Quilt Repair Tidbits #4

Quilt Repair Tidbits.  The next (somewhat) weekly installment of quilt repair tidbits and photos.

This week’s tidbit:  A hand-me-down set of vintage/antique Mosaic/Grandmother’s Flower Garden blocks.

I’ll be teaching a virtual quilt care and repair workshop in winter 2024.  One thing I’ll be talking about is learning how to tell the age of the fabrics in old quilts.  These blocks have a secret key to their age. 

All the info about the workshop is on my website.  And you can email me to be added to the interest list for notification when registration opens.

So, about the blocks.  The fabrics in the center date to the third quarter of the 1800s.  The outer ring, though, was mysterious.  The print reminds me of a maternity dress I made in 1990, nothing like  the 1860s-70s prints. 

The blocks were English paper pieced, and the outer ring still includes the paper hexagons.  Many of them were cut from a newspaper.  There are papers that give fun glimpses of life at the time those hexies were pieced (my mother adored Maurice Chevalier), and place the blocks, at least the final ring, in Chicago.  Also, notice the tiny and neat whip stitches that join the hexies.

Several of the papers, like this one, refer to events in 1932, which handily dates the curious outer ring.

And the fabrics!  Glorious!  The delicate etching of the prints.  The pairing of tomato soup red with a greyed medium blue.

You can see lots more photos of these blocks on my blog.

So these blocks have had two phases of construction over the course of the last 150 years or so, and still no one has joined them together.  (And I think that the outer print looks still more modern than what newspapers are telling me!)

Quilt Repair Tidbits #1

 

The worktable.  Grandmother’s Flower Garden c. 1980

I’m starting a new little outreach project here.  A weekly tidbit and photos.  A new insight or skill?  A really cool fabric?  Who knows what it’ll be!

This week’s tidbit:  I’ve found myself ending up patching with fabrics that at first glance I was sure would look terrible.  They certainly aren’t exact matches, but end up being just right.

My underlying goal is to inspire new students for the virtual workshop I’m planning for winter 2024. All the info is on my website.  And you can email me to be added to the interest list for notification when registration opens.  

At the workshop, you’ll get to bring a quilt or two for show-and-tell and discussion of how to proceed.  You’ll learn about fabric history to have guidelines of what to look for in patching fabrics.  You’ll have access to a video collection of stitching how-to.  It’s really fun!

A block I repaired using a large floral to patch over a very geometric print. Color ended up being the important factor.

On a previous visit to my “quilt spa”, I patched this block with a fabric that looked pretty good (bottom center).  On this visit, I found I needed more of those hexies but didn’t have more of that fabric.  You can see sample fabrics pinned on during the choice process. 

The final result.  I decided to remove my prior patch and replace it with my newly found fabric.  This is exactly the same dynamic as in the second photo - color is most important.  

The moral of the story:  Try every fabric you possibly can, even things you are sure won’t work. 

The Exact Match

Finding just the right fabrics to restore a vintage or antique quilt can be a challenge.  The chances of The Exact Match are slim.  It's almost always about finding fabrics that blend in as unobtrusively as possible.  This is true whether using vintage or modern reproductions.

Sometimes fabrics that blend perfectly into the existing set of fabrics seem to fall into my lap, but sometimes a lengthy search ends up with settling for the better of several options.  

My restoration of this Lone Star quilt (1930s) serves as an example of the fabric search stage of quilt restoration.  I found these two potential greens at Reproduction Fabrics, my favorite source.  (I have no affiliation....)  One lacked the orange accent in the original fabric, and the other had a red accent, maybe too bright.

Family Quilts: A Quilt from Every Generation for 150+ Years

A customer sent me a quilt for repair, and included photos of her collection of family quilts.  She gave me permission to share them with you here.  What a treat to have this many quilts passed down for so many generations!  And only one, the Grandmother's Flower Garden, was in need of repair.

The owner says:  

I have a quilt from every generation down through ones that my mother made for me and for her 9 grandchildren. My family tree goes back to the Mayflower as a direct descendant of John Alden and Priscilla Mullin; it also includes James Bell Stevenson, whose brother Adlai was VP of the United States and Secretary of War (equivalent now days to Secretary of State).  

(The owner's comments continue below in italics.) 

 
star (made by the owner's great-great-great-grandmother)
Made by Sara Ann McLure Marsilliott (12-19-1793/8-23-1868)
for her daughter Mary Jane Marsiliott           

tag:
Quilt by
Sara Ann McLean Marsilliat
(Mrs Jacob Marsilliat)
(1797-1868)

Garden Paths

Here's the quilt currently on my work table:

Quite honestly, Grandmother's Flower Garden is not one of my favorite patterns.  And I do get quite a few of them coming in for repair, so I spend quite a bit of time looking at them. 

If I ever make one, which is not at all likely, it'd be like this one.  I like the addition of the tiny diamond paths between the flowers.  These hexies are about 7/8" inch on a side, and the piecing and quilting are quite nicely done.

Also, I really love this particular print.  Firstly, it's green.  And secondly it's got curvey, viney lines.  My favorite kind of print in my favorite color! 

Improved 9-Patch

I really enjoyed working on this quilt.  It's a kind of quilt that I have dubbed a "quilt-y quilt" - meaning it personifies what lots of folks think an old quilt ought to look like.  A traditional pattern, scrappy, cozy and bright.

The pattern is called Improved 9-Patch, and with all the curves and narrow points, probably not a beginner's quilt.  The stitching, both the piecing and the quilting, is very well done.

Well at any rate, when I first laid it out to study it and make an estimate, we became friends right away! On top of that, the quilt is still in the family, and the current owner shares info and photos of the maker below.

I thought I'd let this quilt illustrate making fabric selections for repairs.  I was pretty pleased with the fabrics I found.  Sometimes I'm not quite this pleased, so yes, I am showing off a bit.

Paintings by Ella Gardner

My friend's grandmother Ella Gardner was a prolific painter.  And she also made quilts.  She painted lovely scenes of rural Wisconsin life, her Amish neighbors, and my favorites of course, quilters doing what we do best - making and loving our quilts.

There is an exhibit of Ella Gardner's paintings up now through  March 12 at the Steenbock Gallery in Madison, WI.  The Wisconsin Regional Arts Program has created a lovely page about Ella Gardner and her art. 

Quilting Party

Antique Grandmother's Flower Garden Blocks

 

Recently, I received my second fantastic quilt history gift of the year.  A friend's neighbor was moving, had some quilt blocks she didn't want to keep, and they made their way to me.  They are super lovely!  There are 35 of them.  Hexagons are 1 5/8".

(The 5-part story of the first gift, a late 19th century quilt full of names and stories, begins with Part 1.)

What makes the blocks particularly fun is that the outer row of hexagons still has the newspaper patterns.  So I read them all, searching for provenance information - and found it.

 

Kampsville Quilts

What does this:

(photo IL State Museum)

have to do with this?


Answer:  Kampsville, Illinois.

Prize-winning Quilts of 1947

While poking around on the "interwebs", I found a fun vintage photo.  It made me smile, and I hope you'll enjoy it, too.

It is captioned:
"Two women examine the award winning quilts on display at the 1947 Illinois State Fair."

The four prizewinning quilts are:
Double Wedding Ring, Cathedral Windows, Grandmother's Flower Garden, Irish Chain

These are not at all unexpected as favorite 1947 quilts.  Wouldn't it be fun to be able to see them in  color?!  The photo also provides a fun little glimpse of ladies' dresses, hats, and bags of the time.

The photo is in the extensive collection of the Illinois Digital Archives.

Repair of a Grand­mother's Flower Garden Quilt

This is a 1930s Grandmother's Flower Garden Quilt.  This pattern was very popular in this era, and often made like this one, with a variety of pastel scrap fabrics on white.

What makes this one special is that it is owned by the woman who used it on her bed as a young girl.  At that time, her mother altered the shape of the quilt to fit on her bed.  Originally, it had two scalloped edges and two straight edges, bound in green.  The alteration took the scallops that used to be along the edge at the top of the photo, and attached it to the green-bound edge on the right.  The new top edge was turned and hemmed.