Gone To The Beach: 08.21.2012

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Quilt "Finds"

Hi! I wanted to show you! Last week when I was hunting for the hollyhock mini quilts I found a few other fun quilts to share....

I have a big blue Shaker 2-drawer blanket chest in my bedroom. My daddy made it for me....it's supposed to hold my clothes but you know, I'm much more into my junk and quilts than clothes---so the drawers actually hold things like my large antique Staffordshire turkey platters, layered under winter nightgowns and quilt tops etc. Multitasking!

Anyway the hollyhock quilts were in the bottom drawer, under the sepia tureens, lol. And under them I found...

Another of my old small quilts! This one I designed myself. My friend "B" at that time yearned for an Early American cross-stitched school girl's sampler and got me interested too. I'm not great at cross-stitch so I made a little quilt!

Later, I realized both of us really wanted a true antique, a big bucks early 1800s sampler. That never fit my budget but my mom gave me this version, made by a great grandma...

Swiss or German sampler "Berlinwork"?

Note the doggy! [above left]. And a bird...roses, maybe hollyhocks? It is wool, not silk, and more like needlepoint in style. But I still treasure it. The family story is that it was embroidered on the ship on the way to America. But no one came at that time, that we know of...a mystery.

So I stuck this little quilt away with the other little quilts. It's kinda cute, huh? It has my trademark scrappy binding and the tiny sawtooths I love...all those years ago. Stuffed work ladybug and bumblebee too. (Mr Sunshine/ flag/ watermelon/ heart / sunflower...still favorite motifs)....

And underneath everything was a neat old muslin and gingham apron [for etsy?]...and this interesting quilt top:

I bought it maybe ten years ago from my quilt dealer friend. He was so happy to find a Hearts pattern for me.

I pulled out ( or he gave me) the tiny blue calico to add a border.

Black and white check binding?

But I never quilted it or had it quilted. It got set aside, lost in the hectic pace of life at that time. And now I like either simpler quilts or deep-toned, odd colored quilts [cheddar and/or faded blues].

Now that I again have a wonderful machine quilter I took this out to think about. Should I quilt it? Sell it? Or just fold it away again for someday...?

PS Those hollyhocks would make a great full sized quilt, wouldn't they!?