Red Letter Day - March 30
It was warm and pleasant enough to spend my first afternoon of the season sitting in the sun and stitching! Never mind that ever since then, we’ve been back in the 40s-50s most days and even down into the 30s at night. We’ve had our first couple of summery storms with a couple of big lightning flashes and booms.
I have two quilts in progress actually. One is a wedding gift and won’t go public until it’s been received. The other, the one in the photo, is an art quilt, about 43” x 64”. It, too, won’t make its debut until it’s complete. I have a tiny bit of after-thought appliqué to add, but otherwise it’s all quilted and ready for edge finishing.
The fabric you see used to be on the back of a vintage quilt. The old top (photo below) is 8-pointed stars, lots of multi-colored silk and rayon scraps, 1920s era I’d say, with crazy quilt style feather stitching over all the seams. In other words, the back fabric didn’t really coordinate well with the top, but is perfect for my quilt! It’s especially nice for backing this quilt which is about my family history and ancestors. (The top and back were gifted to a quilt historian friend, Peggy, who then passed them along to me. I love having the vintage rayons, because I don’t come across them very often.)
To mark the occasion, I’m posting a couple of antique/vintage springy quilts. These are both from my “collection”. I put “collection” in quotes because I don’t collect so much as I welcome in quilts that have come to me in various ways.
Silk quilt dated 1905. It seems like it must be holding some great memories. The embroidered flowers are, to me anyway, an unusual technique.
Probably dating on either side of the 1850s. There was an inked date on it, but someone wrote over it to make it more legible, and now it’s totally illegible…. It is also signed - “Rosina Grave” or “Rosina Grove”.
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