The Yellow String Quilt

On the eBay pictures, the quilt didn't look quite as ratty as it really was in person. The box came and I opened it quickly in anticipation of my 'clean Florida vintage quilt.' True, it was clean. The seller was proud of the fact that she'd washed it prior to putting it up for sale. 

The quilt's condition proved that washing a vintage quilt in today's washing machines might be a mistake. It certainly was in this case. The cotton batting was  gathered in small hard lumps throughout the quilt. If it hadn't been machine-quilted in straight lines all over the piece, the quilt would have come apart completely in the wash. 

The string/Log Cabin blocks are sewn in sweet pastel prints from the 1930's. Each was outlined with either soft orange strips or dark navy strips. The navy-outlined blocks were the lucky ones as the orange-outlined strips were beginning to wear through everywhere. At last count, there's 42 repairs to be made on this quilt. 

The wide yellow border on this quilt makes the composition cheerful and gets it to bed size--in this case 64" wide by 84" long. The lines of machine quilting go right across this border and the batting clumps are evident. 

I'm thinking this might be an intergenerational quilt. The navy and orange strips around the blocks, the wide yellow border and even the thin floral flannel used as backing scream 1950's. And it's confidently machine-quilted. But the pastel prints are 30s and 40s--maybe Mom's work?

Maybe someone found or inherited the vintage blocks? And then decided that they'd complete the quilt with a modern up-do. But vintage/modern don't always co-exist well as the uneven wear shows in this quilt.

It's still welcome in the collection-repairs or not. I'll just keep it safe for now.

But it's a clean quilt--as the eBay seller stressed several times. Very clean.

Make Mine Country

Old country quilts, as in, made in a rural rather than city environment, have a special charm to them. You can almost imagine the lady sitting there, working through her scrap basket, sorting and choosing bits and trying to make the best combinations in her patchwork. One sort of print tends to turn up in country quilts: geometric lined patterns like homespuns, ginghams, and plaids. Think men's work shirts and house dresses. These are real remnants of clothing from both men and women and are endearing for the reason that real folks wore them. To make the point: here's a piece of antique Mariner's Compass made in black and red plaid. Too bad some "crafter" (I use the term loosely-) cut the quilt up.

There's this beauty, fresh as the day it was made in the 1940s, that waltzed into the Quilt Appreciation Day at the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum last February. The star quilt was made on Ocracoke Island, North Carolina.

Or this collection of odd blocks, recently seen on ebay-what pattern is that anyway? The lesson for modern quiltmakers is clear: want to make your quilts look country? Better not forget the plaids!

A Double What?

One quilt pattern, the Double Wedding Ring, really took quilters' imaginations in the 1930s. Mountain Mist, a batting company, even printed it inside their quilt batting paper wrappers. The pattern was so unusual and challenging that many folks rose to the occasion, including one farm wife in Ottumwa, Iowa.I was teaching in Ottumwa and during downtime after class, strolled the local flea market and discovered this absolutely scrappy Double Wedding Ring quilt top. I can imagine the lady now, unrolling her quilt batting and discovering this novel quilt pattern. She evidently couldn't afford the six yards of white fabric recommended in the pattern so she improvised--with feedsacks! I love this piece. You can sense the quiltmaker's determination-" I am going to make this quilt, even if I have to use every scrap of fabric in the house!"

If 'Ottumwa' sounds familiar, remember it was Radar O'Reilly's hometown on the TV program Mash.

Oh boy, a quilter friend from Iowa has checked in and reports that things are not always what they seem in the great Mid-West...in other words, don't fall for any characterization of Iowan farm wives as simple rural folks. She also says she loves it in Iowa and then sends this report:

You can be ticking right along with someone, admiring her flower garden, her herb garden, her vegetable garden and her clothesline, praise her canning room and drop to your knees when you see her gold-painted meditation room adorned with only a mat, a candle and her yogi’s photo. You’ll be nattering along with a farmer about how his yield was last year when he’s interrupted by a phone call from a stock broker in Japan. Someone says, ‘Let’s get together for a wine dinner this weekend,’ and afterwards the elementary special ed teacher host and her bus driving hubby say bathing suits in the hot tub are optional.

Who knew Iowa was such a wild state?

The Anonymous Pink Lady

It was the last day of the Mid-Atlantic quilt show at Hampton, Virginia. I had a little time after getting out of class and strolled through the vendor aisles. A lady from Raleigh had some piles of interesting old quilts and I stopped to stroke and pat the venerable beauties. Then, as occasionally happens, one quilt almost leaped out of the pile. It was a puffy country quilt, thick and crudely quilted, but it had such spirit! So the quilt, from Nash County, North Carolina, came home with me.

The quilt displays fabrics from about 1890-1920. The odd detail in the small center square is a glimpse of a novelty print showing white tennis racquets on a cranberry red ground! Normally I'd go for a higher-contrast color scheme but these odd blocks, sashed with a rosy pink faint stripe, won me over. I have no idea of the name of the block and couldn't find a match in Brackman's Encyclopedia If anyone has a name for this pattern, I'd appreciate a comment. The dealer promised she'd try to find out more about the quilt from its seller so I'll report again if I learn more about its pedigree.

What is there about old quilts? We admire them, touch them, and sometimes point out the maker's ancient mistakes. It makes the process of our quilting seem more real and attainable. I see the work of another human hand and that hand reaches out across the years and guides my efforts today.

A Favorite Golden Oldie

Ever since I bought an old quilt at a garage sale for $1, I have been hooked on antique quilts. Granted, I've never again found as wonderful a deal as that first time but it is the carrot on the end of the string that I follow. Of course cheap isn't everything, and when you see a description on ebay that reads "Old, old quilt..." you know you'll be viewing tatters. One of my favorite genres of antique quilts are those southern, usually scrappy, pieces that prominently feature a golden-yellow color. By the 1880s that bright color was available in store-bought dyes and any farm wife could transform her worn fabric to the gorgeous marigold shade. This Star of Bethlehem quilt from North Carolina is hand-dyed (the gold and the green) and supposedly a Lumbee Indian quilt.

Collectors of antique quilts have renamed the golden-yellow color 'cheddar,' as in the color of the cheese of the same name. When I was a kid I didn't know what cheddar was--I thought all golden-yellow cheese was 'rat cheese.' Never heard of rat cheese? It's simply that rather greasy but tasty cheese, encased in bright red wax, that is wonderful slabbed together with bologna or Vienna sausages on soda crackers. By the way, although it's spelled Vienna, the word is pronounced Vi-anny (long i and long a) or Vi-nah (long i), depending on whether you're in Kentucky or the Carolinas.