Little Lamb Counting Sheep under Little Nine Patch

Today's quilt is a copy of an antique quilt from the book Celebrate with Little Quilts, by Alice Berg, Mary Ellen Von Holt and Sylvia Johnson.  Here's a copy of the cover of the book, with the antique quilt hanging on the wall in the background:

I love all their quilts, but this antique one is my favorite from the book.  Recently, I found some polka-dot fabric from my Mother's stash.  It looks like it had been a dress at one time, but was deconstructed and never used for anything else.  Now it is!  It's used in the alternate squares in this quilt.


Here's the picture of the original and my version, next to each other:

I used some repos, some old fabrics, the polka-dots from the old dress; whatever seemed to fit to give me the look of the old quilt.  I used the same polka-dots for the back of the quilt.  


Here's a close-up of two blocks to show some of the older fabrics used:

It's machine pieced and machine quilted and measures 16 x 19 inches.

Teddy and His New Quilt on the Porch

Here's the latest doll quilt I made.  It's patterned after a quilt in the book Childhood Treasures - Doll Quilts by and For Children, by Merikay Waldvogel.
See page 101 for the original quilt, which is 15 x 17.5 inches.

I used some thirties scraps and a scrappy look with no attention to dark/light triangle placement.  The border is newer fabric, and the binding is a small checked fabric.  It has a pleasant "busy" look to me, and the snippets of fabric are fun to see up close.  This quilt measures 13 x 15 inches.   

Four-Patch with Border

Here's a little doll quilt on a doll's ironing board.

It's a copy of a quilt from Childhood Treasurers, Doll Quilts By and For Children, by Merikay Waldvogel.  Here is the quilt in the book, on page 27, Four-Patch with Chintz, circa 1850.  It's 17 1/2 by 17 inches.

The original quilt is made so the pieced blocks are on the surface of the bed, and the border falls to the sides and end of the bed.  

Here's my version:

Mine is 18 1/2 by 18 inches, and is machine pieced, and hand quilted.  

It was fun to make this quilt, and I hope you enjoy seeing it.  The hand quilting is my first attempt, and I have much to learn, but I enjoyed it.

What were the quilter's thoughts as she made the quilt?

Yesterday I talked about this little 35 x 35 inch quilt, and posted a picture of it. As I look at the quilt today on my computer screen, I see some method in what I thought was just random block placement.  Do you see it?

She has put all the backgrounds of the bow ties in diagonal lines from southwest to northeast.  Also I noticed she has one "humility" block in the bottom row, where the bow tie is going in a different direction.  I wonder what her quilting life was like, and who received this little quilt?  How did it end up in a garage sale?  I treasure it, and I hope somehow she knows I do.

Spring Doll Quilt on the Easter Table

Happy Easter!

Ready for Easter

This small quilt just says "Spring" to me, with it's cheery green sashing.  I am not sure of it's age.  Maybe someone could tell me more about the fabrics.  It was in my Mom's estate, and she probably bought it at a garage sale.


Here's a closeup of some of the fabrics:

This little quilt measures about 35  x 35 inches and the bow tie squares are about 3.5 inches square. It is hand pieced and has a white backing and very narrow green binding.  It is tied in the center of the cornerstones and also in the center of the bow ties.


I hope you enjoyed seeing today's featured small quilt.  Here's a picture of the whole quilt.

Spring is here!

Thoughts on Copyright Issues

Today I read a blog post that I'd like to share with everyone else.  When I first made choices about this blog, I put some html code in to keep anyone from copying any of my pictures, because I thought that was what I should do.  But I've changed my mind.  After reading the referenced blog post, I've removed them, and decided that as quilters, we have always shared, and I hope it shall continue forever.


Here's the blog post site:


http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/2012/03/copyright-terrorism.html


I'd be interested in your thoughts on the subject.  Do you protect your ideas or do you share?




I'm working this week on some little Dresden plate blocks and am having lots of fun with them.  I'll post more about them when I finish the little quilt, but here's a picture of my progress so far:

Aren't they cute?  I bought a kit from Q is for Quilter's Etsy shop.  Here's 
Martha's blog where she has a link to her Etsy store:  http://qisforquilter.com


Judy 

Making Sheets and A Pillowcase for A Doll Bed

Here's a small doll bed with a mattress filled with straw, and a pillow filled with batting.  It needs some sheets and a quilt.

I looked in the cupboard to see what inspiration I could find, and found these:

Three tea towels

The plain one can be the bottom sheet, and the other two can be a top sheet and a pillowcase.


Have you ever made French seams?  When I learned to make them, I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread!  First sew the seam with the fabric wrong sides together.  Then clip the seam very close to the sewed line.  Next, turn the fabric inside out and sew the same seam again, with the right sides together, capturing the first seam's selvage inside the seam.  

Here is the pillowcase as I'm turning it right side out, showing the inside seam, all finished and with no raw edges.  

And here's the little bed, now looking much better.  The quilt is a string quilt that I made several years ago.  It was an experiment in string quilting.  I'm not very good at it, but it was my first attempt.

The quilt measures 13 by 17.5 and has birds as the center of several of the blocks.  It was fun to do, and went very quickly.   Hope you enjoyed the process of making the bed today.