A Practice Piece

Call me "crazy"! It's ok, really!

I bought this antique crazy quilt yesterday at the flea market:



I guess I felt I needed a real challenge! This quilt is in desperate need of love and repair. I also felt I wanted to practice a bit before I started on my commissioned quilt. And this one will give me plenty of practice!

It's dated 1888 in 3 different places:



There are 2 of these Cigar Wrappers on here, both the same and then there's this:



I can't for the life of me remember what these are called! Can someone help me out here? It says, "Auxiliary New York Stock Exchange. Cleveland & Thurman Club 1888"
It's rather clever how the stitcher used it as the handle for the fan.



The name of the stitcher is embroidered on here. Her name was Evelyn.

If you look closely at the above photo, you can see a shaded hot pink patch. That is a repair. And there's another repair on here that mom and I found yesterday. That one isn't as obvious.

And oh my gosh, looking at it now, there's another one of those things on here (the one I don't know what it's called). This one is in white and most of the gold printing is worn off but it's still readable. It says, "Wholesale Dry Goods. Cleveland And Thurman Club. 1888.

Wow! So it's dated 1888 in 4 places! Cool!

Ok, so my intention for this quilt is simply to replace the rotted and damaged patches and replace the damaged stitching.

Mom determined that the backing and binding is newer. The quilt was probably stitched and then sat around for awhile before it was "finished".

Again, I will make the repairs through everything that's here and then I will give it a new backing and new binding. I'll add a quilt label stating that it was repaired by me in the year (whenever I get it done).

There's alot of butterflies on here and quite a variety of stitches. Honestly, it's not a beautiful or perfect crazy quilt by any means. It just called to me so I bought it and I'll fix it and when we build our Queen Anne Victorian style dream home, I'll hang on the wall.

Can anyone out there give me some insight into the Cleveland & Thurman Club? There are 3 other silk patches on here that say, "Read The New York Weekly". I think it's safe to assume that this was made in New York.

Antique Crazy Quilt

Dear readers, do I have a treat for you today!



I have been commissioned to repair and further embellish this antique crazy quilt! And this is the first of 2! Wait until you see the 2nd one! But that's down the road a ways because this one will take a couple of months to complete.

It's actually in pretty decent shape. The first step is to clean it. The proper way (and only option) is to put some cheesecloth over the hose of my vacumm cleaner and vacumm it well on both sides using a "set & lift" motion. Never drag the hose over a quilt like this.



If you look closely, there are a few patches that are almost completely rotted away. So the 2nd step will be to replace those patches by hand-appliquéing new pieces over the top and then restitching the seam treatments. Thank goodness I have such a huge variety of threads on hand!

This is the center square:



Looking closely at this quilt, it seems to me that the stitcher tried several embellishing techniques on this but I get the feeling that after awhile, she became bored with the project and finally just assembled it.

So far, I haven't found a date on it but I need to examine it further. Using the fabrics as a guide, I may be able to put it into a decade. At the moment,I'm thinking 1910's or 20's but I really need to look at it better.

There is one beaded motif on here, 2 or 3 examples of decorative painting and some embroidered motifs.





The majority of the fabrics are velvets but there are some others and most of the seam stitching is done with a double feather stitch.

The backing is in good shape but I will be adding a new back once it's complete.

The current owner wants more stitching and more beading on it. I have several ideas, including some velvet pansies. I'll use Judith Montano's pattern from her Elegant Stitches book for that rather than my pattern. Judith's pansy pattern was recreated from pansies on an antique pillow.

And one thing I won't be using is a hoop. I'll be stitching this in hand. Because of the age, I don't want to strain the fabric any more than I have to. I plan to roll the quilt up in a sheet of muslin, to the area that I'll be working on. The excess will have to lay next to me on the sofa.

So that's the news for today! How exciting huh? I will post my progress as I work on it. I need to lay it out on the floor and look at it for awhile. Once I get a better idea of where to go with it, I want to meet with the quilt's owner again and share my ideas with her before I start on it. She's given my creative license to "get crazy" with it but I feel it's best to talk to her about my ideas first.

So, stay tuned for and Antique Crazy Quilt Journey! In the meantime, Mozart is calling to me.....

Mozart In Slow Motion & TAST

Yesterday was a bit hectic and rather tiring. By the time I completed my work for the day, I didn't have much energy left to use for stitching. I did however, manage to cover one seam:



Sharon's stitch pick for week 18 (last week) was the Woven Wheel or Whipped Wheel. I was intrigued by her Woven Fans so I thought I'd give it a try. Now, I should have made my fans larger. They're a twinge small but they look like little shells. And I truly enjoyed doing the weaving. I think these will look great once I add some beading to it.

I did this using 8.5 count waste canvas. Stitching the fans first, removing the waste canvas and then weaving the fans. I will definitely be experimenting more with this stitch.

In the meantime, I've charted out several Fan Borders for you to use if you would like to try this using Waste Canvas. Click on the image to go to my Flickr site where you can download a larger version of the pattern.



For now, I'm off to take some things up to my showcase at the Brick & Mortar store. When I return, I plan to stitch the rest of the day.

Embellishing Mozart

The Mozart Journey is well under way now! So far, I'm pleased with what I've done:



I trimmed the antique metallic gold lace down by about 1/2 an inch. I then painted the rose appliqué which I loved and very much wanted to use. Once it was dry, I over-dyed it with an old gold color as per Allison's suggestion. This is so perfect! It no longer looks too large nor does it over-power the image.

June R. mentioned to me that when she thinks of Mozart, she thinks of roses. How strange but that's what I think too. When I listen to his music (which I do all the time and am listening to now as I type), I envision a very well tended rose garden. I have no idea where this visualization came from but it's always been that way for me. So I'll be adding roses here and there through out this piece.

As you know, I love color! But I didn't want to bring the red out of his jacket so instead, I'll be adding bits of salmon here and there. And lots of metallic gold.

Stop by tomorrow for another update!

Finishes

It took me most of the day yesterday, but I completed the finishing on 3 projects!

First is my Little Brown Bird purse:



Isn't this just too pretty? And it was so much easier to sew the tabs in and then put the handles on once the purse was complete!

Next is my Button Flower Cellphone Pouch:



I was going to do a cool fringing technique that I saw in a magazine but it was too much for this pouch so I added simple beaded fringe to the bottom and then some braided gimp.

Last but not least, my Peacock Cellphone Pouch:



I am so pleased with this! You may remember that I wasn't sure about how to finish it. If you're into making hearts, this might be a good finishing option for you. Trim your heart leaving a 1/4 inch seam allowance. Sew on some lace and a backing fabric. Turn right side out. Make a separate pouch following the tutorial that I gave you last week. Then hand-sew the heart to the pouch, add a snap and a chain. It was that simple. I have to make more of these!!!

I'm in the process of listing these in my Etsy shop where I will leave them for 30 days. After a month, if they're still there, I'll move them to my showcase at the Brick & Mortar store. In fact, if anyone is interested in any of my previous items, I'll be moving some of them this Friday. Just wanted to mention that.

Ok, I'm off to finish listing these things and then I have to work for a bit. See ya tomorrow!