Tuesday, May 15, 2012

A really old quilt

My daughter Laila, who lives in BC is in possession of one of my very first quilts. It used to hang in our kitchen on the wall (before renovations in 1989) and eventually the sun did fade it a bit. I'm fairly certain that it was some kind of commercial pattern but it's been so long that I cannot tell you who put out the pattern.
Unfortunately, I never did sign it or date it, as I do now, so I have no idea of exactly how old it is.

It is totally machine appliqued...

with a bit of hand embroidered detail on the wing and...

some french knots for the eyes.
I did machine quilt it but just the around the blocks. I didn't quilt any of the detail. It most likely has a polyester batting since that is all I used to use. It's still one of my most often used battings since I hand quilt.

It was nice to see this old quilt. As you can tell, the fabrics are really old. These were the only types of quilting fabrics available to us in the 1980s. I still don't like prints and the plain fabrics were polyester/cotton broadcloth. There were solid fabrics in cotton available in quilt stores but the prices were quite high. Poly/cotton broadcloth had a huge variety of colours to choose from too, whereas the cottons were extremely limited in choice. Things sure have come a long way.

4 comments:

  1. That is a really cute quilt Dolores! I know what you mean about the fabric available - now, we have so many choices I can never decide WHAT I want, lol!

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  2. I used to quilt in the early 80s and you are so right about what fabrics were available. How fun to see one of your first quilts again. And, it fits in with your recent bird postings.

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  3. Oh yeah Dolores as if the 80's are in another century,... ah, see what you mean..
    Lovely quilt though. :-) As all or yours are, even the very OLD one's :-) x x x

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