Kaleidoscope or Endless Chain Patchwork Pattern Quilt

 What a vibrant pattern and wonderful selection of cotton prints!

Most of them are from feedsack fabrics and I love the exuberant style that this quilt maker had, she was a very skilled quilter to be able to make a quilt in this 'Kaleidoscope' or 'Endless Chain' pattern.







                                                                                    




I re-hemmed this section from a badly worn quilt to go over the back of a small sofa.

A very happy looking quilt!






The quilt was probably made during the Great Depression Years, circa 1930's and was from Florida.

Crazy Quilt Wall Hanging

Just had to take a quick photo on my mobile phone of this lovely crazy quilt hanging in the stairwell of our local Cath Kidston store, not a very good photo but a beautiful quilt and a lovely way of displaying it! They also have patchwork quilt curtains on their changing rooms and sell patchwork quilt armchairs from time to time. The crazy quilt is probably English and circa 1930's.

Uninhibited Pink Quilt!

As it's such a dreary day here I thought I'd share some photos of one of my cheerful, brighter quilts. The pink shade of cotton was later known as 'bubblegum pink' and I love the way this quilt maker used this bright pink with the red and a few splashes of yellow.

This quilt is from my own collection, is likely to be circa early 1900's and is from Texas, I believe the pattern is Hands All Round.

What uninhibited style!

Displaying Antique Quilts

If a beautiful antique quilt is showing wear and it would be too delicate to use on a bed, it can be used as wall art - there are various methods to display a quilt on a wall, one simple way is by hanging the quilt over a narrow brass cafe style curtain rod - these photos show one displayed in a USA museum. This way you can display the quilt and appreciate the piecing and quilting close up. Remember to hang on a wall out of direct sunlight otherwise further fabric deterioration will occur, and re-hang on a different fold line every few weeks to lessen any strain on the fabrics.

This works best on a thin thickness quilt as the rods are narrow, leaving a small amount of space behind them and also might bend under the weight of a heavy quilt. If the quilt is hung in a busy area such as on a landing near a flight of stairs, a  second rod fixed lower down can be used to ensure the quilt is kept safely out of the way.

Thicker quilts, or comforters always look great hung over a quilt rack, or here in the UK, a towel rack is very similar!

Feedsack Quilt

At first sight this looks like a very plain, lightweight quilt or coverlet, for a child's truckle bed -
(don't forget, you can click on the photos to enlarge them!)

But when held up to the light or when wet you can see -

I love the sense of humour this frugal quilt maker had - she's sewn together a couple of CHICK STARTER GROWING MASH feedsacks to make a very simple bed cover for her little one. The cotton is strong but soft to the touch and you can just see the manufacturers logo of a hen sitting on her nest in a faint outline and the ingredients listed. The photos where the quilt is being held up was taken when I washed the quilt and it was still wet as the print showed up better then. I'm holding it up in front of a mirror in the photo otherwise the print was in reverse.

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You can see from the photo above that the maker had to make a very neat darn on the feedsack, likely to have been done before she made the quilt. I hope it was partly with a sense of humour that she picked this feedsack and that she wasn't desperately poor, this was likely to have been made around the Great Depression Years period. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression

Utility Quilts

I've just listed a vintage patchwork comforter in the aptly named 'Brickwork' pattern, on my treasuredquilts.co.uk website, made out of men's suiting woollen cloth. I love the 'beard guard' sewn over the top hem end  to keep the quilt clean or to stop the wools tickling chins. This quilt came from Willoughby, Ohio which has an average winter snowfall of 27 inches, so warm, practical quilts were a necessity.











It reminds me of this woollen strips quilt that I took a photo of at a Pioneers Museum in Colorado. What a snug looking bedframe!

Log Cabins!

Some of you who may have bought items off me will know that I love to put a log cabin stamp on my information labels - I'd love my own log cabin in the UK! Wonder if there are many about hidden away in the UK countryside?
Here's a beautiful log cabin farm in Colorado, that we drove past.

An abandoned gold mine settlement in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado had some derelict cabins - here I am wondering if there's any quilts left behind!

Here inside this abandoned cabin you can see the wallpaper peeling off the wall and the thick layers of newspaper they used to line the cabin for insulation. They would have had a long cold winter to get through as this settlement was at a high altitude. It was here that my altitude sickness started!