Small Quilts and Redwork Quilts

I fell in love with this little quilt when I saw it on someone's pinterest site.  It is an old doll quilt that is owned by Jane Weaver (website)  She has several old small quilts, and I love all of them.  She calls this one Triangles Variation Doll Quilt.

I love to study old quilts and their fabrics.  When I try to duplicate them, it helps me learn about colors and what makes a part of the block recede, or come forward.   Sometimes I love a quilt, but don't know why, and after I try to make one like it, I understand why I love the original quilt so much.   And I usually love my attempt to make it too!  It has been fun to work on this one.

Original quilt, circa 1895, 17.5 in. by 21.75 in.

Here's the bottom row of this quilt, original version (a little blurry, sorry):

And my attempt to copy it:

Here's how far I am, as it is pinned on my design wall:

As you can see, I did most of the four patches before I attempted the hourglass blocks.  The hourglass blocks will finish at 1 inch, but aren't really that bad to make because I make them a little bigger, and then make the final cut at 1.5 inches square.

The original maker would probably think I'm batty for making a duplicate of her random fabric selections, but I love the total look, and it is so much fun to dissect it and study the old fabrics.

I may add more red somewhere in the upper left area, so there are three spots of red, what do you think?  I love the red hourglasses in it.

I'm also multitasking on several other projects.  Here's a redwork square that I finished recently.  My friend Dee and I are making squares to replicate an old quilt from a pattern I bought in Paducah at the AQS Quilt Show from a vendor.  I liked the pattern, and when I got home I realized I had taken pictures of a quilt made from the same pattern when I was at the Hampton Road Mid-Atlantic quilt show!  The quilt has a redwork border, and I hadn't seen one with a border before.   Here's one square that I embroidered:

And here's one of the pictures I took at the quilt show, showing what the border looks like.  I'm sorry I didn't snap a photo of the info tag to tell you who made it.

Now that I am doing the embroidery, I am thinking I may make a different border - It's not that I'm fond of this particular border, I just like the idea of a border on a redwork quilt. 

I'm checking out Judy L.'s blog (Patchwork Times) to see what is on everyone's design wall this Monday.  What are you working on today?