Magnificent Mozart

Yesterday afternoon was cloudy and rainy. Although I always prefer sunshine, it was a good day to curl up in the middle of my sofa and focus on my stitching. I stitched for 6 hours straight!



As you can see, I've done quite a bit of embellishing on this. I added the vintage millinery roses to the antique metallic gold lace and then added some green glass leaves to that.

There are now Mother Of Pearl flower beads on the SRE vine and some Czech glass fire polished beads and seed beads.

I added some beads to the seam on the top left and I will be adding some more beads to that.

I also started beading the rose applique. I still need to finish up the leaves.

The Rhinestone Treble Clef pin will go in the center blue patch on the bottom. I'll be sewing that on today.

So this is how it looks at the moment. I'll be stitching on this again shortly so stop by tomorrow for another update!

The Mozart Journey Continues.......

The Mozart Journey is coming along nicely:



As you can see, I have his signature on here now. I think that makes it very clear as to who this is.

I added a SRE motif with roses because, when I think of Mozart, I think of roses. That will get some beads as well. I also have some vintage millinery roses that I will be adding to the antique metallic ribbon strip later today.

Don't you just love that salmon color? It really adds life to this piece and works well with the red in the painting. If you remember, I didn't want any more red on here so the salmon color is perfect!

I still need to figure out where to put my rhinestone treble clef pin. I'm sure that will fall into place when I get a bit further along on this piece.

Stay tuned! I'll be working on this again later today!

Repairing The Past

I brought my quilt stand down from the guest room and laid my 2 antique crazy quilt projects on it. Both have that funky "old" smell. Since they can't be washed or dry cleaned, the only way to get rid of that is to let them air out.



Every day, I will refold them and eventually that smell will dissipate. I also thought this would be a good way to store them while I work on them. I'll probably work on them at the same time. I also felt that it would be good to have them near me while I do other things. I'm already getting a good "feel" for them. It's an energy thing.

Right now, I so much wish I owned a copy of the Crazy Quilt book by Penny McMorris. I had hoped to find one at the flea market this past weekend. Instead, I found a quilt! Hmmmm..... If I focus on the quilt now, do you think I'll manifest the book? Ha, ha, ha!

I looked around for it online yesterday and found several available copies but quite honestly, there isn't a book on this planet that I'm willing to spend $75.00 on. So I will exercise patience here and eventually I'm sure I'll find a copy at a flea market or garage sale for the price that I'm willing to pay.

In the meantime, I'll focus on the reference books that I do have which are The Crazy Quilt Handbook by Judith Montano and The Magic Of Crazy Quilting by J. Marsha Mitchler. Both books contain photos of beautiful antique crazy quilts.

The reason I'm in need of seeing photos of antique quilts is because I was asked to further embellish my commission piece. I really feel that I should stay with traditional motifs and colors. I know the owner wants more beads on it which isn't a problem. I can use them as flower centers and butterfly bodies.

I was chatting with June R. yesterday in email and she asked me what I was going to do about fabrics for the patches that I have to replace. Excellent question!

I searched at Ebay for vintage velvets and other fabrics and didn't really see anything suitable for these projects. I have a fabric stash that is beyond explanation so in some cases, I will be able to use some of what I have. I may be able to "antique" some of them with fabric dye but many fancy fabrics these days have synthetic fibers in them and therefore won't hold the dye.

Scott and I will be visiting some antique stores this coming weekend so I plan to keep my eyes open for some old fabrics and one other idea that popped into my head yesterday was to look for a "cutter crazy quilt". One that is beyond repair but that may have some good areas where I can take the fabrics off and use them to replace rotted patches on the 2 quilts that I have here.

Kim left a comment for me mentioning that she's never seen buttons on any antique crazy quilts. I haven't either. That doesn't mean that there aren't quilts out there with buttons on them, I just haven't see any. Most likely, it's a contemporary thing.

In closing this post, I'd like to take a moment to thank Sue in Western WA for reminding me that the dated silk thingy's on my quilt are called Souvenir Ribbons! My mom told me that on Sunday but somehow it slipped from my brain, never to return! Thank you Sue for reminding me!

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.....