The seller of this top thought it was made more recently than the other antique quilts at the estate sale she attended. The brightness of the double pink and poison green prints does make it look newer than quilts made with darker fabrics from this period. The top is 76″ x 80″, and is in…
I’m happy to have a diversion from making napkins and crepe paper flowers. This was actually a really fun project, and it was quick and easy to make from stuff you probably already have (if you’re anything like me). Both backs are constructed from one vintage pillowcase with a crocheted edge, and the embroidery is…
I have no idea what’s going on in blogland these days, but here at the Gray home, it’s all about napkins. Trimming, hemming, pressing, and tying 130+ napkins with a little gold bow. Although I have 2 weeks until the shower and 6 weeks until the wedding, there is still so much to do. I…
This evening I cut and pasted the photo of the new block to get an idea of how it was going to look as a whole top. Although I knew the blue sashing was going to make a big change in the look of the quilt, I thought that would be a good thing and…
There are probably many of you who are not shocked that I decided to take this top apart. After all, my motivation for purchasing old tops and blocks is always to take them apart and remake them. I am not a vintage quilt collector — I’m a quilter who likes to make quilts with vintage…
This scrappy quilt top was purchased last year on ebay. It is entirely hand pieced with vintage dress fabrics (no feedsacks), and measures a generous 68″ x 86″ with finished squares measuring 1″. I really like the random selection of prints and colors and, although I have spent a fair amount of time looking at…
Recently, I purchased a couple of groups of 1930s Dresden Plate blocks in various stages of completion. As usual with these old blocks, the muslin fabric is discolored, but all of the print pieces are in good condition. Because I’ve made several Dresden Plate and Grandmother’s Fan type quilts, I really wanted to try something…
I guess it might be a little late to stitch one of these up for tomorrow. On the other hand, if you start now, you would surely have them done by next 4th of July.
This is a quilt made by the grandmother of my friend, Cathy. The print fabrics, and probably the solid yellow as well, appear to be from the 1930s. It was quilted, however, using a more modern polyester batting, so I suspect that the top was probably completed in the 1930s or 1940s, and was then…
Last year I posted scans of 20 little girls from this undated vintage paint book by Mary Alice Stoddard, and I mentioned that I would also upload 20 images of little boys from the same book. I forgot all about this until yesterday, when I received an email from Wanetha, who included a photo of…
Yesterday, I literally spent the entire day designing this shower invitation from a sheet of vintage 1960s wrapping paper. Although the wrapping paper is in good condition, there are the usual fold lines and some slight discoloration. The main problem was how to position the little shower girls, who are scattered randomly over the paper,…
I was excited to find a copy of this Lenski book because, although I have seen the title in her bibliography, I’ve never seen any of the illustrations. I don’t remember having any Lenski books as a child, but I bought “The Big Book of Mr. Small” for my son, Elliott, when he was little,…
For the past few weeks, I have been learning to make crepe paper flowers. Gordon is constructing 12 pvc posts to place down the aisle, which we will use to hang the fabric pennants and then tie one of our crepe paper bouquets to the top. We will have real flowers at the wedding, but…
Emily loves Martha Stewart wedding crafts, and this banner was one of the first things she asked me to make. This worked well for us since we just happen to have two adorable little boys in our family, so Maxwell will be the ring bearer and Oliver will carry the banner. A printable file meant…
Yesterday I received a beautiful gift from my friend, Pratima (peepsatthepeepaltree). On a trip to India, Pratima purchased an assortment of hand block printed fabrics, and she shared some of these lovely prints with her readers. Pratima made an amazing quilt with her fabrics, and wrote about hand block printing and her quilt here and…