Pineapples and Cartwheels ~ February in the Little Quilt Room

Hi guys! It's Friday and February is almost over. It was a distracting month for us all. Short too of course. Besides Covid we have had blizzards, polar vortexes, mounds of heavy snow that linger on here still. The February Thaw [oft touted by a native NYer friend], is overworked and unsuccessful. Then there was the buy a car issue. 

I did get some things done. Currently I'm calling this quilt Cartwheels which I find cuter than Wagon Wheels, though truly its name should be Big Fat Distraction, hahaha. I fell in love with these wonky circles on eBay. They were inexpensive and only I might appreciate their unfortunate construction.

The original maker was apparently a skilled sewer. Nice fine lines of hand stitching. Note the very coarse thread used, like string almost:

And the spokes are more ordered  than one sees at first glance, see the pattern? blue/red/ brown/ stripe/ brown, etc.

red with white on each side.

Some more random than others, but the eye catching ivory spokes are spaced around the circle with some care if not evenly.

One odd thing is the red ground is sewed in four pieces, but they are sewed together before the cheddar circles were added. Why not just a whole square? Short on red perhaps? 

And at the ends of the red piecing, the thread isn't knotted. This has created an issue as they fell apart as I worked with them. The blocks unusually are all exactly 9 1/2" square. Maybe the knots were cut off when trimming?

The sewing is good, the design is, to me, pleasing---but OMG the cheddar circles and centers! Our sewer 100 years ago lacked skills and experience with that challenge. The cheddar pieces are just dreadful---or charming. Unlike some quilters who, when working with old blocks, take apart---redo, recut, resew, FIX 'em!---I work as best I can to retain all the faults and foibles. I could fix those awful centers. But I will not.

I'm dating this to about 1880-1900. The spokes' fabrics are quite antique, maybe earlier scraps, post Civil War. There are calicos, and plaids, usual ikat wovens, some coarse linen homespun. 

This black print with red sprig looks so familiar. I am sure I have it in a repro version, must look.

I pieced the blocks up with antique/vintage turkey red solid. Close enough match.

I wanted the quilt wider.

Now I'm out of red. My plan was/ is to add red to the sides for width; then a cheddar 1" ''stop border'' [frame], then 4''-6" red borders. I plan to use a very pretty blue plaid for the back and binding.

I have no possible red to use unless I use a print. I have four cheddar solids, none quite right. I don't have enough blue plaid even just for the binding. I ordered all from FQS / Fat Quarter Shop, just as things went all to hell in Texas.

Odds are the solids won't match anyway. And FQS ships really slowly at the best of times.

So there Cartwheels hangs. I'm thinking it maybe should be just as is, with a narrow cheddar binding. I kind of like it there and that size. 

Obviously no matter what it will be sadly too big for me to hand quilt

This post is very long. I'll do part 2/ Blue Pineapples separately over the weekend. That was a planned February project and is looking as I hoped. So far...so--back soon!

Have a great weekend.

                                      " Look, mommy! No coat! And...do I spy mud?"

love

lizzy

gone to the beach...

Earlier this week we had a now-typical snow-sleet-rain day that cleared late afternoon. The first rainbow of 2021 appeared, a rainbow in the falling snow. A snowbow! Magical. 

The snowy beach was pink too. [not a filter or color edit!]

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