Story of a sad little quilt...

About a year ago my brother was doing an estate sale in Grand Rapids.  This house was in terrible shape, but needed to be emptied.  In a pile of sheets and blankets I saw an edge that I recognized as a quilt.

 It was in terrible shape.   It had large rough stitches holding the back together.

 It was a full size quilt that had been folded in half and the edges sewn together with large running stitches with the thread that was heavy like crochet cotton.  It had lots of hand quilting, triangle shapes with 4 rows of quilting and it was well done with small stitches.

 

So I was hooked. I had to know what was inside.  So I bought it for $5 and brought it home.  I decided I couldn't hurt it any worse than it had been and it was filthy.  So in the washing machine it went for 3 washes.  Then I hung it over a couple of lines in the basement to dry.  It has hung there for about a month.  Got busy with other things.  But I finally I decided to take it with me to quilt appraisals.  I figured I would have time between morning and afternoon appointments and could have a look.  It had a very worn indigo polka dot binding, good clue.  Once I pulled the stitching out, this is what I found.

A circa 1880's strippy quilt.  Little 3.5 inch nine patch blocks set with polka dot indigo fabrics with muslin strips between.  Although the indigo held up wonderfully all but about 2 nine patches are complete gone.  But even in this state it is pretty graphic.  Here are a couple of closeups.

I think it has a little more to tell me with closer inspection, and I think I would like to reproduce this quilt.  Once reproduced I will probably cut it up and just save one section of it after all there is only so much I can keep.

So here is another quilt rescues from the trash.  I'm glad to have has a close look at it and find myself thinking of the woman who made it.  It would be great to find a name quilted in or written on although if it was on any of the white, almost all of that is gone.

Your in stitches,
 Jackie

Tailgate treasurers

This was another good week for sales in Lansing.  One was a quilter and her husband who were downsizing.  For that one I even took 2 hours off work Friday morning to be in the first 10 in the door.  Bought and still got to work on time.  Of course then I had to go back on Saturday to see what else was left.  These are just a few of the finds.

 

The little sewing basket went into my flea market merchandise. The white vase is identical to one I got in the same neighborhood 6 months ago, so now I have a pair.  Will keep them for now. And the little couple is a wedding cake topper, bisque, from abotu 1900.  It also will navigate between my collection and flea market merchandise.

 

All of these items I got at the quilter's downsizing sale.  The little dishes, sewing kit and pear make do pincushion will go in the flea market merchandise.  The rabbit thimble holder, down front and the elephant pincushion will stay in my collection of sewing items.  The glass dome with the spools may go or stay, not sure yet.  I'm trying to accumulate enough sewing items to maybe vend at a quilt show.

This is a large set of old dominos I got Sunday.

These were some salts I bought.  The white one is like a little crock and I love the wooden pair with the spoons.  They are amazing in the workmanship.

Mom found all of these "french Ivory" pieces in a box.  Evidently they got emptied out of a dressing table that someone bought.  There were also button hooks and manicure items, but these 3 caught my eye.  The box was full of rubber bands which got thrown away immediately.  The little piece it like a tooth pick holder, metal base with a ivory slide top.  And I love the little wind up alarm clock.  I may hang onto these items for a while.

Lastly here a a couple of the blocks made out of Betty Smith's scraps.

Only about 30 more to make to make a lap quilt.

Coming up the story of a sad little blue and white quilt.

 

Getting Organized

I have been following Bonnie Hunter's blog http://quiltville.blogspot.com a lot lately.  She does a lot of great things with scraps and lately she has been having "quilt cam" in the evenings, where she sews on her different antique machines.  At an estate sale, actually a downsizing sale, I bought 2 large bins of scraps.  Many were precut into 1" and 2" strips.  But there were also a lot of other sized scraps.  She suggests precutting your scraps so that they are ready to go when you want to sew.  So I have been precutting the scraps I bought and my own into strips of 1.5", 2", 2.5" and 3.5".  Squares in 1.5", 2", 2.5" and 3.5" and bricks in 2 x 3.5, 2.5 x 4.5, and 3.5 x 6.5.

I am going to be taking a class from Bonnie at our guild in November, in fact 2 classes.  So I have been precutting the scaps that I will need for those 2 patterns, Start Struck and Oklahoma Backroads. I'm also saving reds for her Talking Turkey blocks and leaders and ender Bow Tie blocks.

As I have been cutting I still end up with scraps that are too small to save.  I had been throwing then in the wastebasket.  But when I look in there I was surprised just how much there was.  Some of the members of our guild and small groups save their scraps to fill pillow cases which get donated to the local animal shelter for dog and cats.  So I tried to figure out an easy way to save the scraps.  What I hit upon was this.  At lots of sales I have always bought pillow cases to store my quilts in, so I have quite a supply.  So I came up with this.  Take a bucket. . .

and a pillow case . . .

Once it's full of scraps I can just sew the top shut and it's ready to go.  I may even add a cup hook to the bottom of the table I cut at and hang it there.  But for now setting at my right side is good enough.

My niece, Denise is home for a visit.  We all had dinner at my mother's house yesterday so we would all get a chance to see Denise and Jason.  Jennifer and Leif and Darryl and Anna couldn't make it from the Chicago area.  But hopefully we'll see them at the holidays.

Have the quilters again Tuesday night, maybe after that I will post some pictures of recent sale finds.

Race Day

Well this was the day that I had been training for.  My 2nd 5K at Sparrow Hospital.  Thank goodness the temperatures were cooler.  It was nice in that Susie Merchant and the MSU Women's Basketball team were there as supporters.  There was a 5K and 8K so it was nice that I wasn't the very last one across the finish line.  I improved my first 5K time by 2 minutes, 1:0d.  Not much but at least it was better.  Has a picture taken with Sparty.  Now to shower and rest a bit.

Scraps... of all sorts

I home everyone has a great holiday weekend!  I woke up Saturday morning to find my battery had died in my truck.  But brother Mike to the rescue and by the end of the day I was up and running the roads again.

Yesterday I was at my mom's sorting through 4 boxes of fabric that a friends daughters brought over for her.  Betty Smith used to be a member of my mom's quilting circle, "What you see is what you get!".  The piecing gene seems to have passed my mother.  She will quilt and embroider but doesn't like piecing, and doesn't believe in having a stash@#!?  She has always bought just what she needed for a quilt  and then can't stand what's left over. 

So yesterday we sorted through the boxes.   We found enought pink and/or blue for at least 1 girl and 1 boy baby quilt.  Enough red and green christmas prints to make something with and also enough patriotic.  Then there were the "others", feed sacks, 60's or 70's prints, some much older that must have belong to Betty's mother or grandmother or mother-in-law.  Here are what I brought home.




Even some funky cheaters cloth.

I have been enjoying Bonnie Hunter's blog lately, http://quiltville.blogspot.com/.  A friend is using Bonnie's pattern, Scappy Trips Around the World for her block exchange.  And I had noticed it a while ago as well.  So yesterday we began cutting strips to just see what happens.  I brought them home to sew them and see what comes out.  Whatever comes out we will probably donate the items to the VFW for their holiday craft show/sale in November.  I will post as things move along.

 

Something else my friend Carol has been doing was "deboning mens shirts", which Bonnie also has a video on.  Carol has does a demo on cutting a man's plaid shirt up into usable yardage for scrap quilts.  Well, I did pretty well at the flea market with my designer fabric samples, so why not try this.  I might want some of the yardage but I really don't need it all.  So I bought 5 shirts this past weekend and took them apart.  I plan on ironing the fabric and then putting it in bags at the flea market for sewers/quilters to buy.  I will probably label it "deboned shirts" and sell them for about $3 with pieces from several shirts so they get a good selection.  These are the shirts I got this weekend.

 

Now for the final scraps.  Yesterday I took lunch with me to my mom's.  I did chicken on a skewer and separate skewers of vegetables (green peppers and cherry tomatoes off my plants, summer squash, zucchini, sweet onion and mushrooms.). Tonight I'm taking the left over veggies roasting them in the oven with sweet corn added and a little olive oil and salt and pepper.  It smells soo good right now I can hardly wait to tuck in.

 

 

 

Well, smells like it is just about ready so I have to go.  Have a good evening.







Progress toward 5K

Wednesday night I went to 5K training.  Walked 3 miles in 1:06:06.  Not too bad.  I was going to go to training again today, Saturday.  But when I went to start my truck it wouldn't start.  First time it's let me down in 7 years.  Oh, well, placed call to handy brother and he seemed to think it is just the battery.  So he has taken pity on my and may be over later today to have a look.

But that's good.  Since I would go anywhere it means I'm force to stay home and get something done. I mowed the front lawn about 8 am. Then decided if I was going to have to take the truck into the dealer I should unload my "merch" from the fleamarket into the garage.  So emptied truck, loaded the dishwasher, did laundry.  Now the big task, cleaning off the kitchen table.  Oh, so much fun on the last holiday of the summer.  But that's ok.  Hope you all have a safe holiday.

Yours in stitches
Jackie

Sad Note

Tonight was our variable star meeting.  I rode out with Carole and we got back to Lansing about 9:18 pm.  I wondered what was going on at the neighbor across the roads home.  There were lots of lights and several large trucks in the yard.  After parking I took my trash out which gave me an opportunity to figure out what was going on.  What has gone on was a house fire!  The trucks were there to board up the house.  Cover holes in the roof, windows that were knocked out.

It is really sad.  I think this woman has been in the house about a year.  It was on the south side of the street where about a year ago Ingham/McClaren tore down the five houses immediately adjacent to this to the west.  Hope I hear what caused the fire.

Tomorrow I may blog about the AQS show in Grand Rapids.  Great show, well attended.  So much for the bah humbug sponsors who backed out because they didn't think Michigan could support a national show, guess we showed them.

Sunday we went to the Antique Show at the Allegan Fair Grounds.  Beautiful day, saw some cool stuff and bought some cool stuff.  Show and tell coming up.

Jackie