Friday, October 28, 2016

vintage top quilted

I found this top at an antique store in Cibolo, TX, right next to a wonderful bbq joint called Harmon's.  What a winning day, bbq and quilt tops on our road trip.  This top was hand pieced and was in a pile of tops, smoky smelling and dirty.  I gently soaked it in Retro Clean before I layered and quilted it.



Some may think that I should have hand quilted this, but I feel as though I rescued it, therefore, I had the right to quilt it however I pleased.  My opinion is that there are not enough hand quilters in the world to rescue all the unfinished tops!


So I layered this with wool and cotton (2 batts) and played with different designs.  I wanted to do an overall design instead of putting the same motif in each white snowball block.  So I divided it up and played.  Really, this was so fun (and not monotonous at all).  





I started in the center with a feather design, then finished with feathers in the outer half snowball blocks.  


I even put this on my longarm for the section with the pumpkin seed designs.  But my skills aren't so great on the longarm, so I finished it up on my sitdown machine.  

I hope you enjoy this quilt, it is going to live at my house and keep me warm this winter.  

"It is easily overlooked that what is now called vintage was once brand new." Tony Visconti

Have a great day, Karen



13 comments:

  1. I think your quilting is marvelous with this rescued top. The original piecer would be so pleased that it became so beautiful and will be loved.
    Kathy T. in Tampa

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  2. The quilting is gorgeous! Congrats on the rescue.

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  3. You must have had a great time quilting that top. It is the perfect canvas for your work. The top piecer would love your finish!

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    1. Wish I could find out who made it. There must be a bunch of mystery tops all around the world. Heck, I have another one from the same antique shop waiting for me to make it into a quilt.

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  4. Beautiful quilting and what a precious save of a old quilt top!

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  5. You did this quilt top justice! The quilt is gorgeous and the the quilting is perfect! Beautiful!

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  6. You did a marvelous job in rescuing this quilt top. Your quilting is gorgeous and enhances the design. I declare you innocent. ;-)

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  7. Hello Karen,

    The vintage top is such an old fashioned classic and in such lovely colours. The quilting is fantastic, and it is great to see that you have brought the old top to life as a such a gorgeous quilt.

    Thank you for linking up with Free Motion Mavericks - your quilt is this week's featured project!

    Love, Muv

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  8. love all the different quilting designs. what an enjoyable way to fill in the negative space

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  9. This is beautiful! I agree that it's far better to get a vintage top quilted up than to demand it be done by hand. My biggest reasoning is that in 99% of the cases, the original quilter would have wanted it finished the best, quickest way she could do that, and if she/he were quilting now, they'd most likely choose machine quilting. My husband's great-aunt sure felt that way last spring when I quilted up a Bo Peep quilt top for her 90th birthday that she'd been cherishing in her cedar chest all her life, made for her by her grandmother in the 1930s! I love the overall design you created with the motifs.

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    1. great story of a finished quilt! thanks for sharing that.

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  10. P.S. - Karen - looking at your banner photo - How did you do the quilting of the feathers? It looks like a loopy kind of stitch? Or is it an effect from several passes of "normal" stitching?

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    1. oh thanks for asking. I did all those feathers in a thread that didn't show up and I worried over how to make them pop. I didn't want to rip and choose another color. sooooo, I used a fantastik and lumiere paint and painted over all of those feathers. It may have been quicker to rip and resew, but I learned a new technique and I loved the results.

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