Flying Geese Sashing

The Capitol City Quilt Guild has a small quilt auction at their biannual quilt show. Daisy's Charm group is going to make two quilts for the auction, a blue Courthouse Square and a Red and White Log Cabin. Here are my two contributions to the effort.



































I wrote a pattern for the Flying Geese Sashing and Four Patch Corner for the Blind Man's Fancy pattern from two weeks ago. If you're reading Carol Sc, this strip is for you. The photo turned out a little dark, it's better in person!






Till next time...Happy Quilting!

Brother's Quilt

This is the quilt I just finished for my niece Sarah. She is having her first baby, a boy, this March and her baby shower is February 7th. The pattern was published in the Detroit News from November 1934-January 1935 by the name Brother-Sister Quilts. There were 14 patterns, 7 for boys (which I used) and 7 for girls. The girls quilt patterns were 6 dolls and one perambulator (baby buggy). It was attributed to Edith B. Crumb, the editor of the Quilt Club Corner, but it was actually designed by Florence LaGanke who syndicated the patterns under the name Nancy Page beginning in 1933. I enlarged the patterns from 8" to 9" and hand appliqued the blocks. The appliqued blocks were machine pieced with plain blocks. The appliqued blocks were hand quilted, but the rest of the quilt was quilted by machine.

Since these patterns are not yet in the public domain, I can't give you the patterns for free, but you can purchase them on eBay. You can also learn about more quilt pattern series published in the 1920s and 1930s on the blog Quilt Papers.

Sarah is a first grade teacher, so the alternate blocks are printed with the alphabet. Her husband Chad is a sports fan so the backing has football players. You can also see the quilt pattern used in the border, a moon with a star.

Last night I watched the movie, Intruder in the Dust. It was made in 1950 and was based on the novel by William Faulkner. The story is about an old black man falsely accused of murder in the South and an old lady and young boy who help prove him innocent. One scene in the movie shows the home of the black man and on the bed was a log cabin quilt. The film was in black and white, but the log cabin blocks were very dark on one side and scrappy on the other. There was another quilt in one scene that seemed to be a light star quilt, but it was hard to tell. Since the movie was set in the 1930s, both quilts seemed appropriate.

Till next time... Happy Quilting!

Blind Man's Fancy

This week I got my first patient for the Quilt Doctor! I belong to a block exchange group that meets monthly at Ruth D's. We each bring a quilt block and instructions on how to make the block. Everyone then makes a block for each person in the group. The process takes 9 months, then we each have a wonderful group of blocks for a quilt. Carol Sc found a picture of a quilt block she wanted to use in the block exchange but was struggling to draft. Since I love to draft, especially things on point I volunteered to try drafting it for her. The result is Blind Man's Fancy.

Carol wanted the block to be Civil War era, so I made this block to test the pattern. The picture Carol gave me to draft from was of an antique quilt using this block. The quilt had a sashing of 12 flying geese units and four patch corners. In my next post I will give instructions for the sashing and corners. The trick to this pattern was not only that it had elements that were on point, but the finished size had to accommodate the 12 flying geese units. After fiddling with the numbers I came up with a 15" block.

I had a lot of fun drafting and piecing this block.... So if anyone has a drafting problem, I invite you to send it to me. I'll draft it, piece it, and write it up as a free block for the blog. The only restrictions are it has to be a traditional block that is copyright free. I can't legally draft someone else's original work and then give it away publically. Please email me an image and any specifications you have (like block size or setting info) and hopefully I can help.

Till next time.... Happy Quilting!

Cross and Crown

Today's free quilt pattern is Cross and Crown. Today's been a busy day. I started out walking Boomer, then shoveling snow. Next was shopping for some new kitchen stuff. I bought a mandoline, one of those vegetable cutting things that makes super thin slices and julienne fries! I've had cheap versions of this before, that didn't work too well so this time I bought a Cuisinart for $60. I haven't tried it yet, but I hope for the best. I also found some plain white china dinner and salad plates for 98 cents each. I don't have "good" china because my family are rather hard on dinnerware. I've decided white would be easy to replace, I can mix and match and as long as they are white they'll all look good together. When I got home I spent an hour taking off the glued on labels and washing them. Then I made soup, a new recipe with vegetable broth, tomato puree, navy beans, rice and lots of spinach. While that was cooking I made two batches of macaroni and cheese, one for home and one for the Charm Quilt potluck tomorrow night. Then I cleaned the kitchen again and now it's 7:30pm! I had planned to sew today so I'll be signing off to work on a baby quilt for my niece who is having the family's first baby. I've hand appliqued patterns published in the Detroit News in 1935 called the Brother's/Sister's Quilt. I set them with plain blocks and added borders. So far I've hand quilted 5 of the 7 applique blocks and will probably machine quilt a grid on the setting blocks. I'm still deciding on what to quilt on the borders. When the quilt is done I'll add it to the blog.
Till next time....Happy Quilting!