I was recently given some hand stitched quilt tops. One of them appears to be fabrics from the 1960's and 70's done in a tumbling blocks design and the other is mostly diamonds sewn into stars and then sewn into a hexagon pattern using shirt materials. Wanna see?
Here are the tumbling blocks!
If you look closely, you will notice that there are two spots where the carpet shows through. It's as if someone went into the middle of the quilt and stole two of the blocks! Do you see them? They are on either side of the yellow block. Strange! What is also strange is the shape of the quilt on the top side of the picture. It's as if someone took bits and pieces of this quilt to make another. Perhaps they did.
Perhaps the quilter was getting bored with it. All of these tumbling blocks are made the same way except this purple and blue one. She started getting creative!
Anyway, this is all hand sewn and I am not a hand piecer. What would you do with this if you were me?
The second one is also a puzzle to me. Here is the full picture first. It's fairly large. I had to stand on top of the coffee table to get it all in the picture. Don't worry, it is very sturdy.
Each block is made up of 7 stars made out of diamonds. There is one star in the middle, with six more stars surrounding it. Each block measures 17 inches across. Again, this quilt is an odd shape and I can't figure out where it was meant to stop and start. All of this is hand sewn and appears to mostly be made out of shirt fabric. Here are a few closeups of the blocks.
This quilts is so much fun to look at and I would love to see it finished but again, I do not enjoy hand piecing. What would you suggest I do? I am thinking about taking the two hexies that are sticking out on each end and moving them to the sides so the quilt will have four rows of four. Right now, it is 1 block, then 3, then 4, another 4, then 3 and back to 1. It's still going to be irregular and I would either have to bind it that way, or chop of half of some of the blocks. UGH! What would you do?
Each of the winners have been contacted and connected with the prize giver. The only change is that the winner of the gift certificate from the Fat Quarter Shop lives in Canada so I decided to buy her certificate from a fabric store in Canada so she wouldn't have to use up so much of it in postage.
I'd love to hear ideas about what you would do with these vintage tops. I hope you don't get tired of me asking for ideas. Paula used to be faithful in telling me what she thought and I loved that. Will you be my new Paula?
