Saturday, September 15, 2012

A Few More


This is an appliqued summer spread, Poinsettia with Grapes and Grape Leaves.  It consists of nine 18" blocks with flowers, grapes, and leaves.  The sashing is 4 1/2"with red appliques at the intersections.  There is no filling, backing, or binding.  The outside edge of the border is turned under and stitched.  This is c. 1860.







This next one is a pieced quilt.  The pattern is called Borrow and Return, which is a new one on me.  It consists of 35 blocks of tan print cotton pieced with four half round pieces of blue lattice fabric.  You can see that the maker kind of mixed things up in one corner.  ;)  The binding is plain cream, and the backing is a madder brown floral, which I somehow missed getting a picture of.








This is a pieced and tied, silk and taffeta Tumbling Blocks quilt with a silk and taffeta prairie point border.  The edging is 5/8" purple bias ribbon machine stitched with red thread.  It has a bright red wool backing.  It is filled with a cotton sheet, and the construction was very odd.  We spent a lot of time trying to figure it out. The sheet was tied to the back with thread, but the top was only attached by the binding.  C. 1900, machine pieced and quilted.









This one is a pieced nine-patch with a basket border from the first half of the 1800's.  The border looks to be later than the center.  The hand pieced nine-patch blocks are primarily brown, teal, and pink cottons.  I just love the pastel, worn look of this one.






Here is Betty Brink, one of the volunteers who donated their time to help "turn" the quilts.



This is a late 19th century Pineapple pattern.  Eight 17" solid white cotton blocks alternate with eight blocks appliqued with sold red, green, and chrome fabrics.  No backing, filling, or batting.  Hand and machine pieced, hand appliqued.






You can see along the left hand edge of the above picture, and below, the maker signed her name, Mrs. Hannah Floyd.



Okay, don't forget to check back, because there are plenty more to come.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Bed Turning



With AQS in town, the Grand Rapids Public Museum decided to haul some of their antique quilts out of storage and have a bed turning.   We saw 13 quilts, and I can't wait to share them with you!  I will start and end with the most exciting ones, for me anyway.

They set up two stations, and then moved the quilts to the center table after viewing, and started all over again with each group seeing the ones from the other table.  Each station had a reader telling the particulars of the quilt, and everyone got to inspect the quilts up close and take pictures.




The first one is a Baltimore Album quilt dated 1847.


The quilt is made with 13 appliqued 16" x 16" blocks set on point.  The fabrics are mostly solid and print turkey reds and greens, but the center block also has blue, pinks and browns.

There are many handwritten signatures on the quilt, but only one is dated.



Sorry it didn't show up better in the picture, but it reads Mathilda Kindle, or Hindle, May 30th, 1847.  The donor of the quilt said it was made for a wedding that took place in 1857.

There are two more lyre blocks.





The ship block has tan and brown embroidery for the rigging.



  Two basket blocks.




And several floral blocks.







The center urn is my favorite.  Some of the roses are actually broderie perse, which I don't think I've seen on a Baltimore before.







It is finished off with solid red sawtooth borders and binding.




Stay tuned, because there are many more to come, and I'm saving the best till last!

I want to thank everyone who emailed and commented on my illness.  I appreciate your thoughts and prayers more than I could ever say.  I'm still trying to respond to you personally, but please know how thankful I am.  I am feeling better, and hope to return to work soon.  My surgery is postponed until after the first of the year, as there are some things that need to be resolved first.

Please let me know in the comments if you came to town for the AQS show!