Today’s post is a little short.  I’ve received my biopsy results and it wasn’t good news.  Now I’m waiting to see if my insurance will approve the surgery I need. I don’t like the waiting game….I’m not in a real good state of mind.

The piece I’m posting today is a “what’s it”?  Please forgive my photography..it wasn’t easy to get a pic of the whole thing.

I found this piece at the end of the day at a yard sale. It had a tag on it that said ...

I’ve just finished a string quilt. It measures 82″x 96″.

It has a story..and it’s not a happy one.

Last Fall my son said he could use a new quilt..his was getting worn.  He uses his quilts hard..not leaving it on the bed, but taking it wherever he goes.  He also has two large dogs that sleep on the bed.  A quilt with fine hand quilting seemed a bit silly? So much time invested in something that would “used up”.

I had just finished the hexagon Leap Frog quilt. The color scheme had been ...

Today the quilt I’m showing hasn’t made it to the quilt top cupboard yet.  I bought it at a town wide sale in Metamora Michigan this past Saturday.

The quilt is a wholecloth tied quilt, meaning it’s made from large whole pieces of fabric which isn’t pieced into a quilt pattern.  The print on the cloth looks like a pieced quilt pattern though.

The quilt has the same fabric on both front and back, contains a thin cotton batting, and the layers have been tied together using a variegated crochet cotton.

The quilt has a piece ...

Today the quilt top I’m pulling from the quilt top cupboard is a Tumbling Blocks design.

The top dates to around 1910-1940’s, and contains fabrics from a pretty good time  span.  The fabrics were most likely taken from a scrap bag that contained scraps from sewing clothing or other quilts.?

The mourning prints were first popular in the 1860’s, but were reproduced in the 1930-40’s.  These prints seem to be the newer ones?

The quilt top contains mourning prints, Cardinal reds, Turkey reds, shirting,   gingham, plaid, a few florals,  homespuns, a couple of large scale black ...

Today the quilt top I’m pulling from the quilt top cupboard is a simple one patch.  The pieces are all the same size and contain lights and darks, but don’t form a particular pattern.

The quilt top is hand pieced and dates to 1880’s-1910.  The fabrics are indigo, shirting, homespun plaids and checks, Cardinal reds, Turkey reds,  mourning prints, double pinks, and chambray.

There are several prints with a black background with bright pink, chartreuse, and electric blue, exotic colors for the period.   These prints are a relief from the more common mourning prints of the era ...

Today the quilt top I’m pulling from the quilt top cupboard is an antique Four Patch.

The top is hand pieced and dates to around 1930’s-40’s.   It’s very scrappy and contains indigos, cadet blue, homespun plaids, ginghams, florals, shirtings, and geometrics.

The quilt top has a relaxed, country feel. It has four patch blocks alternating with squares.

The hand pieceing is quite nice with tight even stitches.

Some of the fabrics appear to be older dating to the late 1800’s.  I don’t think they’re that old though?  A lot of the indigos, ginghams ...

Today the quilt top I’m pulling from the quilt top cupboard is a Carpenter’s Wheel pattern.

It dates to the 1940’s-50’s, and is hand pieced.  Piecing this block can be a bit tricky.  This is one block where accurate seam allowances matter.  I wonder if that’s why the top was hand pieced..or did our quilter of yesteryear just prefer hand piecing?

The blocks are set block to block with no sashing in between.

The blocks are 15″ finished.  They are set together with bright canary yellow and the quilter used purple as her neutral ...

I was lucky enough to go to the NQA quilt show in Columbus Ohio on Friday.  It was my first time attending, and I was told there would be LOTS of Vendors.  My dear Husband took a vacation day and we drove down.  It was about a 2 1/2 hour drive.

As soon as we entered the building a sweet looking older lady approached us and stood right in front of DH and read his T shirt out loud.  It said  “I got an old pickup for my wife…has a picture of a truck, and under it says ...

Today the quilt top I’m pulling from the quilt top cupboard is a Grandmother’s Fan.  It dates to the 1930’s-40’s, and is hand pieced and hand appliqued.

The fans are scrappy and they’re appliqued onto a good quality muslin.

The fans are made from a variety of prints from the era, but one blade stands out because it’s a black print.  Quite a bit darker than the cheerful pastels of the other blades?

The sashing is made up of three strips of fabric, with the fabric placement reversed in the setting squares, forming a ...

For some time now, I’ve been collecting black and cream/tan  repro fabrics, and shirtings.  Then I started collecting small bits of burnt orange repro fabrics.  My goal…to make a quilt or two with that color combo.  I like the combo and they’d look great for decorating at Halloween time.

When I have a future project in mind I keep an eye out for fabrics that will fit in, and get them while they’re available.  If I wait..they’ll be gone!  The bad part is…if I wait too long to start the project..I ...

Today the quilt top I’m pulling from the quilt top cupboard is a simple Nine Patch.  The top is hand sewn and dates to the 1930’s-40’s.

This a smallish quilt top measuring 61″x66″.

There’s a wide assortment of fabrics in this top, some solids and some prints.  On their own, some of the blocks might be a bit homely…but the use of the cheerful green print sashing makes the assortment come together and looks cheerful?

There are quite a few “poverty patches” in the blocks, meaning the fabrics had to be pieced together in ...

Today the quilt top I’m pulling from the quilt top cupboard is a bit of an odd duck.

It’s a Robbing Peter to Pay Paul variation…and I’m guessing the pattern might have been drawn up by the maker?  Normally, a quilt of this design has square finished blocks, but this one is different.  The blocks are rectangles.  When I first saw a pic of this online I thought the photo was compressed or something?  It looked odd to my eye. I’ve never seen a version like this before or since.

The quilt top is made ...

Ta da!!! Strawberry Fields is finished.  It’s a fun doll quilt that Lori of Humble Quilts posted as a quilt along.

She drew her inspiration from an antique quilt, which was full sized.  She downsized the blocks and changed the setting to the fun zig-zag.

Her fabric choices were close to the original and I chose to make mine similar too, by using reproduction fabrics.

I had a lot of fun with this quilt along, but when it came time to quilt my little darling I found it kind of fiddly to quilt.

Soo…I basted the edge to ...

Today the quilt top I’m pulling from the quilt top cupboard is a Rail Fence design.  It might also be called a Basket Weave pattern, due to the random color placement.

The top is hand pieced and dates to around the turn of the century (1898 ish).

The top is made from mourning prints, indigos, cadet blue, crimson, and shirting.  It also contains one cheddar gold strip which is made from pieces sewn together, a “poverty patch”.

One might wonder…why did the maker use just one piece of the cheddar gold..especially if she had to piece it ...

Today the quilt top I’m pulling from the quilt top cupboard is a string pieced Lone Star. Each diamond that makes up the star has been made by sewing scraps together in string quilt style.
I had a hard time getting a good full view pic of the quilt because the wind wasn’t cooperating the day I first took pics. I tried again today, and as soon as I got the quilt hung up the wind picked up. It’s blowing back against the garage a bit, but I got a fair pic.

Some of the scraps used ...

At long last…the Princess Feather quilt is done! I started basting it for quilting on March 1..here we are 10 weeks later and it’s complete.

This quilt took quite a bit of time. The applique took 474 hours, the marking and basting 14 hours, the hand quilting 496 hours, and the binding 10.5 hours. A grand total of 994.5 hours.

The quilting was done with quartered feathered wreaths at each corner of the large blocks and diagonal lines .75″ across the rest of the design. In the center where the 4 blocks meet the wreath ...

The quilt top I’m pulling from the quilt top cupboard today is a Broken Dishes pattern in a zig zag setting.
The quilt top contains chambray, indigos, gingham, plaids, and shirting fabrics, which puts the date it was made at around 1910 or a bit later. These fabrics were very popular at that time.

As you can see, this top has some damage to it. The borders are torn and the bottom left corner is missing.
The top shows some wear. At first I thought maybe the top had been finished as a tied quilt and then at a ...

My Strawberry Fields doll quilt top is together and ready for quilting!
This was a fun little quilt to make. I know it looks big in the pic, but it’s only about 19″x26″.
If you didn’t join us for this quilt along but like the look of a zig zag setting I thought I’d post the formula for figuring the size to cut the setting triangles for anyone that doesn’t know how to figure the cutting numbers. You can do the setting with any size block. You take the finished block size x 1.414 ...

The quilt top I’m pulling from the quilt top cupboard today is a Snake in the Hollow pattern. The pattern is usually done scrappy style and this one is no exception.

The top is pretty recent. I recall seeing some of the fabrics in it for sale in the stores in the past few years.

The blocks finish at 7.5″ each. As the top is now it’s 45″x 75″. To me, that’s a bit of an odd size? I think I’ll remove a few rows when I quilt it?
The design reminds me of ...

As soon as Lori posted the pics and piecing info for the Strawberry Fields blocks on her blog I just had to jump in and piece a trial block.

What fun little blocks!
I decided to piece my blocks a bit scrappy so they looked like they were made from bits of fabrics pulled from a scrap bag.

I pieced one of my black pieces so it would look like a poverty patch. I always enjoy seeing those in antique quilts.
I used a variety of shirting prints too.
In one block I used a solid piece of fabric with ...

Today the quilt top I’m pulling from the quilt top cupboard is an antique Sunbonnet Sue.
The quilt top dates to 1930-1940’s. It’s hand appliqued with a running stitch in black embroidery floss. I posted another top done in this method last month. These two projects were done by the same quilter and came from an estate sale.

The top has some discoloration which was probably caused by the top being folded and placed in a cedar chest, or stored on a bare wood shelf. A lot of people think it’s OK to store linens in ...

Yes! Absolutely yes!
Lori of Humble Quilts is posting another quilt along on her blog. I had so much fun with the Cheddar and Crackers doll quilt she did a while back that I made two versions, so I’ve been anxiously waiting for this one.

This doll quilt will get it’s color scheme from an antique quilt. Lori has posted fabric selections and hints to choose fabrics with a similar feel to the original.

Lori is using scraps but I’m just lopping off pieces from yardage I have. I bought these fabrics with nothing in particular in ...