I have always referred to this pattern as Flying Swallows, but it actually has lots of names: Falling Star, Flying Star, Whirling Star, and Circling Swallows. Whatever you want to call it, it’s a beautiful pattern. Cathi (Quilt Obsession) has been piecing a slightly more complex block which has this star in the middle, and…
Month: July 2012
Twinkling Star Vintage Quilt Top
This old quilt top is kind of a mess. The stitching in the blocks is not bad, but the yellow border is crudely sewn with many odd-sized pieces. It will not lie flat. I thought the blocks might have been sewn earlier by a different person, but upon closer examination, it’s clear that both the…
ABC Painting Reading Book, 1934
Here are the last two pages of my current favorite ABC book. I’ve mentioned before how much I love the bold graphics in this book, but the unusual alphabet words are also pretty great. To locate the other alphabet pages, click on the Children’s Books category on my sidebar.
More Vintage Japanese Embroidery Designs
When I was organizing my vintage transfers today, I found another sheet of Workbasket patterns with a Japanese theme. The motifs in this group are much smaller than the earlier group with the beautiful geishas.
More Antique Fabrics from 9-Patch Quilt Top
My friend, Patty at Petalier, pointed out that the first group of neon type antique prints I posted last week is from the 1890s. It’s always a bit risky purchasing these very old blocks and tops because the fabric can be in poor condition without showing any obvious signs of damage. To test the fabric,…
Appliqued Cherry Trees and Robins Quilt – Ladies Home Journal
As I was looking through my 1924 Ladies Home Journal Pattern Catalog, I immediately recognized the quilt at the bottom of this page, probably because a copy of the original quilt appeared on the cover of the book, “American Folk Art Quilts” by Maggi Gordon (possibly made from the LHJ pattern). I’m sorry I don’t…
Baby Bunting Quilt Blocks
As I have mentioned before, I made several quilts in the 70s when I was in my twenties, and didn’t make another quilt for 20 years. In 1995 a quilter came to our school and gave a presentation to my daughter’s 5th grade class in preparation for a class quilting project. The speaker brought a…
Santa’s Follow The Colors Patterns
Finally, here are the pages from the two vintage coloring books I used to make my Santa’s Follow-the-Colors quilt top. The small blocks finish at 6″ square and the large at 12″ x 6″ (pictures somewhat smaller). When combining the two-page images, I sometimes made a few changes in the drawing. The squares in the sashing…
Vintage Japanese Embroidery Designs
These three patterns are from a sheet of transfers stapled inside an old Workbasket magazine. The sheets were printed with red ink on heavy newsprint type paper (like my old coloring books), and because the paper turns brown and brittle over time, they are usually very fragile. Oops! I forgot to add the little piece…
Antique Fabrics from 9-Patch Quilt Top
The original antique quilt top was made with a large assortment of different fabrics you would expect in a top of this age — indigos, homespuns, shirtings, madders, double pinks and mourning prints. The individual 4″ squares were wonderful, but the mix of all the colors and patterns didn’t really appeal to me, and it…
Anne Orr Mosaic Rose Quilt Pattern
Last year I talked about an Anne Orr quilt top project from 1937 that I purchased on ebay. The quilter had done so much work drafting the pattern, calculating how much fabric to purchase, and beginning construction, that it seemed really sad to me that the project was never finished. She only had a tiny…
Santa’s Follow the Colors Embroidered Quilt – quilting in progress
Finally, the quilting has begun on this poor, neglected quilt top that I finished almost two years ago. The past two Christmases I have put this quilt on the wall as a top, and felt terribly guilty that I couldn’t manage to get it quilted. Hopefully, I can complete the quilting in the next couple…
ABC Painting Reading Book, 1934
There are only two pages left to clean up in this book. It turns out that the child who received this cute book decided to color not only the outline pages, but several of the example pages as well, which I hadn’t noticed at first and which was annoying because the crayon has to be…
Royal Society Vintage Tiny Transfers
Thank you for the feedback on Marjorie’s owl dress. I feel much better about the embroidery after reading your nice comments. I have a tendency to be overly critical of my work. Now for this weeks transfers, which are very small and so sweet — there are 16 tiny transfer patterns on one page of…
Barbour’s Standard Irish Flax Shoe Thread
Instead of vintage fabric, today I’m going to show you some vintage thread I purchased on ebay a while back. I found an article in the NY Times dated January, 1886, titled The Manufacture of Linen Thread, How Flax is Grown — Barbour Bros. & Co., a Century of Tread Making. According to the article,…