Vintage Feedsack Pieces

Another find from my favorite little vintage shop, Vintage City, a cigar box full of little pieces of feed sack fabric! 

 

 

The small newspaper pattern doesn't match the shape of the pieces.  Not sure why this pattern was included in the box.

 

 

There are many little snippets like these, the ones shown are just a small example.  They are not truly square, more trapezoidal and I think they might have been cut for a wedding ring quilt.  They look like little pieces of fabric candy and I've really enjoyed looking through them.  I am hoping to use a few of the duplicates (some patterns have a dozen or more pieces) in my Dresden quilt, but their shapes are tricky.  They are so small I may have to save them for another project, or just save them because they are old and SO MUCH FUN! 

 

 

Dresden Quilt-Color Dilemma-Yellow

The Dresden quilt is coming along!  I've been working on it all summer and fall.  The flowers have been done for some time, and I've just been waiting for the right color of yellow to come along for my frames.  (Frames?  I'm not sure that's right.  Maybe rails?  I don't know.)

 

I'm not following a pattern, so there are a lot of papers in my quilting stuff that look like the ones below.  I know what is in my head, it's just sometimes hard to transfer my ideas to paper.
 

 

I've been looking for just the right kind of yellow.

The photos below show the two shades of yellow that I have.

 

The first is a lighter yellow made by Moda.  I purchased 3 yards of the stuff at a local quilt shop thinking I had FINALLY hit the jackpot.  Now, I'm not so sure.  I think it might be too light.

 

 

The next is an older piece of fabric from Hobby Lobby.  As much as I love Hobby Lobby I have to be honest about this fabric.  It's not the best quality I'm sad to say.  When you hold it up to the light it's a little more "transparent" than the "Moda" brand of fabric. But I like the color.  It's a little darker and just looks better than the lighter color. 

 

 

Oh, and I know one of my flowers has a "rainbow" pattern to it.  That one is one that daughter set up for me.  It's a little too "happy and bright" for my taste.  I've noticed that the whole quilt has swayed from the vintage 1930s feed sack look to the reproduction, candy store, pastel look that I was trying to avoid. 

 

Here is what I mean...

The photo below is of a real feed sack quilt.  It's more of a primary colored hodge podge and there is not a whole lot of matching going on with it's bright colors and patterns. I love it.

 

Next, we have a quilt done in reproduction fabrics that is still very cute and pretty, but also very "pastel" looking.  To be honest I was going for something a bit in-between.  (both photos are from Pinterest, therefore, I have no clue who to give original credit to).

 Looking at my quilt flowers, I should have thrown more black and white, primary prints, and bigger prints into my mixes.  But like folks always say, hindsight is always 20/20.

 

I did see a BEAUTIFUL quilt, earlier this fall, while visiting my folks out west.  We went to a local quilt show and I LOVED this quilt!

 

 

The quilt was made by a gal named Ruth Olson of Williston.

I love her choice of yellow for her borders.  I have a snippet of that pattern in pink but not in yellow and can't find it online.  I wish I knew who designed and manufactured that particular yellow pattern with little white ball flowers on it.

 

 

I could stare at this quilt for an hour!  It's total eye candy.

 

 

I like the pastel look with this one.  It seems fitting.

 

Well, that's all for today.  I'm going to keep chugging along on my quilt, and I'll keep ya'll posted on my progress. Until another time, have a happy stitching day!

 

Sewing, Stitching, and Quilting at The Pioneer Museum

For my stitching and vintage loving friends out there I thought I would post a few pictures of quilts and embroidery items that we saw during our tour of the Kenmare Pioneer Museum.

 

There were many vintage quilts displayed throughout the museum.  Here are a few.



A beautiful Signature Quilt.

Another Signature quilt.  Folks could pay 25 cents to have their name embroidered on a block.  Proceeds were given to the Red Cross.

Crazy Quilt (and some books I didn't look at!  I wonder what they are.)

Dresden quilt.  Every flower was the same which tells me that only these fabrics were used.  Maybe they were feed sacks, or a little girl's dresses.

This beautiful quilt is a Log Cabin quilt (I think).  So pretty!

This quilt was probably my favorite and I wish I knew what the pattern is called. 

Here are some pretty French knots.  Wow, I'll bet this took a few hours!

And here are some examples of beautiful handy work.

 

 

 

Colorful doilies.  I especially like the one with the grape bunches and leaves.

 

 

Some adorable embroidered quilt squares.

 

 

And here are some fun notions.

 

 

And some fun, fashionable patterns!

 

 

 

And I'll leave you today with a whole wall of patterns to drool over.  Aren't they wonderful!?

 

That's all for today, until another time, have a happy, vintage, stitching day!

 



Busy Quilting

Few things beat sitting out on the deck, overlooking my little flower garden, and stitching, whether it be embroidery stitching or quilt stitching.  Luckily, there have been a few nice evenings to do just that.

I'm coming along quite nicely on my Dresden Plate quilt.  For my birthday I treated myself to some fabrics from Quiltin' Gals, a website from Texas that is AWESOME. http://www.quiltingals.com/ They were having a wonderful sale.  I picked up 1/2 yards of fabrics for just a few cents more than what I pay for a 1/4 yard here in town.  But, so as not to leave my favorite local quilt shop out of my birthday treating, I bought a few 1/4 yards there too.  I really can see how collecting quilting fabric can become a sickness  hobby.  I'm learning that if you LOVE a fabric, you'd better buy some, because only too soon, it may be retired forever.

Darlene Zimmerman's fabric designs are fast becoming some of my favorites.

These are not ALL Darlene Zimmerman fabrics, but some of them are.

First, these are the fabrics I ordered from Quiltin' Gals.

 

 

Here is a close up of the little animal print with its pigs, birds and ducks.

 

 

And then there were these quarters that I picked up at our local quilting Bernina shop.

 

The pink one at the bottom is my favorite one of these four.

 

 

That's all for today, until another time, have a happy stitching day!

New 1930's Quilt Blocks

My husband surprised me with this set of 10" 1930's reproduction fabrics from Keepsake Quilting for Mother's Day this year!  Awhile back I had hinted to him that they might make a great birthday gift, so I was surprised when he ordered them for Mom's Day!

 

I was reminded of what it was like when I was a kid, coming home from a night of trick-or-treating.  I can remember dumping all of my candy out, sorting them by type and color, and just looking at all of their candy goodness.  Well, opening these fabrics was a lot like that, minus the tummy ache after!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The chicken one is especially cute, and I also have a fat quarter of the chickens on pink fabric.  I also like the baby ducks (or chicks) in green and blue. 

 

By doing some math, and laying out my petal template, I figured out I can cut 8 petals and have a 2.5 inch strip left over for some squares!

The lines are kind of hard to see and the lighting was weird, but you can see how I laid out the petals.

 

 

Sorting through these was such a fun time!  And I've been working very hard on my quilt lately!  I'm hoping to have it finished by next May, but we'll see. (It's good to have goals! haha!)

 

Until another time, have a happy, stitching day! 

Quilting Questions

Uff-da, I'm having quite the time with my quilt.

There are two little problems bothering me at this time.  The first is the color choice for the blocks that will back the flowers of my Dresden quilt.  It was between an ivory color or white.  The other problem is the method of stitching (or appliqueing) the flowers onto the quilt blocks.

 

Awhile back, I bought a yard of a fine, ivory fabric and from this made 5 or 6 large blocks.  But, soon I realized that much of the feed sack fabric I was using had white in the patterns.  So I naturally thought, "Maybe I should be using white muslin for the blocks."

So I opted for white. 

I went to Joann's and bought 2 yards of white, Legacy, muslin and cut 14 blocks to start.  I proceeded to applique a couple of Dresden flowers onto the white blocks and, wouldn't you know, I don't like the white at all.  It's too bright and doesn't have that "vintage" feel to it.

I will keep the white blocks for a future project, but they just won't work for my Dresden quilt.

 

I don't know if I can match the yard of ivory backing that I bought years ago to something in the stores, so I carefully ripped the flowers I had previously appliqued on to the existing ivory backing, and am starting fresh. 

Now, I will be taking a trip to the fabric stores around town to find a good quality, ivory, muslin so I can get going on these blocks!  One thing I've learned is to buy enough yardage at one time to do be able to cut all of the blocks for the entire quilt.

 

The other trouble I'm having is the decision between using a hidden stitch to applique the flowers on the blocks or a regular stitch.

This is how I stitched the first three blocks, just a small stitch towards the edge of the flower to attach it to the block.

 

This is an example of the hidden stitch that I am horrible at!  It certainly takes practice!

When I use the hidden stitch the flower seems "puffier" and doesn't lay down as flat on the block, which I'm not sure I like.

 

 

I've also seen blanket-type stitching done around the flowers in a contrasting color such as black.  It gives the quilt a "vintage" feel, but I am not sure I am that daring.

 

I'm going to ponder the different types of stitches, and play around with them a bit.  I am learning so much throughout this project!

 

Until another time, have a happy stitching day!!

 

 

Embroidery Absence

Well, I feel kind of bad that I haven't been posting anything about embroidery lately.  Sometimes I go through phases where embroidery is far from my mind and something else occupies my time.  Honestly, I haven't embroidered since our trip to Minneapolis in early July.  Part of the reason is I packed-up much of my crafting/sewing/embroidery items into boxes, anticipating a move that is no longer going to happen.  So now it's just a matter of getting the boxes back out of storage and unpacking them, and getting every little thing back into place.  Then I'll get back into the embroidery groove!

But until then I can spend some time working on my Dresden quilt!  The little flower petals are quite portable, I can take them anywhere to work on them.

There are now seven whole flowers and a few halves that I've put together and two of those seven are on muslin backing.

 



EMBROIDERY GOALS and PROJECTS
I'd like to embroider a table cloth at some point this fall or winter.  Something similar to this one.

I saw the one above on Etsy way back in June. 

And this one that is on Etsy right now!  How cute is this?!  I love that they both have crochet edges and I'd really like to learn how add crochet around the edges like these above.  I know how to crochet a little bit so I think I could learn how fairly easily.

I would also like to make some napkins for spring or summer next year.  Just some ordinary, napkins for everyday use, with a little embroidery on them of course.

Along with a table cloth and napkins, I'd like to do something with a Scottie dog motif.  But we'll talk about that later...I bought some really cute Scottie dog glasses and gingham napkins, but haven't been able to photograph them yet.  So, my new found love for Scottie dogs is something to blog about real soon!
Until then, enjoy the Autumn days ahead and have a happy, vintage day!

 

Dresden Quilt Progress

This is the very first Dresden flower I made (minus it's circle center...I'm still looking for just the right yellow for the centers).  This week I cut a 14x14 square out of white fabric and fastened the flower to it.  I pinned it carefully making sure it was centered, then stitched the rounded tops of the petals onto the white fabric by hand.  Tucking the edges under as I went seemed to be the only way.  Surprisingly, the stitching went pretty quickly and I am happy with how it turned out!



Here is how I find the center of my block.

Start with the square of fabric.

Fold the fabric square in half.

Fold in half again and iron the center corner.  This will create a little x in the center of your material without having to measure with a ruler and mark with a pen.  This is easy-peezy-lemon-squeezy!

Then came the fun part!  I got out my box of 1930's reproduction fabric pieces that I got from my mom's friend, and cut one or two petals from each design.  I left some back and will do more later as my quilt grows.  

A happy, colorful little stack of petals. 

Petals on the right are my absolute FAVORITES.

It was a good thing Shannan was gone to Kansas City because I stayed up way too late playing around with different color combinations.  I'm having so much fun with all of the different designs! Each one is like a little piece of candy!!

All of my favorite designs put into color groups.

My favorite reds.

Favorite orange patterns.

Favorite yellows.

Favorite greens.

Favorite turquoise.

Favorite blues.

Favorite Purples.

Favorite multicolored and B&W petals.

Then it was time to piece a block. 

Here is the next block I will be working on.  I know there are a lot of pastel petals and flowers and nothing really "sticks out", but this block has many of my favorites.  It will be at the top of the quilt by my head so I can look at it while reading in bed.

The block is kept on one of my art boards so that I can just take it and all supplies from room to room.  I stayed up WAY too late one night sewing petals together while watching Smokey and the Bandit. heehee.  I sew them together by hand and plan to use my machine very little.

Sewing the petals together moves along pretty quickly and is very relaxing.

I'll do my best to keep up with the progress pictures.  Until later,

Have a happy, colorful day!