More Things That Can Go Wrong

Nine Points instead of eight

I can see how seven or six arms can happen, but nine???

(OOPS! Ten, I see by a better counter than I am)

I posted this photo of a top listing dangerously to the left

 a few weeks ago. I think the problem is she kept adding triangles

 as she created strips, "increasing" as in knitting.

Not a good idea.

I have been collecting photos of Out-of-Control quilts for years and now I am posting them in the left hand column. Scroll down to see the Out of Control Quilts box. I'll change them when I remember---about once a week.

This late 19th-century quilt is from Merikay's collection.

It appeared in the article I did years ago.

A reader suggested I call these Quilt Wrecks

(See the famous Cake Wrecks blog here: http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/)

But Wreck implies a disaster. Often these quilt wrecks are happy accidents.

I've always felt I had little control over how things were going to turn out. I usually have a plan, but as novelists sometimes say about their characters, the quilt takes over--- it's out of it's creator's control.

I can relate.

Separated at Birth

It's always fascinating to come across a pair of quilts that are similar. How is it that two quilts residing in farflung collections today look so much alike?

The four-block applique above has been studied by Connie Nordstrom who has found more about 30 examples of the block. This pair came from the Skinner Auction site. They were auctioned three or four years apart. The combination of block plus border makes one wonder....

A pair of four-block quilts with similar odd blocks

Merikay Waldvogel has found several of these wreath designs in Tennessee. The one on the left is from the Winedale collection at the University of Texas; the one on the right from an on-line auction. She's concluded the pattern was a regional design, handed from Tennessee quilter to quilter. Quilts and pattern were carried west to Texas.

In the 20th century we can guess a commercial kit or a pattern is involved.

 

Garden Poppies, a Bucilla kit

But in the 19th century before commercial patterns were published, the mysterious pairs invite all sorts of questions. The makers must have known each other. Or perhaps one maker made two quilts, or it may have been a regional pattern. Or…

The blogger WillyWonky has posted a virtual paper on just such a pair. It's virtual in that he might have presented it for October's American Quilt Study Group Seminar. Here's what he would have done...
http://willywonkyquilts.blogspot.com/2010/10/separated-at-birth-my-virtual-aqsg.html

Anna Catherine Garnhart's 19th century quilts are so recognizable that 11 have been documented.

On the left one in the Brooklyn Museum; on the right in the Museum of the Daughters of the American Revolution. But the Brooklyn Museum has the one at the left attributed to someone else. Here's a virtual paper for someone.

My New Hobby

Uh-oh. I've got a new addiction and it isn't pretty. Well it is pretty literally, but figuratively???

I've always wondered at those people who could make quilts out of one pattern piece. Dullsville.

But as I say: "Uh-Oh."

I started to make a pincushion. Download the free pattern here:
http://www.unitednotions.com/fp_prairie-flower-pincushion.pdf



I had a charm pack of my reproduction prints from The Morris Workshop from Moda. Each 5" square was cut into quarters so I had four squares of each print 2-1/2" x 2-1/2".

I didn't use their machine method but used a glue stick to lightly glue a template behind each square. Then I folded the edges over to make a hexagon and whip-stitched them together by hand.

When I got the first ring done I was hooked.

I wondered how many rings I could get out of a charm pack.

Very soon I forgot about the Prairie Flower pincushion and started thinking medallion.

Center of an early 19th century medallion quilt from the Winterthur Museum

Reproduction of a 19th-century medallion by Bertha Stenge 1945

A soldier's quilt of wools

I needed one more light print so I got one from the first Morris reproduction line A Morris Garden.

Now I have to go out in the sleet/snow wintery mix and get more hexagon paper templates.
 
Once you get an outside row stitched you can take out the templates in the inside row. I can reuse them 2 or 3 times but now I need more. Way more.
 
Stay tuned. It could get bad.
 
 

Albert Small's hexagon mosaic quilt with the most pieces in the world, 1945

See more about Albert Small and his hexagon addiction by clicking here:

http://www.museum.state.il.us/muslink/behind/htmls/cr_bas_smhist.html  

And find more inspiration by clicking to see these museum quilts:

Metropolitan Museum of Art:

http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/collection_database/european_sculpture_and_decorative_arts/quilt/objectview.aspx?OID=120047631&collID=12&dd1=12  

International Quilt Study Center and Museum
http://www.quiltstudy.org/includes/photos/quilt_database/large/2006_035_0001.jpg