A bought quilt

I'm not a collector of bought quilts, I don't go out of my way to look for them, generally I prefer making them. But if I see a second hand one that's gorgeous in some way, and not a large amount of money, then I do find it hard to resist!

This quilt was displayed on a chair outside a lovely shop on a sunny day. I was walking along on the other side of the street but I spotted it out of the corner of my eye and the colours called me over. And then I couldn't resist!

The shop lady thought it dated back to the 30's, I haven't got a clue, but it is obviously quite old from the style of some of the fabrics.

Lots of really pretty fabrics, but I find some of the placement a bit bizarre, there are 'clumps' of the same fabrics rather than any attempt to give the quilt a good balance with the fabric placement. I think probably whoever made it cut and pieced scraps as they had scraps to use and that the quilt built up over time in this way rather than being pieced all in one go.

It's not particularly big and it's slightly strange in that it's hand pieced hexagons on both sides with no wadding or anything in between and no quilting holding the 2 layers together. It seems to be held together purely by the blue binding, which is a quaint frill.



Blue frill for binding

 There are quite a few areas that are damaged, and somebody has already tried (not very well) to mend a couple of these.

Some torn fabric

I don't really know what to do with the damaged areas. I don't want to change it in any radical way, I definitely don't want to add any different fabric to it  but I'm not sure how effective just trying to 'darn' it will be. But it's not something that's overly worrying me. The damage doesn't spoil the quilt for me, it's all part of its history and beauty, I just want to try and preserve it a bit better if I can. I think I might end up hanging it up on a wall somewhere which hopefully will keep the delicate, worn fabrics a bit safer for longer.

Back tomorrow with a very quick, thrifty make, Sally.

PS If you felt like having a go at making a mini quilt after seeing yesterday's lovely 'Doll's Quilt Wall' on my Pinterest board, then there's lots more mini quilt inspiration on my board here, Mini Quilt Inspiration. I'm going to have to not look at these too much though because for one thing my wall isn't big enough for all the ideas I love on here and for another thing I'd really like a few of the ideas to be personal to me and my family. Pinterest can be too full of lovely things sometimes!

Hexagons

I'm still working on the Half Square Triangles from the end of last week but, ever since the beginning of last week when I showed you photos of My Mum's Quilt, hexagons seem to be popping up all over the place! I think it's mainly that the children, having looked at the quilt with new eyes, are now spotting hexagons and pointing them out to me like mad. And tessellating hexagons in particular create the most excitement at the moment! Generally it's when we're out and about, maybe in the car, and I can't take photos. But I have got one really good example I can share with you - really good because it also ties in with the half square triangles that are going on here at the moment:

A half rectangle triangles quilt? Think about spiltting the more obvious triangle shapes in half, then pairing them up with the split triangle of a different colour next to them, this makes the rectangles.

I'm hoping this is clear enough for you to see the pattern. It was hard to get anything like a decent photo because this is actually a pattern on an envelope, so it's really small and also quite pale. Venetia was given a card in this envelope, and was just as excited about the envelope as she was about the contents once she spotted there were hexxies going on in the pattern! And I think (someone more experienced than me please correct me if I'm wrong here) that if I were to try and recreate this pattern in a quilt (which Venetia desperately wants me to do now!) that I'd use half square triangles (or rather half rectangle triangles) to do it. So although it looks very complicated, and it would need careful colour placement to give the right effect, it is actually a reasonably straightforward quilt to construct, all machine sewable and all based around one simple shape. Watch this space for an example maybe - although I think it might be a mini quilt, at least to start with, perfect for Venetia's dolls perhaps.

Anyway, back with the hexxies. The children were busy this weekend making all things hexagon with acqua beads.



 

And I got infected with the hexxie bug. The half square triangles were put to one side and I remembered I'd bought this material a while back:

Perfect to join in with the hexxie bug. I only had a fat quarter of it (new fabric has to be rationed in this house, but I bought it from here if you're interested, Plush Addict), so, especially since I didn't really want to break up the lovely hexxie pattern, I thought a mini applique quilt might be good. Obviously it had to be bees, and not just any bees - hexxie bees! Don't get too excited because it's not finished yet, but here are a few photos of how it's going so far:

Brown and yellow fabric strips sewn together ready for the bee body templates

Fabric cut out, slightly larger than the templates, then ironed over the templates

One bee, edges all tacked under (in the red thread) about to be sewn on to the honeycomb fabric.

I've been wanting to make some mini quilts for ages so it feels great to have one started. I have plans for a wall of mini quilts so I hope it will be the first of many. I have always hankered after a patchwork wall and, a while back, my friend Emma (of Hope Sews fame) made me green with envy when she created this very beautiful patchwork wall:



Isn't it gorgeous? And I can tell you it looks even better in the flesh. I especially love the way Emma put in small things, like cards and photos, that have special meaning for her. It just made me want to 'patchwork' all sorts of different things rather than purely quilts. But as for that wall I'd love to have - despite wandering around my house many times considering every wall from every angle, I just couldn't find a wall where it would look good and be practical. And even with the extension that's being built for my parents I'm not sure there's a wall that's a good candidate. But then I saw this picture (on trusty Pinterest):


Hillary Lang Doll Quilt Wall from my Pinterest

And it occurred to me that this was something I could do quite easily to give me the kind of effect I was craving. So this is what the mini quilts are for eventually. They're going to go on the wall beside my stairs, which is much too boring at the moment. So expect to see more mini quilts cropping up here in the future (maybe the one for Venetia, based on her envelope, won't get to be for her dolls after all!).

I was going to show you one more hexxie lovely today, a bought quilt - quite unusual for me. But I think (and my children definitely think!) that this post is plenty long enough already so I'll save that for tomorrow.

Back then, Sally.

My Mum's Quilt

I thought I'd show you one of my Mum's quilts today.

A beautiful Grandmother's Flower Garden Quilt. This is a huge quilt - a very generous King Size. It took her quite a few years from start to finish, although I remember lots of periods within that when it was sitting with nothing being done to it. I've got a feeling that originally the plan was to give it to me as a wedding present, that obviously didn't happen but it was worth waiting for anyway!

It's particularly special for me because so many of the fabrics are from dresses I remember as a child, either mine or my Mum's, she used to make clothes for both of us.

I remember walking around the market with her looking at the fabric stalls, usually munching my way through a bag of grapes we'd just bought, no online fabric shopping in those days! I feel old all of a sudden!

My Mum has Parkinsons now and, unfortunately, she's not up to quilting any longer. We're currently extending our house so that she and my Dad can come and live down here with us (they're the other end of the country at the moment). There's been some sorting out of their house done in preparation for the move (still a scarily huge amount to do) and, as part of this, I recently unearthed a few of my Mum's old quilting bits and pieces, including quite a few unused hexagons, even some complete flowers and loads of the paper hexagon templates she used in the piecing.

Just a few of the leftover pieces.

I don't think I have the patience to go for such a huge Grandma's Garden quilt, possibly a smaller one some time in the future, but I do have plans for these leftover hexagons. Maybe when my Mum has moved down with us, then she can be a design consultant even if she can't sew now.

If you love hexagons, have a look at a few more here:

http://pinterest.com/sallyano/hexagons/

Back tomorrow, Sally.