These are items from Rachel Bourgault’s trunk show that I have not seen or shared before. These items were so precious, and once again, she encouraged us to touch and examine each item. There were children’s items (such as thimbles), dolls, bags, pin cushions and thread holders. What a great treasure! I loved seeing these beautiful items from 150 years ago.
Here are more of the colorful quits shared with our quilt guild by Rachel Bourgault. Lovely! We were encouraged to touch and examine each of these quilts closely. The fabrics are absolutely amazing; they feel very different from what we’re using today. What a special event, seeing Civil War Quilts and others.
Just before the COVID-19 crisis we had a really nice quilt trunk show at our library. Rachel Bourgault shared many of her early quilts with us, along with other items. This is the same lady I shared about earlier, but with a few new items.
To refresh your memory, here are some of those quilts again. This time she really went into the history of the quilts a little more, and of quilting during the Civil War in particular. The cotton was in the south and the textile mills in the north. This posed problems for both sides. She pointed out the cotton seeds that could be felt inside some of the quilts from the south. She invited us to handle her quilts, since she believes they were meant to be felt and enjoyed.
Many of the fabrics were obtained from clothing, which meant that they were dark, colorful fabrics such as skirts were made from. They obviously used what was available, and she said tied quilts were from some of the poorest areas of the south, usually.
I really enjoyed seeing these quilts again and hearing the deeper historical information that she readily pulls out of her mind. A truly great trunk show!
I recently finished a Mystery Quilt. Remember the pics I shared of the event in Sheridan? Well, the quilt has returned from my excellent quilter, Virginia, and I couldn’t be more pleased with the results.
We were awarded with $15.00 from Quilter’s Fix if we completed our quilts, so I qualified for that. But there was an additional $5.00 prize if we could use the left over pieces for another project. I added one color to the mix — purple — and designed an entire quilt for the back side of this one. What do you think? Can you see the leftover pieces around the edges from the previous project? The circles in the middle were great fun to paper piece with some of the left-over fabric.
You will notice some spirals in some of the centers.
Woohoo! I got my $20.00 from the shop! Thank you, Jackie and Julie!
I finished my New York Beauty quilt! I worked on it for nearly four years, and I’m really happy with it. Bright colors! It’s a super warm quilt, too, so will be great on cold, winter nights. This was a long, labor of love but well worth the time spent on it, as the paper piecing is super fun.
In addition to the modern quilts, we had several traditional ones at our library quilt show. There were several old ones that had been handed down through the generations. Others were made more recently, but have a traditional look.
Finally, you can see my New York Beauty quilt hangin in the upper right, next to some of the traditional quilts. Fun to see!
These quilts from our library quilt show are just plain impressive. Hidden among the others is one of the Color Challenge Quilts, nicely displayed with the paint chips.
Our quilt show comes around in March every year, and it’s a good one. You’ll see several western-themed quilts here, as well as some artistic and contemporary ones. Beautiful!
I attended a Mystery Quilt class recently, and we had no idea what we were making until after lunch. When we returned to the room, some samples of the finished quilts were on the wall. It was exciting because they were beautiful. Apparently, not everyone that begins a Mystery Quilt is happy with the finished product. But this pattern was a great one. Take a look!
The next step was for each of us to finish at least one row of blocks.
Several people had more than one row ready by the end of the day.
Here are my blocks — I used a set of grey batik fat quarters and added some blue for color.
I’ll show the finished product later. There’s a mystery (and surprise) that I won’t reveal to you until later, and I hope it turns out well.
Here’s the group of ladies, each proudly showing at least one row of mystery blocks.
I always wanted to sew a Mystery Quilt and I finally had my chance. A class was available in a nearby town, attended by dozens of ladies. The mystery is that you have no idea what the final product will be. We had “homework” to do at home before we came to class — cutting strips and sewing them together into strip sets. I eagerly completed all my homework in time.
My friend, Kathy, and I sat together and had fun building our mystery quilts. You can see her strip sets in the background.
Our teacher, Julie, is a great teacher (as proved by the large number of women that attended). She showed us how to start cutting up our strip sets and then sew them together.
Everyone was having a great time!
The beautiful mystery quilts were starting to reveal themselves! More will be revealed in the next post.
Sheep Droppings 