Posts Written On October 2009

These are the little quilt pieces I just purchased from an Etsy shop — 211 small arcs with 5 pieces each — for $15. It’s not unusual to see a lot like this — probably the quilter was attempting a more difficult pattern and ran into trouble with the piecing. There are several reasons this can happen — maybe the templates were inaccurate, or the pieces were not carefully drawn or cut, or she just got discouraged.

I would not have been able to guess the pattern this quilter was using just by looking at these little arcs, but fortunately she made one block. It’s pretty easy to see what happened here — she pieced the middle circle, which would be difficult for even the most accomplished quilter. You’ll notice that she stitched the blocks with arcs containing the same fabrics (although strangely, not all in the same order). She quickly gave that up, however, because I could find no two alike in the additional 211 arcs.

The pattern for Letha’s Electric Fan appeared in the Kansas City Star in 1938, which is probably about the age of these fabrics. I’ve always loved this pattern with it’s funny name (who was Letha?), and am so happy to have found these old pieces. The KC patterns are rather notorious for having inaccurate templates, although this one is actually pretty good. Because they rarely included instructions, you can see why a novice quilter might think the whole pattern should be pieced.

After drafting a new pattern, I was able to salvage most of her arcs intact (with just a little trimming and swapping out a few inappropriate pieces). Usually I take the blocks completely apart, so this quilt will go much faster. I changed the shape of the interior white template and simply appliqued the center circle on top. To me, her yellow center suggested a flower, and I didn’t want to use blue (as indicated in the pattern) since I already made a quilt with blue circles. Finally, I selected a pretty vintage green percale from my stash. This is my first block, which will finish at 9 1/2″. I’ll redo the original block with the same arcs as a tribute to her.

For this post, I thought I would show you a little more of my process for designing/piecing my quilts.  No Electric Quilt software for me — I work with computers at my paying job, and I’m not interested in combining computers and quilting.

This project began with a box of vintage salesmen sample swatches — probably from the 1940s or maybe the 1950s. There were hundreds of prints (some with duplicates and different colorways).  All of the pieces were the same size (1 3/4″ x 3″) with a pinked edge. I drew a pattern of how I wanted to set the blocks and computed that I would need 1,488 printed diamonds (the dark setting triangles will be a solid — probably green). I drafted my template diamond to fit the quilt pieces and began starching, drawing & cutting (they were very clean and did not need to be soaked). Once the pieces were all cut, I began sorting them by color and matching up the six diamonds for each star.  I pinned each star’s diamonds together and put the 42 pieces for each block (represented by the white hexagon) in it’s own little envelope.

I hand pieced all the stars with a running stitch (I don’t like to paper piece) and pinned each block group together.

Next I had to figure out the order for sewing the white diamonds to the stars and joining everything together. This is the trickiest part and I’m sure each quilter probably does it a little differently. For me, it works best to draw it out on a grid.  I decided to combine the 2 white diamonds and the triangle on the outside of the block into one long piece. First I stitched the white diamonds to their corresponding numbered star — then the stars are sewn together sequentially.  The long white pieces are added last.

Here is a finished block.

I’ve photographed most of my completed quilts, so now I’m bringing out all the WIPs — and there’s a lot of them. These butterflies are cut from some vintage bow tie quilt blocks I purchased on ebay. They were pretty big blocks, so there was enough fabric left over to make lots of little basket blocks — some of which I used in this doll quilt.

First, I match up the prints and solids and cut out all of the pieces.

Next, I baste the pieces — I never got the hang of needle-turn, but basting works just fine for me.

Then I applique the pieces to the background and add the embroidered details. The red bow tie block was pieced, so that butterfly has one pieced wing.

Of all the old quilt pieces you can find on ebay or in thrift stores, Double Wedding Ring arcs and pieces seem to be the most abundant.  It was a very popular pattern in the 30’s and 40’s and, because it is challenging to piece, many quilters seem to have ended up with unfinished DWRs.

Because I have lots more vintage pieces than I need for my DWR quilt, I was looking for another pattern that would accommodate the particular shape of my pieces.  Contemporary and factory-made DWR quilts usually have fewer squarish pieces in the arc — older quilts generally have thicker arcs with narrower pieces (like mine).

The pattern I settled on is Ferris Wheel — from an old Aunt Martha’s booklet entitled “Quilt Designs — Old Favorites and New” (the pattern is scanned below).  As I’ve said before, I love these old books which just contain templates and minimal instructions. I had to reduce the pattern to 85% of the original to fit my pieces, but it’s still going to be a nice-sized quilt.  I think I am going to quilt spokes in the middle of the block, but I never make a decision about the quilting design until the top is done.

Update:  The Ferris Wheel Quilt top is finished — you can see it here.

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The blocks for the center are finished, and I have just completed the stitching on the bottom border. I’m going to make a similar border for each side. Because I only have one skein of each color of Danish Flower Thread, the elephants are stitched with a few different shades of gray.