The ruminations of an artist on art & life...art quilts, beading, knitting, drawing, painting, printmaking, bookmaking are all my passions, I love to explore creating....

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Quilts in Our Lives

I love vintage quilts, and have few of them around the house. So, here is a quick tour of some of the quilts in our house...the ones we are currently using. I have few my Great Grandmother made packed away.

This Tumbling Block quilt I bought at a garage sale (oh lucky day!) quite a few years ago--I love the combination of vintage fabrics and the quilting is all by hand. This quilt is large enough for a queen size bed. An old quilt like this makes me wonder about the women whose hands stitched it? (or was it a man?) what was she like? who did she make this quilt for? where did she learn to quilt?

Here is a close up--so you can see the quilting and the vintage fabrics.

This quilt I inherited from my Mother. The top was pieced by a relative on my father's side of the family and my Mother finished the quilt and quilted it--with some friends--by hand. The quilt top is also all vintage fabrics, the backing is not. Fits a queen size bed.




This is another surprising garage sale find--a cotton flannel quilt! the pink triangles were beige until I washed the quilt and the red flannel colors stained the beige pink. The backing of this quilt is flannel also....this quilt is so comfy and warm...we use it as a lap quilt when we watch TV or read. This quilt is large enough for a full bed size.

This is an old wool crazy quilt I bought last winter at the Oakland Museum's White Elephant Sale---the back is wool also. The wool in this small lap quilt is very fine and scratchy---probably from old men's suits. The embroidery stitching is done in wool, also. This quilt is old and funky--some holes (which I intend to mend), but I just fell in love with it.
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TODAY'S QUOTE:

Every single one of us has a good work to do in life. This good work not only accomplishes something needed in the world, but completes something in us. When it is finished, a new work emerges that will help make green a desert place as well as scale another mountain inside ourselves.
— Elizabeth O'Connor quoted in Living the Truth

5 comments:

Mary Timme said...

Old quilts are not my thing, but I'm so pleased when someone finds one that is precious to them. These look like fun treasures!

Paula, the quilter said...

Thanks for the quilt tour. I like the older quilts. They have a graceful air about them.

Anonymous said...

Your quilts are beautiful. I have a question though. when you purchase a quilt at a garage sale...how do you clean them? I have recently inherited some quilts of my Great Aunt's. They are beautiful, but they are dusty and dirty. I want to keep them, but do not want to bring them into my home. thank you! Kay
highs2@verizon.net

Lynn Cohen said...

I am so impressed to see hand made quilts as opposed to machine made ones. I am a new quilter working on my third (by machine)...I love seeing other's work. And excited to find the White Elephant sale that is in our neck of the woods! Thanks for that too.

Timaree said...

Who did the quilting, a man or a woman? My sister's grandmother-in-law said the women did the piecing but during the cold winters wnen farming was at it's slowest pace, men and boys joined the women in doing the quilting.