A Wonderful Gift From Ann

One of my most favorite things in the whole world is a bunch of vintage quilt pieces. I also like old tops, blocks and scraps, but cut out quilt pieces that were never put together are the best ever. So….I was pretty happy when I came home recently and found a surprise package from my friend, Ann at Nifty Needle. Ann is an accomplished tatter, quilter, seamstress, and also (as it turns out) a pretty good thrift shopper of rare vintage textiles.

These fan blades are from the 1930’s and this is just about half of them — many of these prints have one or two duplicates. At first I was going to use them in my Endless Chain quilt, but I already have lots of pieces cut, and these blades were just a tiny bit too small for the EC template. I have so many Grandmother’s Fan and Dresden Plate quilts in progress that I wanted to use these pieces in something different, so I’ve decided to use them in two different quilts — Autumn Leaves (which I will cut out of the larger end of the blade) and Postage Stamp (the small end). It’s important to me that I use every little bit of these cute pieces.

I haven’t worked on the Autumn Leaves quilt in a long time, so I am going to make that my next project to carry around in my purse. All the leaves have to be turned under with basting thread, so I just keep a little bag of them in my purse and baste a few whenever I can. You would be amazed at how much you can accomplish just by grabbing a spare minute here and there.

Thank you so much, Ann — I love them.