Blogging and quilting again!

I`ve had a bit of a hiatus from both;  no sewing since I finished the Kalidoscope quilt and the basted quilt I took on holiday with me, didn`t even leave it`s bag.

I`d got in a bit of a rut and nothing seemed to inspire me to pick up the scissors again. So, after Life had ceased to get in the way, I did what I normally do for inspiration. Went to the bookshelves and brought out a few of my favourite quilting books.

This is a book I used to take out of the library all the time. It took me a while to find my own copy but it has inspired a couple of my quilts.

It`s full of the most wonderful varieties of Star patterns. This is a Seven Sisters against a wonderful green background.

I don`t think I`d ever have to skill to piece those intricate circles around the Stars of Bethlehem.

And I love this Streak of Lightning quilt. I have a weakness for deep reds in quilts and it really makes this quilt zing! 

And that leads me to this quilt,   

Isn`t it pretty! A collection of tiny jewel like stars against a saturated colour background. I started thinking where I`d put my fabric stash. Then it reminded me of a similar quilt I`d seen in a book about the Beamish collection of quilts.

This is an absolutely gorgeous chocolate box of a book. It`s packed with the most wonderful North Country quilts of all description.

And it has this quilt......

It`s difficult to see in this picture, but it consists of alternate lines of six point stars and diamond shapes.

Here is a close up of some of the stars showing the 1930`s style of fabrics. The quilting is in 'worm' and 'trail' according to the book.

So...I bought a length of the richest red fabric that I could find, dug out all my fabric bags and I am now contentedly sewing patches surrounded by drifts of fat quarters.

I`ll keep you updated and I`ll be posting some more vintage quilts soon.

Promise.

Latest quilt

And I found another one.......

Sorry about the pictures. I have to drape the quilt over the sofa to get the shot.

This is quite a small quilt but made with a wonderful selection of 1950`s fabrics.

This is gorgeous;  very 'Festival of Britain'

This very vivid fabric design is present in two separate colour ways. The texture is quite rough and this may be a furnishing fabric. It`s reminicent of the barkcloth fabric that was so popular at this time.

The construction is quite crude and there are the stamping marks visible on the black fabric...

..and also on this red sprig fabric used in the border.

There is an older quilt visible inside the covers. It`s very worn but seems to have a pink sprigged fabric and some quilting is also visible

This looks a bit more familiar, and the quilting has a very distinctive zig-zag to it.

 It is in fact a cut down fragment of a  'Comfy' quilt. These were factory made during the 1930`s and beyond and there were thousands of them produced.  

Here is a picture of one in far better condition. There are usually at least two or three listed on eBay most of the time. Pink seems to be a popular colour, though I have also seen purple, yellow and even black.

A very utilitarian quilt then. The original Comfy quilt was used until it was worn to tatters and was then used as wadding for a rough but rather fun quilt. 

Cornwall

Just returned from a fantastic holiday near Land`s End.

This is the walk down to the sea cliffs only yards from the holiday cottage. Cornwall had a massive mining industry and the remains are still visible everywhere. The spoil heaps on the left are from a tin mine that only closed in 1985.

 This lighthouse was just a short walk along the cliff path. It still has an original compressed air foghorn which is very effective!

There was so much to do in this area of Cornwall, but the weather was so good I ended up going for long walks almost every day. I took my brother`s dog with me and as you can see he had a great time.

We visited some of the many prehistoric stone features that litter this part of Britain...

This is Chun Quoit. A Neolithic burial chamber.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Men-An-Tol. A very mysterious structure. No-one knows if this is a tomb entrance or part of a stone circle. Children were passed through the ring stone nine times to cure them of rickets until the last century. 

Rhys isn`t impressed.

The Merry Maidens Stone Circle.

Cornwall South coast. Just to the right and out of sight, is the Minack Theatre which is a spectacular open air theatre carved into the cliff side.  I`d love to see a production there but you are warned  to take loads of cushions and blankets, even in Summer.

I took a load of books, dvd`s and a basted quilt for quilting.......

....but we were too tired to do anything!

The Starfish Quilt

In one of my comments I referred to this quilt as my favourite and I thought I`d share it with you.

It belongs to the Minerva collection and has been exhibited in a couple of their shows.

It is a very striking design and made from a very thick material. It almost looks like sailcloth.  When Philip Sykas was giving a talk at Minerva on historical fabrics, it was brought out of storage for him to examine and he identified the material as worsted wool. More details here.

Here you can see the reason for the name of the quilt. It came from the Pembrokeshire area of Wales which has a strong maritime connection.

Possible crab claws here.....although someone who has also studied this quilt thinks they may be a flower pattern

And you can see why,  because set in the four triangular taupe pieces and facing in towards the quilt center, are these flowers in pots. Sorry, it is difficult to visualise the position from this photo.

This gives you a better idea, you can see two of the plant pot designs here. 

The running cable design here may represent the ropes used on fishing boats. There is a set of four crab claws in the corner between the thinner cable.

The thickness of the material means the quilting lines have an engraved look to them, almost as if they were carved from the material.

The quilter must have had calluses on her finger tips like saddle leather!

Gorgeous Minature Quilts

 I`m not  normally interested in minature quilts,  all the quilts I make myself are full sized.  However I totally fell in love with these exquisite tiny quilts by Dorian Walton.

The photograph doesn`t do this selection of Amish inspired quilts any justice.  Let`s just say that they were  so impressive in real life.

I took several attempts to try and capture the colours in this star pattern.

This is a wonderfully effective design and you can start to see some of the quilting in the border too.

A minature Sanderson Star........

And this gives you an idea of the size of these exquisite quilts. How fiddly it must have been to piece these tiny patches and then to produce the quilting. Just thinking about it gives me a headache.

Just look at the work in this wholecloth quilt.

And finally, a glorious version of the Cariad II quilt from Making Welsh Quilts,  which was inspired by a Pembrokeshire quilt discovered on one of the Quilters Guild documentation day and recorded here. 

More From Minerva

Here are the three quilts from the exhibition that I liked the most.

Firstly this delicate quilt of sprig cotton squares

 It looks like the maker has used fabric samples again as you can see the same pattern repeated with different colour backgrounds.

The layout of the quilt is quite haphazard but the colours values are so similar that the whole thing coordinates beautifully.

It reminds me of the Wedding Quilt in Kaffe Fassett and Lucy Prior Lucy`s Passionate Patchwork. A quilt I would like to make a version of sometime.

A close up of the lovely fabrics

The quilting is more difficult to make out but a Welsh spiral can be seen here...

 And a fan pattern here.

A heavy utilitarian quilt made with tailors wool scraps and offcuts.  Despite the limited range of colours I like the creativity that the maker has brought to this quilt. The card notes that it was make by an unknown quilter in the Synod Inn are and is very heavy. Perfect for winter!

And this is my absolute favourite. The photograph unfortunately does not do justice to the vibrant colour of this quilt. The quilting is superb

  

This is closer to the actual colours of the top.

The combination of the strong saturated colours of this quilt with the bold geometric quilting, make this a quintessentially Welsh quilt.