Cutter Quilts

I have been interested in vintage quilts for a very long time.  Along with the vintage blocks that I have been blogging about, my collection includes vintage quilt tops and vintage quilts.  Some are in good shape; others had outlived their usefulness as quilts, but were purchased for a purpose.  Thirty years ago I got caught up in the trend of using old, worn out vintage quilts for clothing, bears, dolls, and other decorative items. That is when I first heard the term "cutter quilts". 

Cutter quilts have damaged areas--holes, spots or worn places--but have areas that are still in good enough condition to use for smaller items.  As with other aspects of quilting, cutter quilts are once again being talked about. All kinds of ideas for using them can be found online.  Just search for "cutter quilt crafts". 

Recently I pulled out some of my cutter quilt scraps to make Christmas ornaments.  

All were made from simple shapes--"three tiered" snowmen;  angel heads on hearts; stockings.

The snowmen are a single layer of the quilt; the edges finished with the buttonhole stitch all around.  After the faces were embroidered, the shapes were stiffened with a 50/50 mixture of Elmer's glue and water.  Once dry, the scarves were tied around their necks and held in place by stitching on a button.  

Both the hearts and stocking are lined--placed RST on the lining fabric; stitched around leaving an opening for turning.  The angel heads are lined circles, hot-glued in place.  Raffia creates their hair.  A bow is tied under their chins; a small charm is stitched right under the bow knot.

The stocking is topped with vintage crochet edging which was basted in place before stitching the stocking piece to the lining.  A bow is tacked to the upper right corner.  

Because I did not know the makers of the cutter quilts that I bought, it was not difficult to cut them up.  These small vintage quilt pieces have found new life in items that will (hopefully) be cherished!

Fugitive Green or Truly Tan???

 I recently sorted through my collection of vintage/antique blocks to determine which blocks I would like to use for my next project.  One block in particular "spoke to me".  

I do not recall where this block came from...purchased or given to me???  From the bits of thread still along the outer edges of the block, it appears that it had once been part of a larger quilt top.  

I like to really study my vintage blocks before I use them to see how they were made and make sure that they are still in good shape.  This block was neatly hand-pieced, using very tiny, even running stitches.  The seam allowances are ~1/8" wide.  The overall block is a little bit wonky, due to the bias edges on the small checked triangles, but still very workable.  The most interesting thing about the way this block was put together is that each red unit is one piece, not two diamonds pieced together!!!  

Searching through my various books of quilt block designs, I could not come up with an exact name for this block.  The 4 corner sections remind me of flowers found in basket blocks...lilies or tulips?  The closest I could come was Sage Bud or a Turkey Tracks Variation (although the center square was much larger in that design.)  I like the way that the Shoo Fly design stands out in the center of this block! 

I can usually tell the age of a block by the colors and fabrics used in it.  This one has me a bit stumped, however.  The check fabric is printed, not woven.  The bright yellowish solid fabric is the cheddar or chrome orange color typically found in quilts of the 1800s.  The red fabric is a thin woven, and (thankfully) the color does not bleed when wet or pressed with a hot iron.  

The solid tan fabric is interesting.  Because this is a variation of a flower block, did the tan fabric start out as green with the color fading over time?  According to Barbara Brackman in Clues in the Calico, p.61: "Synthetic greens appeared around 1875.  The synthetics were often fugitive; like most synthetics, they did not fade true but took on a distinctly brownish cast when exposed to light and washing...Clues to the original shade lie in the...fabric visible inside seams ...where light has not done as much damage."  I have looked closely at the insides of the seams...I see no indication of another color, only tan. 

 "Some believe the red, white and tan* quilt to be a distinct end-of-the-century fashion, but an intentional red, white and tan quilt is likely to be rarer than those that have faded...Occasionally I do see a red, white and tan quilt that was intentionally designed in the color scheme, but most are copies of older quilts, with the copier unaware that the tan in the model was once green."

With that information, I am guessing that this block was made circa 1900.  Because it doesn't really fit with other antique blocks that I have, this block will be the focus of a medallion wall quilt.  Fabrics have been chosen...now to plan the various borders.  

Stay tuned...one of my upcoming blogs will be a show and tell of the quilt tops I've started over the past few months--finished! 

*Floral applique quilts are the ones to which she is most referring here...

 

In Remembrance

My latest project with vintage fabrics is a little quilt to remember the quilting friend I recently lost to cancer.

It is made from fabrics from the border of a vintage quilt top that she gave me several years ago.  The top was too damaged to keep, but the border was still in good shape.  It had been pieced from circa 1900 fabrics, strips of prints alternating with white.

After the border was removed from the quilt, I took it apart.  I discarded the white pieces, then pressed the print pieces.  Once pressed, they measured ~3" x 6".  Since some of them were not quite 3" wide, I decided to cut them into squares that measured  2 3/4".  When all cut, I had 57 squares with which to work--two from each print, plus one extra.  

My 14-year-old granddaughter is very artistic and a few years ago we'd made a small quilt together.  I asked her to arrange the squares into a little quilt--perhaps 9 squares x 6 squares.  My granddaughter thought 7 x 8 would be better. 😊

It was interesting to watch her lay out the squares (without my coaching).  She went for "balance",  just as I would have done, laying out the two halves of the quilt so that they would be identical if turned around!  I only tweaked her layout a little bit, so that the colors would be a bit more scattered.

The squares are now sewn together. Flannel will be used for the batting and the little quilt will be tied. 

My friend was to be my travel partner this November, going to Kenya with Craftours.  I will be traveling alone, but she will be with me in spirit.  This quilt will go with me and it will be my "Flat Stanley".  It will be photographed in many of the places that we visit.  💖

In Mourning

Those who study fabrics in quilts made in the late 1800s recognize black and white fabrics as "mourning prints".  Perhaps the name came from the Victorian Era, when Queen Victoria wore black to mourn the passing of her husband, Albert?  In Clues in the Calico, Barbara Brackman indicates that these cottons, with fine black lines or tiny figures on a white ground, making them read as gray, were very popular with quilters in the 1890-1925 era.  Around that time, mourning print cottons were advertised for sale in the Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogs and could be purchased for very little. 

Here's a photo of such fabric for sale on Etsy: 

I am currently working with vintage blocks that were made from mourning print cottons. 

I have only 4 vintage blocks.  Using reproduction fabrics from my stash,  I am making more blocks to add to the vintage ones.  This 9-patch design is simple enough to recreate.  Because the squares in the vintage blocks measure 3.5" finished,  I am cutting the center square 4" and those for the half-square triangle blocks, 4.5". 
 

Curious to know the name of this pattern, I searched through my quilt books and online.  The closest I could come to a name was either "Cats Cradle" or "Old Maid's Puzzle".  These blocks are a variation of those, however, with half-square triangle blocks at all four corners.  

I discovered more mourning print fabric as I was searching through my bag of vintage fabric scraps.  I found these (obviously) 60° diamonds all tacked together.

As "wonky" as these are, I cannot imagine a quilter piecing them together and having them lie flat!  

In one of my quilt pattern books I found the perfect size 60° diamond and made a plastic template.  This will be traced on the wrong side of each wonky diamond so that I can hand piece them. Then what???  I am not yet sure.  I will ponder this as I am piecing them.

I titled this blog post "In Mourning", not just because of the particular vintage pieces that I am now working with.  I AM in mourning!  I recently lost a special quilting friend to cancer...much too soon!  Michelle was so creative and inspirational to many.  She is already missed!    If there is a quilters' room in heaven, I know that she will be there! 

Short Strips

While sorting my vintage fabrics, I came across a bag of 20 short fabric strips--all the same fabric and all measuring approximately* 2 1/4" x 6".   I really like the print of the fabric so I looked for ideas of what could be done with them.

 

I decided to cut more strips of that same size from other vintage fabric scraps in my collection, and piece them to muslin.  The muslin pieces were cut 4 1/2" x 6" ; each strip was stitched to a muslin piece along one 6" side.  The pieced blocks were trimmed up to 6" square, raw, to finish 5 1/2" square. I made a total of 36 blocks. 

 I chose to set the blocks so that the strips would be on alternate sides of the block--on rows 1, 3, and 5, the strip is on the left side of the block.  On rows 2, 4 and 6, the strip is on the right side of the block.  (I am imagining some quilting meandering down between the colored fabric strips.)

Now that the rows were together, the small quilt top seemed to need a border.  I had extra of the  original print strips--those that were cut wonky or not quite wide enough.  I designed a way to incorporate these wonky strips in the border. 

Strips, three inches wide, were cut from muslin.  Between those I made a very narrow border from three 1 1/8"x 6" (cut size) print strips, two 1 1/8" x 6" muslin strips, and two 1 1/8" x 3 1/2" muslin strips for the ends.  

I liked the way these borders framed the small quilt top, but I now had to figure out what to do for the border corners.  The leftover pieces of the original print strips were no longer the same 1 1/8" width.  I experimented with several ideas before coming up with a design that I liked.  I was able to use chunks of the trial corners in my final corner design.  :)

The finished quilt top measures ~45" square.  After being quilted, it will be bound with muslin (I have just enough left to make the binding!)  

 

*Today, we can cut very exact pieces for our quilts, using our rulers and rotary cutters.  I have no idea how these strips were cut--they did not all measure exactly 2 1/4" x 6"!  The challenges of working with leftovers from our quilting fore-mothers!  :)

T is for Temperance

I am still making shoo-fly blocks in blues and double pinks.  I have 7 more blocks to make, then I will be ready to set them together into the planned nap sized quilt. 

In the meantime, because I'm using fabrics from the "Temperance Blues" line, I have been curious about quilt block designs that were popular during the Temperance Movement.  

An article on Womenfolk.com is titled "The Power of Women's Temperance Movement Quilts".  Concerning the Temperance Movement, the article states: "It appears that more quilts were made for this cause than any other."  It goes on to say that many different quilt designs were used for these fund raising quilts, but Drunkard's Path and "T" designs are often associated with temperance quilts.  And, the article confirms that the colors adopted by the Temperance Movement were blue and white. 

Could this block in my collection have been made during that time? 

According to "quilthistorytidbits--oldnewlydiscovered", this design is called "Double T" and was published in the Prairie Farmer (Chicago, IL), June 12, 1886.  This is certainly within the time frame of the Temperance Movement (1800-1933).  And it is made in the movement's color scheme.

The fabrics in the block and the method of piecing do not give many clues to its age.  The fabrics are both dotted--the white dotted fabric is thinly woven; the blue dot fabric is a tighter weave.  The block is hand-pieced.  Fabrics that were produced around 1900 tended to be thinly woven, so it is possible that this block was pieced in the early 1900s.  

The block is basically a 9-patch:  half-square triangle squares in the 4 corners; a solid square in the center; pairs of flying geese units between the half-square triangle squares.  

Because the block is poorly constructed, with no real seam allowances along the edges, I will most likely keep it as is--a curiosity!  

Vintage Blues

The current project being made from my collection of vintage quilt blocks uses some that are of the shoo-fly design.  I am guessing that the fabrics in them are ~100 years old (early 1900s).  

 

I have seven somewhat identical vintage blocks.  Seven is such an odd number...what can be done with only seven blocks that measure 8" finished?  They would make a long, skinny table runner, but I would not be happy with that. 

Since I really like this color combination, I decided to make a nap sized quilt.  I definitely need  more blocks!   My stash of vintage fabrics contained a small amount of the same "era" blue fabric, enough to make 1 block.  Not having any of the pale red check/plaid fabric that is in the original blocks, I chose double pink fabric to take its place. The double pink seems to blend just fine with the pale red, and I had enough vintage double pink to make several blocks. 

Looking through my stash of reproduction fabric, I found a lot of double pinks.  I also found 3 pieces of blue fabric that are almost the same shade of blue, but these pieces were not big enough to make all the blocks that I would need. 

With vintage blocks in hand, I headed to the quilt shops, looking for blue fabric.  Of course I was not able to find exact color matches, but what I did find was interesting and will certainly blend.  

P&B Textiles has a collection of fabrics designed by Evonne Cook, titled "Temperance Blues".  The fabrics are small prints on a blue background, based on designs c 1850. 

Wondering why this fabric line was called "Temperance Blues", I did a bit of research on the Temperance Movement and discovered that the symbol of the Temperance Movement was a blue ribbon! 

The Temperance Movement took place from 1800-1933.  Double Pink fabrics date from the late 1800s to the 1920s.  Using these reproduction fabrics for the remaining blocks, all of my blocks will represent approximately the same era.  

I now have enough fabric with which to make those remaining blocks.  And while making them, I will be pondering what fabric to use for sashing.  Once completed, I know that I will really enjoy this small quilt! 

 

 

 

 

Adventures With Ruby Continued

The 3 small quilts, made from Ruby McKim floral embroidery designs, were now layered with batting and backing, ready to be quilted.  In my head, I knew how I wanted to quilt them, but I needed to know if that idea would really work. 

Making the pillows from the three blocks that were too small to be included in the quilts would be the perfect place to try out the quilting idea.  After they were squared up, the blocks were bordered in green fabric to the size that would fit a 12" pillow form.  They, too, were layered with batting and backing.  

I used three strands of ecru embroidery floss and a big stitch to quilt in the ditch around each floral block.  How to quilt the border?  I calculated the measurement of half the width of the border and drew a line all around the block at that measurement.  Three strands of green floss were used to stitch on that line, again with a big stitch.  

At this point in the pillow construction, Ruby met Aunt Grace.  I decided, in keeping with the 1930s era of the blocks, that I would back the pillows with Aunt Grace reproduction fabrics from my stash.  I was able to find prints that "matched" the flower on the pillow block.  

Lapped backs were made for the pillows.  Two pieces of fabric were cut for each back--they measured 2 inches longer than half of the pillow measurement (6" + 2"= 8" in this case) by the width of the raw pillow (12 1/2" in this case).  One long edge of each back piece was stitched with a narrow hem--double 3/8".  The two pieces were placed RST on the pillow front, top flap first, then bottom, making sure that the raw edges met all around the pillow.  As the pieces were stitched together (with a 1/4" seam allowance), I made sure to reinforce where the pieces overlapped so that the stitching would hold when the pillow was inserted.  I also zig-zagged the raw edges to finish them off. 

I am happy with the way the quilting turned out.  The big stitches, in colors that match the block and border, hold the piece together without detracting from the original beautifully embroidered blocks.  Now that I know that my quilting idea works, it's on to quilting the 12-block quilts.  I hope to have the entire project completed by summer. 

Adventures With Ruby

The adventure began when, last fall, a friend called to encourage me to go to an estate sale in a barn out in the county.  She said they were selling lots of needlework items, and she was right!  The homeowner was definitely a crafty lady, into knitting, cross stitch, quilting, just to name a few!  I found a few pieces of fabric and some notions, and as I was checking out and chatting with the relative of the deceased homeowner, I mentioned that I was a quilter.  She said that there were several quilts still in the house that they weren't sure what to do with.  I made arrangements with her to take a look at them one day the following week.

Most of the quilts had been well-used.  They were not in very good condition...not something I would be interested in having for myself, so I gave her some ideas of others who might be.  One quilt, however, caught my eye and I told her that it was worth saving somehow.  That quilt was composed of beautifully embroidered flower blocks that I recognized as Ruby McKim designs.  Something else that I noticed was that the embroidery was done on blocks cut from sugar or flour sacks...the printing was still visible on some of them!  The quilt's label says that it was started in the 1930s and finished by the maker's daughter in 1998. 

When the relative saw how excited I was about the quilt, she told me to take it and see what I could do with it.  I envisioned reworking the quilt, preserving the embroidered blocks.  As it was, the quilt was huge...40 embroidered blocks set with alternate print and white fabric squares.  I knew it would be a big job to take it apart. 

That job turned out to be even bigger than I had anticipated!  The blocks had been joined quilt-as-you-go style, but SERGED!!!  It took me many hours to take the quilt apart--my seam ripper got a workout!  Another discovery was made once the blocks were separated and the batting removed--there was iron-on interfacing on the back of the embroidered blocks.  Luckily that just seemed to easily peel off with no sticking or residue.  

So, how to clean and freshen up the embroidered blocks?  Per Rebecca Haarer, purveyor of antique quilts in Shipshewana, OxyClean™ and Dawn™ were used.  The blocks were soaked, hand washed, rinsed and laid out flat to dry.  Most of the stains came out...some of the sugar sack printing became fainter, but still remained visible on many blocks.  

At this point, the blocks were very wonky.  

After pressing them, I was able to trim all but 3 of them to  7 1/2" square.  To give them stability, I backed them with muslin quilt backing fabric which I cut to the same size and hand- basted around the block edges.  

I was asked to make small quilts for each of the quiltmaker's 3 granddaughters.  Perfect!  I had thirty six usable 7 1/2" blocks so 12 blocks would be used for each quilt.  The smaller blocks were set aside to be made into matching pillows.  

Solid green fabric was used for sashing and borders and each finished quilt top measures ~30" x 40".  The quilt tops will be layered with cotton batting and muslin backing.  Simple big stitch quilting and green binding will finish them off.  

This project has turned into more than just preserving the blocks, however.  As I worked with them, I had to know more about them!  Ruby McKim designed several series of quilt blocks for publication in newspapers and I wanted to know the name of this series and exactly when it was published.  In my collection of quilt ephemera, I have 3 newspaper cutouts from this series, which was titled "Flower Garden Quilt Patterns".  The text that goes with the block images says that the series would contain 27 designs.  

Searching the internet, I discovered the site https://mckimstudios.com and learned that this series was published in newspapers during 1929-1930.   Obviously the maker of the quilt that I was working with clipped the designs as they were published and had a pretty complete set!  

The printing on the background of the embroidered squares also intrigued me!  I could make out "Sparkling Crystal White" and what I thought said "Central Sugar Co." so I began another internet search.  Between that search and asking Merikay Waldvogel for some help, I learned that there was a sugar beet processing factory in Decatur, IN, about 20 miles south of Fort Wayne (where we live)!  It operated in the 1930s, so of course the quiltmaker would have access to sugar sacks for her needlework background fabric! 

What a fun and interesting adventure it has been to continue work that was begun almost 100 years ago and to preserve that work for future generations of the family of the quiltmakers!  

A Fabric Study

It was in the early 1990s that I became interested in really learning about "old" fabrics.  I have been collecting quilt tops and quilt blocks since then.  Now it has been fun to preserve these vintage quilt blocks by making them into small quilt tops. 

The blocks that were used in my latest quilt top were chosen because they were a similar size--by bordering most of them out, I could size them all to 8 1/2".  

But as I worked with these particular blocks, I realized that they represent just WHY I started collecting:  From blocks and unfinished tops I could study types of fabrics as well as piecing techniques.  

In general, these blocks contain fabrics from the time period of 1880-1920.  

There are Double Pinks and fugitive purple (dull in color and blotchy) in this corner block:

A black (mourning) print and cadet or "soldier" blue were used in this 9-patch block:

Brown prints of the mid-late 1800s are called "madder" browns, and are in the corner blocks of the border of my little quilt:

Navy background with white prints are typical of this era, as are shirtings--small prints on a light background.  The small triangle fabrics in this block are mourning prints:

In my studies, I was surprised to learn that ginghams and wovens were popular during that time period.  This block features two different checks plus cadet blue:

And I discovered that some fabrics produced around 1900 are thin, almost like cheesecloth! The shirting in this block (that also contains mourning prints) has an area that is VERY thin!

 

 

A variety of techniques were used to piece these blocks.  A couple of them were pieced by machine.  Most were pieced by hand, seemingly with quilting thread.  The running stitch used was small and very regular in some blocks; in others, crude and uneven.  Two of the blocks were pieced with a back stitch all along the seam.  

Our quilting "fore-mothers" did not remove the selvages from the fabrics they used.  And often they pieced chunks of fabric together to make a piece large enough to fit where needed.  A section of the scrappy nine-patch block was not large enough, so instead of replacing the entire corner square, I merely pieced in some vintage fabric so I could trim the corner to the size needed.  

This project, then, is the perfect study of vintage fabric.  If I decide that this top should be quilted, all of these "clues" will be hidden!  Perhaps a good use for this quilt top would be to leave it as is and print out all of this information to go with it from which future quilters can learn?