Everything Old is New Again: EQ8 Design Inspiration From a Vintage Quilt

 Good morning!  Happy Passover to my Jewish friends, Happy Holy Week to my Christian friends, and Happy Spring to one and all!  In my house, my younger son has a half day of remote learning today and then he is off for a week of Spring break.  My older son is coming home from college tomorrow afternoon, and we are all going to attend a real, live, in-person worship service together for Easter Sunday, followed by Easter dinner with my mom.  I'm so excited; it's like seeing the light at the end of a very long, dark tunnel!  We had to sign up in advance to attend church services due to reduced capacity for social distancing, and we'll get our temperatures checked at the door and wear masks the whole time, but STILL.  😊

My main focus project, Anders' high school graduation kaleidoscope quilt, is still on track, but I'm sure everyone's tired of looking at it right now and it isn't looking much different than the last time I showed it anyway.  I'm just working my way through row by row, sewing corner triangles onto blocks that you've already seen.  So I thought I'd show you something else today -- a client's vintage Economy quilt that is in my queue, awaiting repair.

62 x 80 Vintage Economy Quilt, Awaiting Repair

Don't you love how fresh and MODERN this antique/vintage quilt appears?  Other than its exceptional condition overall for a quilt that's probably 80-90 years old, what strikes me about this particular quilt is how it's a two color, pink and white quilt, but there's a subtle ombre effect from the use of at least three different shades of pink fabric, and the way the quilt maker distributed those three shades of pink in the block layout.  Secondly, what a cool quilting design!  It's similar to Baptist Fan, except that the design reverses direction in the center of the quilt to create a very modern-looking wave effect across the quilt top.  Also. the curved lines of quilting meet up with the rows above and below rather than touching the "fan" to the left as in a traditional Baptist Fan quilting design.  

Odds and Ends: All the Amazing Things I Forgot to Tell You This Week

 Hello, my lovelies, and Happy Friday!  We made it to the end of another week!  Yay!

So, you know that drawer in your house, probably in your kitchen, that is full of random things that don't belong anywhere else?  That is your frame of reference for today's blog post.  I have a "junk drawer" full of loose ideas in my head that I meant to share with you in earlier posts.  For instance:

A Ball of Feed Sack String, Next to a Golf Ball

Feed Sack String!!!

In a recent post about a vintage quilt repair that I was working on for a client, I shared this photo of the hand piecing seams that the original quilt maker stitched in a very thick, heavy thread:

This Quilt was Hand Pieced with Feed Sack String!

I shared the same photo in a Vintage Quilting group that I belong to on Facebook, and several members identified the mystery thread as feed sack string that they remember being carefully removed from the seams of feed sacks, flour sacks etc., rolled into balls (one of the group members sent me the above photo of her own ball of feed sack string), and reused for everything from tying quilts to wrapping packages.  As someone who will get in her car and drive 30 minutes away to get exactly the right fiber, weight, and color thread for a project, that level of thrift and resourcefulness is just awe-inspiring.