Okay. I did it again. I thought I had decided I didn't need any more quilts but apparently 'need' is not a requirement. This latest addition is thanks to my friend Lenna ('picker' extraordinaire aka Search and Rescue Queen) who found it, thought to herself, "That's a Jean quilt" and bought it so it wouldn't get away! She was right - it's the time period I am most drawn to - turn of the 20th century up to the 30's. It's loaded with various indigos, checks, stripes, mourning prints, clarets and other later prints. I love the casual placement of stripes, plaids and checks; cut and placed however they work. It gives the quilt a sense of movement and joy. Have you ever tried to do that on one of your quilts? I find it difficult having been so influenced by the patterns, classes and rules of today.
It is tied with blue crochet thread and a striped blanket is used for fill. It's softly worn, that's for sure, with a few repairs needed at one end. The back is brought to the front....and appears to be the plain feed sack fabric that I associate with drying dishes when I was a kid.
My aunt Agnes (1900-1981) loved the log cabin design. She made many of them as wedding gifts for her nieces and nephews. I am lucky enough to have her original 1929 copy of Old Patchwork Quilts and the Women Who Made Them by Ruth Finley in which she has penciled the dimensions of "Jean's Quilt" - (the one she made of my old clothing scraps for my wedding gift) as well as the cardboard template she used to trace the shape. I wonder what she'd think of the rotary cutter!
Aren't you afraid of germs from a second-hand old quilt? Is that a silly question??
ReplyDeleteNo. That's not a silly question. Old quilts can certainly harbor lots of undesireable and unidentifiable things. I do think about that and judged this quilt to be recently washed...it passed the 'sniff' test! If I were not 'on the road' I would perhaps have picked something else to throw over me... but it was so available since I'd just bought it. Good question!
ReplyDeleteI love this quilt.
ReplyDeleteAnd in answer to Laurel if you are worried, just freeze the quilt in a plastic bag (so it doesn't get damp) and take it out gently 24 hours later, don't touch it until it has had time for even the centre to reach room temperature. This is how you can 'clean' up things for ashtmatics.
They used a steamer on quilts in the red and white exhibition in New York so that's another way to be sure.