold.  The quilting is in a 3-inch grid of double rows.  And even the filling has been hand-stitched together.  Use of consistent fabrics around the border tend to suggest that the quilter maker bought the border fabrics specifically for this quilt.

If some quilt historian would like to help me to refine the date of its construction, I would be happy to post up some pics of the details.