Monday, April 28, 2014

This Old Quilt & KISMIF 13

I found this old quilt top on Etsy--abandoned and still in pieces.  Sometimes, you just gotta rescue it! So..here is what I did to complete and repair this little beauty.
This is how it came--lots of pieces.  I laid it out to see how I could make blocks work.  As the strip on the left had sashing, all of that was un-picked and so it would fit the panel's setting.

I had to be careful un-picking antique fabrics.  They fray easily.  This block's frayed edge here was from being left unfinished in storage.

The blocks were hand-pieced.  This is a close-up of the fine hand stitching.

"Dixie Sugar" imprint from a feed-sack sugar bag.  I was so excited!  This alone dates the fabric to 1930 or older.

Pin-matching the newly created border.

How fun, some propaganda about "Labor laws" was printed on the feed sack.  This also dates the fabric to pre-1930.

The quilt top sewn together.

I added borders all around to stabilize the quilt. I intend to use small-scale machine quilting to finish the piece and thought the border would hold the quilt top and prevent it from fraying.

Here is this week's KISMIF thread path for you--evenly space "e's and L's":

First mark your spacing using a quilter's pounce pad an stencils.  I use 1"-2" a lot.

Now alternate between a cursive "e" and a cursive "l" to make large and small loops.  So simple, yet so effective and it looks great!