The Busy Month of May…

I know we are only a week into May but so far it’s been jam packed with quilty activity. The Spring Fling Quilt Show was rated a huge success, raising some substantial sums for the church and museum coffers, and bringing out some amazing quilts and family heirlooms to share with the community.

Quilts on every pew

The most wonderful thing about an event like this is the coming together of like-minded people to share in discussions about quilts and fabric and family! We had some fine examples of historical quilts, with most coming from the 1930’s, ’40’s, and ’70’s, but there were some lovely examples of earlier pieces too. We had summer quilts with no batting, tied quilts, reproduction quilts, hired man quilts made of wool salesman samples, quilts made entirely on the treadle sewing machine, and some beautiful family heirlooms completely sewn by hand.

A Family Heirloom

A Single Block

Every Quilt tells a Story

One of the oldest quilts on display was this beautiful appliqued family heirloom dating from the around the turn of the last century, 1890 – 1900. The entire piece was hand appliqued onto what seemed like plain flour sack cotton and entirely hand quilted in lines about 1/4 inch apart, but I imagine the piecing of the quilt top was done on an old treadle machine.

1930-1940 style quilts

Double Wedding Ring Quilt

Dresden Plates and Double Wedding Ring patterns were most popular during the 1930’s era but are both currently experiencing a wonderful modern revival. The ones brought into the exhibit were the real deal though, and it was fantastic to see the variety of authentic old feedsacks and housedress cottons from the era. There is something absolutely charming about those sweet old fabrics and it’s no wonder many of them are now being reprinted, as they still hold their own and sit well with many modern cotton prints sold today.

Baby Churn Dash quilt with a wool batting

Another Family Heirloom

One of the highlights of the display was the beautiful applique bed-sized quilt in the photo above, featuring the provincial flowers centered in medallions edged with soft blue piping. This quilt was obviously a treasured family heirloom as it was in pristine condition and treated with the utmost respect during it’s visit to the Plenty United Church. The hand applique workmanship was immaculate and embellished with touches of hand embroidery throughout, with the entire piece finished with hand quilted floral motifs.

On the homefront, I managed to finally get a photo of my Paducah Nine Patch quilt top, even though I still had to battle the winds.

Every Block is Different!

This quilt top, with its 120 different blocks, ended up 80″ x 96″ and after pegging it to the clothesline I wondered if I should make it even larger. I’m going to mull it over for a while and have plenty of other quilts in the line-up for the longarm, so there’s no rush to make a decision on this one. My initial intention was to bind it without any borders and it truly is quite generous in size already… hmmm… how large does a quilt need to be?

My Sweet Prairie Quilt

And last but not least, as reported last week, the quilting was complete on my second version of the University of Alberta quilt and as of today I finished the hand binding. I rushed outside to take an early evening photo on the clothesline but I’m afraid the lighting wasn’t the best, but it does show some lovely texture. I absolutely love the old-timey texture that the quilting gave this piece and all I did was a simple, but fairly dense, loopy-de-loop all over the quilt. I have to say that this is one of my most favourite quilts I’ve finished in a long time. A pure joy from start to finish!

until next time, love carol