A Stellar Quilt

 

I fell in love with this quilt while rebinding it and patching a few torn pieces.  

It's a great set of blocks, each one different, totally fun.

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.

Amish-made Sampler Quilt

 

This quilt was a wedding gift, much adored, and came to me in need of some patching.  The needlework is marvelous, which after all is something Amish quilters are famous for.  This is a quilt made for sale, not at all in the traditional style of the antique Amish quilts.  Repairing it required that my needle skills stay on par with those of this great quiltmaker!

A 1930s Sampler Quilt

OK, folks, I totally love this quilt!

It's a super fun collection of well-loved blocks, other more uncommon blocks, and a couple of wonderful appliqué creations.  The fabrics are pure 1930s style.  One really fun detail that you can watch for in the photos is that the ties are placed according to the design on each individual block.  There were some previous repairs here and there, including a new binding.

I just couldn't help myself, and took a photo of each block.  You can click to enlarge them.  I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!