Embroidery Mistresspiece part 2

Here is a wonderful story from the owner of this wonderful, mistresspiece crazy quilt:

"When I was a teenager I mowed a lawn for a very nice elderly lady in St. Petersburg Florida. She had a very large Spanish home that had been built in the 1920’s and was beautifully maintained. In the summers she had me do various things around the house and always brought me inside to talk to me before I left to go home. At the age of 78 she was courted by a gentleman who had owned the first Ford dealership in Philadelphia and was very wealthy, he swept her off her feet and they were married and moved to his home in Palm Springs Florida. Before she left she told me she had something special for me and gave me the quilt.

Embroidery Mistresspiece part 1

This quilt is a full-out embodiment of the height of the crazy quilt style.  The embroidery is off the charts for precision and creativity.  

Here are some pieces where the maker toyed with and built upon the designs on the fabrics:

1920s Beads and Fringe

A good friend of mine is sharing these lovely family heirloom pieces with us.  They belonged to her mother, as flapper style as you can get!  Shapeless, drapey, and embellished like crazy.

Dress No. 1
chiffon with underdress
beaded with seed beads and pearls
pearl dangles at the shoulders
ruched flowers at the waist

First Prize Quilt

This surely is a "collector's dream" quilt.

It pretty certainly dates to the 1930s.  The peach and soft green were both new and popular colors at the time. I think the cream background is fairly close to the original color, i.e. not a yellowing of a truer white.

Trip Around the World

This Trip Around the World quilt is a comfy cozy sort of quilt, don't you think?

Here's a cross-section close-up view of all the fabrics.

There were two squares with torn fabrics.  For both of them, I used the trick of flipping the patch fabric to the reverse side.  Sometimes this works really well to mimic the faded look of the older fabrics.  It totally depends on how the fabric was printed.  The reverse needs to have just the right amount of bleed through color from the front.

These photos compare swatches right sides up (at the bottom of the photos) to the reverse side completed patches.

And in this photo, I marked where the patches are.  I had lots of trouble finding them, and I'm pretty happy about that.  Goal achieved.

Embroidered Initials

This quilt dates to c. 1900.  This 4-patch 9-patch combination block would be a nice pattern for beginning quilters.

There are initials embroidered with a tiny stem stitch in most of the blocks.

This block has a previous repair - I can tell because I can see the appliqué stitches and the pieces don't always match up to the old seams.  The initials were covered over.

Here's a tiny patch that I did - I'm excited about successfully manufacturing a two-color patch across a seam!

Happy Summer Sailboats

Isn't this just the happiest quilt!  This is part of what makes repairing quilts so much fun - I get to have quilts like this come and visit for a while.

The combination of block designs and colors make this quilt a delightful rendition of being out on the water on a sunshiny day. (And yes, it does look like it was cut down at some point in its life.)

And isn't this interesting - an appliquéd Mariner's Compass.  Has anyone else seen one before?  I love that it's multicolored.  But these days I'm finding myself drawn to any design that uses the full spectrum, so that's not too surprising.