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Red, white and blue sampler quilt made from vintage quilt blocks
and vintage patchwork fragments. |
Do you collect vintage textiles? In the early 2000s, I was a frequent peruser of the "vintage quilt blocks" and "antique quilt blocks" categories on e-bay. Purchases of vintage pieces can be prompted by an interest in the fabric prints and their historical significance, a unique or favorite block design, a color palette, their purported age (caveat emptor/buyer beware), or purely an inexpensive price tag on a random lot that you are compelled to rescue.
This is my time-span patriotic sampler quilt. It came to be from two e-bay purchases—each an assortment of vintage patchwork fragments—with a price tag that was right for me. When the contents of these two independent purchases were sitting side-by-side, the red-white-and-blue color palette became so prevalent to my eye that I decided they could work together in a single quilt.
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"Patriotic Sampler" time-span quilt using vintage and new fabrics.
Completed in 2006. Hand quilted. Finished size: 54" x 46" |
This sampler is another quilt I showed at the
Choo Choo Quilters guild meeting to kick off the "Back to the Future" theme of working with vintage textiles. These quilt blocks were not quilted, unlike the remnants used in
the pinwheel quilt I talked about in this post.
In this vintage assortment, there was a nice variety in the size and motif of the quilt blocks. The four larger blocks include a churn dash, 8-pointed LeMoyne star, spiderweb block and the 8-pointed flower block made from the red plaid fabric. These larger blocks were spread across the top and surrounded by smaller 9-patches and strips of 4-patches. The "missing" point from the LeMoyne Star was quilted into the quilt.
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| LeMoyne Star and Churn Dash blocks. |
The hexagon flower patch was hand appliqued onto a new reproduction fabric. The 4-patches and 9-patches were made with a variety of shirtings and small prints. The red-checked flower block was hand pieced (not appliqued) by the original maker.
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| Close-ups of the sampler quilt blcoks. |
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| Spiderweb quilt block. |
A single orphan 4-patch was turned on point and framed to give it more prominence. A new dark blue fabric frames the block. The frame is trimmed to the required size to fill the space.
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| A 4-patch on point was made into a square-in-a-square. |
More small prints... and stripes... add to the variety of the vintage prints. New, reproduction-style fabrics were used for the inner and outer borders as well as the backing fabric.
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| Stripes and small prints. The border fabrics are reproduction prints. |
And this quilt is actually hand quilted—by me! Following guideposts in the patchwork, the quilting is simple.
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| Hand quilting. |
The Baptist fan (quilting motif) was used in the border.
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| Hand quilting: Baptist fan motif. |
The backing was a new fabric—a patriotic reproduction with George Washington—that tied in with the theme. The quilt was completed in 2006.
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A George Washington patriotic fabric on the back of the quilt
ties in with the theme. |
