Category: Quilting and Sewing

I stopped at a random yard sale recently where I found a vintage treasure for just five dollars.  It got me thinking about how much I love old things.  Our home is a collection of new and old, with most of my favorite furniture found at thrift stores or Colorado yard sales.  I have a few vintage/antique quilts hanging on quilt ladders around my house.  One of them is my vintage sailboat quilt, which I still love and display.  I thought I’d spotlight two more favorite vintage quilts this week.  So let’s be clear about this:  this is NOT my work!  Here is my lovely Vintage Friendship Hexagon Quilt.

it features a repeating hexagon block.  I found a drawing of the block in Barbara Brackman’s Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Blocks, where several names are attributed.  Some are: hexagonal star, Texas star, hexagon stars, Dolly Madison’s star, and Star Garden.  I liked Friendship Hexagon, so that’s what I’m calling it.

Crisp blue and white just make my heart sing.  These colors are still vibrant and clear, and the quilt is in good condition, with the exception of a lone yellow stain.  I forgot how large this one is, so perhaps I should give it a turn on a bed sometime soon.

Who made it?  Did she love blue like I do?  Was it a gift for a loved one?  I enjoy wondering about the makers of these treasures.  The hand quilting is beautifully done and still holding the quilt together.

I realize now that these colors are similar to my recent reworking of my Anthem quilt.  It’s a color scheme I’m excited about right now.

This vintage friendship hexagon quilt inspires me to get sewing!  I am grateful for the enduring work of makers who precede me.  Grateful for their determination to make beautiful things even when life was hard.  Inspired by their mastery and attention to detail.  We stand on the shoulders of those who went before us.  I hope we honor their legacy as we create!

While temperatures remain around 100 degrees here, summer is winding down.  Next week my children go back to school, and this morning we sent our son off to Mexico on a two year mission.  I feel so many emotions but I’m trying to jump on the joy train.  Life is good and we are blessed!  And today I’m sharing a new quilt top.  I’m calling it “Summer Afternoon Lone Star”.

This top began in a Lone Star tree skirt class I taught in 2022, which I sewed into an octagon and set aside.  I decided to finish the top by taking an approach similar to my Oxymoron quilt top, so I started auditioning fabrics for borders.

You see, I tend to pause a project and store it with the fabric pull I made for the entire quilt.  Tired of the pile, I wanted to finish it up.  Surprisingly, only one of the fabrics I’d set aside ended up in the quilt.  It’s that skinny 1 inch border in a lovely blue.  I had barely enough to make it work.

The second blue border is another Anna Maria Horner print, actually a smaller version of the large print I used for the scallop applique in Oxymoron.  It was an unplanned choice, and made the cut because I liked the blue.  It’s followed by a bright orange vintage print with amazing texture.  I bought it at a vintage market earlier in the year, and it’s almost neon orange – so much brighter than in the photos.

I love Nathalie Lete’s green print used on the last wide border.  Saved for something special, I finally took a deep breath and just cut it.  Better to use than to store, right?  Another thing I’m working on!

It’s been a while since I hung a quilt top from the cherry tree.  Our dear old tree has had a rough summer.  I’ll share more later, but it’s been hard on my heart.  I left the summer afternoon lone star hanging while I wandered around our vegetable garden to see what’s growing.  At one point I turned and noticed the quilt top from the back. Sweetly pastel, I snapped a photo.

 

Using that last large border makes my summer afternoon lone star a larger quilt than usual – a little over 80″ square.  Now to piece a backing!  I do love how colorful it is – a pretty summer palette.  No more fabric pile for this one!  I’m excited to get it quilted.

I always want to create something with red, white and blue during summer.  While organizing a closet recently I found these red, white and blue orphan blocks.  I saved them for a scrap “leftovers” quilt that I forgot all about.  I put them up on the design wall to look at them and think.  What additional blocks should I make?  How should I fill in space?  There is a LOT of white here – evidence I made them years ago.  What would you do with them?

The block below is a leftover from my Anthem quilt.  Anthem is my first quilt pattern.  I love it, and I also love it’s sister version, Peppermint, which is most popular (instructions for both are included in the pattern).  Right now I’m working on an updated Anthem that is similar to Peppermint.  It’s fun to see a block from so long ago.

I also found this lone star block.  It’s crazy to think that this little block started my journey with lone stars and pattern writing.  My tutorial is used by many people and I’m grateful to contribute to the online quilting community with it.  I cherish this little block.  It definitely deserves a spot in a quilt!

Below is another fun lone star block.  I remember this as the first time I swapped out diamonds and stood the star on a tip.  I just finished a very personal quilt with a lone star on point like this.  I’m grateful for where that exploration has led.

I had also forgotten about my Anchor quilt block tutorial.  That was a fun block to design!

All these blocks were test blocks or extras, or parts of a quilt pattern I never finished.  I can’t remember the designer or the quilt name for the other two large blocks.  I felt uninspired and quit making them after the first two.  But they will be useful in a leftovers quilt.  And that little boat block was a long ago experiment.  I have a vintage quilt top from that block which needs quilting.

As I asked earlier, what would you do to pull these together and create magic?  I will definitely add more color!  Lots more red, white and blue needed here.

Life is really crazy right now and I don’t know how much time I’ll have to play.  I hope I don’t have to take them down and put them back away because I like these red, white and blue orphan blocks.  I hope to use them well!