oh my Lord are you fed up with decluttering??? I know I am!
at first i thought...stay home and stay safe ...what a wonderful chance to do the death cleaning I've always wanted to achieve!
BUT that was before I tried to tackle the clutter in a house where 4-6 people have lived and collected and collected and stored and stored for 31 years!! A house with not only at least two large closets in every room, but also masses of roof space!!
However, sometimes amidst the clutter you come across things you'd forgotten about!
i found all the antique quilt tops I'd collected many years ago...I do want to finish one of them! it's a raucous orange!! which will look wonderful in my blue North facing bedroom...
the best way to judge the age of an old quilt top is by the fabric...I think this one will be mid 20th century
.but that leaves me with about 5 I'd like to sell...plus a couple of dozen feed sacks...and a stack of blocks!!!
Making clothes and quilts from feed sacks became popular in the depression era...here's a good article about it: https://slate.com/human-interest/2017/07/how-depression-era-women-made-dresses-out-of-chicken-feed.html
The top below, however, is made from old shirts cut up...another way for women to be creative even though their resources were extremely limited...
I like the little funky mixes of fabric.
The tops are laid out on a queen size bed by the way...my new air bed!!! LOVE air beds! I shall never buy a mattress again...apart from anything else you can move these so easily. and about a tenth of the cost...however..don't invite your daughter and her partner and her large dog to play and sleep on one all together!!!! pffffffffffff..........
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4 comments:
Many thanks for a look through your long forgotten vintage quilt collection. I'm sure you are so pleased to see them again!
Wow! You had much better luck in your finds. I am not an expert on value of old quilts. We inherited two completed quilts, lots of handwork and hand quilting, from my husband’s family, and when they were professionally valued, they were just under and just over a thousand. One had a teeny hole and a tiny drop of wall paint dripped on it. I haven’t attempted to correct those. I think I should add a label to them soon.
We moved 20 times, so my “death cleaning”, (good name for it), isn’t as drastic as yours. I am on the last big task - sorting my scraps by color. It is dreadful, but I know it will be so helpful when I start a project and just need one tiny piece of yellow, etc. My find was 3 incomplete quilt tops that were given to me from an estate sale. One is a grandmother’s flower garden. I am considering using parts of them as backgrounds for quilts as I have no interest in completing them. I guess if I can assemble them, I could have them professionally quilted and then gift or sell them. The piecing that is complete has been hand stitched. I like to appliqué, so I may attempt doing that. Never a dull moment here, but I prefer to create and design on my own.
Don’t see a way to addd a photo here, but what I thought was a g’mother’s flowergarden has a hexagon center with small hexagons around it. Do you have an idea what that is?
Hi Jenny! and thanks for reading and posting....yes it's always fun to discover things in one's own cupboards!!! Today I was amazed by how much yarn I have and envisaging doing a bit of knitting! and then of course there's all the reading...etc etc!!
Hi Mary!! thank you for writing. I don't think you can add a photo to a comment...but what you describe sounds like a Grandmother's flower garden variant...there are quite a few - it's all in how you place the colors...one "center" color will create the effect of different hexagon flowers.
It is good ditching stuff every move! I recently helped a friend who had moved with practically nothing and I really envied her!!
Good luck with your quilt tops......so many quilts! so little time! Us quilters have just got to live to be 150 I reckon!!! all the best, Elizabeth
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