I came across these orphaned vintage quilt blocks in my stash during our 2020 “summer of plague.” Rescuing them from the black hole of textile waste gave me true purpose in the face of so much uncertainty, unemployment, and isolation—occupying both my hands and mind.
Using my background in museum collections and textile conservation, I mended, stabilized, and assembled these blocks into a whole. The bright yellow spheres all lined up stand in such joyful and hopeful contrast to this past year, and I hope it brings just as much warmth to its new home.
The original blocks were completely hand sewn. Once squared up and stabilized, I finished piecing them on my 1957 Singer Slant-o-Matic machine and finished the quilt with two kinds of hand quilting—both traditional in yellow and big stitch in white sashiko thread. The lines of quilting follow the dynamic trellis design of the patchwork section and yellow circles and the design is a variation on a family of quilts known as “circle,” “drunkard’s path,” and/or “baseball” quilts. Rather than using a binding, the quilt has a turned edge to keep the focus on the original design.
The batting in this quilt was made whole from reclaimed cotton and poly-cotton scraps. This technique is sometimes called, “franken-batting” and is one of my favorite sustainable studio practices. It is backed with a 1980’s reproduction feed sack print (now vintage itself) from my grandmother’s hand-me-down stash and features a hand drawn and embroidered label on the reverse.
I wrote a lot more about this quilt over on my blog here as I came upon clues to its age and maker(s?). I’ve also included some other photos there of the inside seams and hope you’ll enjoy its story.
Check out my F A Q page on how to purchase this quilt or any other original item listed here on my site. There you can also read to understand more about my quilting ethos, pricing, and shipping.