Vintage Dresden Plates from Ann

This quilt has quite a story.

Ann contacted me about quilting a vintage quilt of hers, and in the course of our conversation, mentioned that she had a second quilt top that she did not want to finish, but did I know of anyone who would like to finish it and donate it?  Clearly, I told her my story of charity quilts, and she gifted me the quilt.

These are all the pictures of the quilt that I took in process.  Either when it was loaded on the quilt, or after I've finished it.  

The quilt top was completely hand pieced, and appliqued to the background muslin, and the quilting lines had clearly been marked in pencil.  I followed these lines throughout, then purchased new fabric for the binding, and finished that by hand.

This quilt's next destination is to go to the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show and hopefully it will be sold there.  All proceeds from the sale of this quilt will go to C.O.P.S. https://www.concernsofpolicesurvivors.org/

These are one of about 3 pieces of the plates that are clearly taken from a garment, you can see the seam that appears to be from a shirt yoke, and then top stitched by machine. 

In progress

 

Tree of LIfe for Ann

This is the "Sister quilt" to the Dresden Plate quilt top that Ann gave me.  Pieced by the same maker, and all done by hand.  Amazing!

Ann chose the design "Budding" for quilting, leaving lots of open space but the top was still friendly enough that we had a coupe of wrinkles included in the end result. 

 It's no wonder there were some friendly bits on this quilt with all of those bias edges that were pieced  by hand!  Still, Ann seemed pleased with the end result.

Donated Dresden Plates in progress

Ann is a "new to me" customer and I am so happy that she reached out to me!  During our initial conversation, she asked if I knew of anyone who would take quilt tops to complete and then donate them to a charity.  I told her my store of police quilts, and when we met to discuss her quilt, she gifted this one to me.  Ann's story is that she received the top from her neighbor when she lived at the coast, and that her neighbor's mother may have pieced it, or inherited it.  Regardless, I'm thrilled!

The fabrics appear to be vintage 1930's, and it is all hand pieced,  Consequently, there is some "friendly-ness" in the piecing, meaning that it doesn't lay quite flat, but has some extra puff.  I am quilting it by SID around each petal, and the following the quilting design that was already marked on it.

There is a petal design in the center of each plate, and a spider web design drawn on the background.  I'm quilting it by following those lines and using wool batt for extra loft. 

 Final photos to come after completion of the binding.

Hexie's by Sue

Sue's daughter in law is expecting the first grandchild on Sue's side of the family.  How exciting! She hand pieced all of these little hexagons together.  They measure just 1.5" across the straight edge.  Quilted with an edge to edge design called "Chantilly Lace", and the bias edges were all left intact.  Hence the "wiggles" on the outside edges.

 

"NY Beautry by Pam

Oh my.  Wow.  This quilt is made by Pam, and she will hand quilt it as well.  The entire quilt has been hand pieced, and she had me baste the layers together for her to quilt.  

I asked, and she said that it took her about a year to hand piece this, while holding down a full time job.

 "I used to work weekends for Jinny Beyer in her Great Falls, VA studio and machine piecing was simply not done there! "

Not being a hand piecer, or a paper piecer, this quilt just blows my mind.  As I was basting it with bright orange thread that will be easy to see and remove, I kept thinking of how I would machine qiult it.  I can't wait to see how she finishes it!  Amazing!

 

Hexies

 There is a long story to this quilt, so we will start at the beginning.

Perusing facebook one day, I found a post from a lady named Marci who lives in Michigan.  The following is from the letter that she included with the incomplete quilt top.

"Every Quilt has a Story...

The UFO Story of Grandmothers Flower Garden

Southwood Quilters Club of Grand Rapids MI

Marcia K started the quilt in the late 1990's when the class was taught.  She couldn't hand piece anymore so... Marcia K gave the top to Elaine 'to finish it.'

Elaine put it in her sewing stuff to 'get to later."  Elaine found it again in March 2023 while cleaning out the swing room.  Elaine gave it to Rose to finish.

Rose doesn't hand piece, so she brought the UFO to Club March 30, 2023.  She gave it to Marcia H. who said she would look at it.

Marcia H. doesn't hand pieced, but thought to finish it by machine.  However, arthritic hands and nerve damage limits taking on anymore projects than what's already in the house.  She posted it to the (Mystery Quilts Anonymous FB) UFO challenge 2023 page in hopes that someone would take on the challange.

Beth Durand of Oregon stepped up to take on the challenge.  That is how Beth came into possession of this UFO.  She said she will machine finish it and donate."

That's is Marcia's part of the story.  My part is that I saw the incomplete quilt top on FB and thinking that it was made by English paper piecing, I agreed to take it on.   The box left Michigan on April 4, 2023.  When it arrived in Portland OR, I pulled it, took a look and ordered some paper pieces that would fit this much larger size.  Then continued to work on whatever hand project I had at that time.

Finished that hand project, ready to pull this out.  What!?  It's hand pieced?  And some machine piecing?  "Y" seams!  Oh horror!  I tried by machine, nope, that's not gonna work.  Did some sad attempts to hand finish the blocks that were partially complete in the quilt top, then decided it was ready to quilt.  During summer of 2022, I had stopped at a garage sale from a quilter.  Found a package of batting and brought it home where it lived under my longarm for a year.  When this was ready for quilting, I pulled that out.  It''ll be perfect!  Right size, right price!  Oh my.  It's circa 1980's, so extra thick "comforter thickness" batting.  Oh well, donation quilt!

Quilted the whole thing with continuous curves from point to point and then decided that the best way to finish those edges was to cut them off straight and lose 1/2 of several flowers.  I wasn't willing to take on trying to do bias binding around all those corners with that thick batting.  Brought it to the sewing room where it sat for several weeks during the heat of summer and too hot to be up here with an iron on.  Finally, pulled it and did machine binding on both sides of the binding and have added it to the current pile of "police quilts".    Next stop for this quilt is probably the Washington County Sheriffs office for donation.

Meanwhile, Marcia also included LOTS of extra hexies in the box with the quilt top.  Currently, I am taking those and making large flowers, same basic design as in this quilt.  I've added white background from my stash and when I get it completed will quilt it up as well.  Watch this space for more info on that quilt, but don't hold your breath.  I've got about 3 of the 12 flowers completed, and there will be some accent triangles as well.

Vintage Dresden Fans

This quilt is amazing, and there's another one coming!  I'm not completely sure of the full history of this quilt, but I do know that it was discovered in a cedar chest of Sandra's.   I believe that it was pieced by a relative of her husband, but she may need to correct for about that.

Probably 1930's, but having no knowledge of fabric history, that's a mere guess.

The fans were pieced by machine, but each fan was stitched to the background by hand.  Each block was stitched in the ditch along each seam, no quilting in the green "base" of the fans, then feathers in the background of each block and in the borders

 

"Grandmother's Flower Garden" by Vickie

Don't you love hand pieced quilts?  This one was made some time ago, and for various reasons had to wait for quilting.  Quilted with an edge to edge design called "Tiramisu"  Makes me want to cuddle up with it.

 

Hand pieced on a fabric foundation Tumbling Blocks

I would love to know the history of this quilt.  I think that Marlene may have gotten it from a thrift store, but I'm not positive.  All of the fabrics in the top are wool, and then it was hand pieced onto a fabric foundation.  There are even several "make do" blocks, the ones where you piece smaller pieces together to get enough large enough for your patch

Marlene didn't specify how to quilt this, essentially she told me to "Let my creative juices flow."  I went with piano keys in the border to keep things straight, feathers in the red border, and then continuous curves in the blocks.  They were a bit wonky, and thick seams at times, so this worked well to nail everything down.  As in the photo below, some of the pieces had seen better days, but I hope that this will give the quilt new life.

 

Hand pieced by Elaine for her stepson

Something I have yet to take on is hand piecing traditional blocks, like these 9 patch blocks.  Wow.

Quilted with the "Woof" design to go with the dogs in the family.
 

2nd Vintage Ocean Waves quilt from Patty

Another of Patty's children is
getting married, so another wedding gift of a quilt.  These quilt tops were hand pieced by I believe Patty's mother, circa 1960"s, but many of the fabrics are probably older than that.  Quilted with edge to edge Baptist Fans

Just to give some perspective of the size of the pieces "grandma" was working with, that's a dime.  Wow.  I've just done the math 168 blocks, About 25-30 pieces per block.  That's a LOT of little pieces of fabric.