Spring cleaning

To wash or not to wash. That is always the question when you have an old/vintage/heirloom quilt that is dirty. Most experts would simply tell you no - don't wash it. But some will also tell you to go ahead, clean it, but very gently. So, what's the real answer?

Well, the real answer is -- it depends! How dirty is it? Try carefully vacuuming it by putting a layer of tulle over the nozzle on your vacuum's upholstery attachment. Put a clean sheet on the floor or on a bed. Please the quilt you want to clean on top of the sheet. Slowly and gently go over the quilt with the covered nozzle barely touching the quilt. If possible, use a low suction setting (my vac doesn't have this option). Turn the quilt over and vacuum the back side. Did this help "clean" the quilt? If not, there are other options.

You can gently wash your quilt in the bathtub. This is definitely risky, and should only be attempted if the quilt is truly dirty and/or stained. But first make sure the quilt can take the cleaning. If the fabric is torn or worn, or not even there in places, don't wash it. Washing it will probably cause more damage to the fabric. If the fabric is intact, next consider the age and the colors. The age will often tell you if the colors are fast or if they will bleed. If you can, test the most inconspicuous spot you can find where a color abuts a light fabric. Lightly mist a small area with cool water. Let it sit. Did the darker color bleed onto the light color? STOP. No matter how dirty the quilt is, it is better than ending up with a tie-dyed quilt of bleeding colors. If the colors didn't bleed, there is a good chance they are fast and can be washed.

Wet cleaning a quilt taking time. Start your project early on a warm, dry day. It will take most of the morning to wash the quilt, and about 24-hours to dry it. First clean the bathtub and rinse away all residue from the cleaning agent. Line the tub with a clean white sheet. Fill the tub half full with cool/tepid water. If the quilt is really dirty you may want to add a quilt soap such as Orvus (available at most quilt shops). Some people suggest using Oxyclean as a soak but we really don't know the long-term effects of this agent so I don't recommend using it. Orvus has been proven safe for vintage fabrics but you can clean your quilt without detergents of any kind. Just soak it in plain water.

Another alternative for washing your quilt is to soak it outside on a sunny day. Follow the steps above but use a child's swimming pool lined with a sheet instead of a bathtub (unless you have an outdoor tub!) Set it in a shaded area or cover the quilt with another clean sheet.

Either way, put the quilt in the tub, on top of the sheet, in sort of an accordian fold. Make sure the water entirely covers the quilt. Then soak, soak, soak. Check the water every now and then. If it's dirty, drain and refill. Do not let the water run directly onto the quilt. Fold the quilt and sheet(s) back out of the way while filling the tub/pool. Continue soaking/draining/filling until the water is clear. At this point, the quilt is probably as clean as it is going to be.

Drain the tub or pool. Let the quilt and sheets sit until as much water as possible has drained. Now, get a partner to help with the next step. DO NOT LIFT THE QUILT ALONE! Did I state that loud enough? DO NOT WRING THE QUILT! Got that one too? With your partner at one end of the tub and you at the other, gather up the quilt in the sheet -- lifting by the sheet, not by the quilt. It's going to drip and be messy, but please resist squeezing the quilt. Let it drip, then place it in a tub or bin to carry outside. Once outside, choose a shady or part shade spot. You can dry the quilt on the lawn, but it will dry faster if you can provide airflow both on top and on the bottom. You can do this by placing a couple of clean screen doors on some sawhorses and placing the sheet/quilt layers on top of the screen doors. If you don't have a way of keeping it off the ground, unfold the wet sheet and spread it on the lawn. Very carefully unfold the wet quilt and spread it out on top of the sheet. Do not pull the sides, just gently open the quilt on top of the sheet. Now taken a second clean sheet and spread it on top of the wet quilt. This sheet protects the quilt from the elements, such as birds and other animals, tree sap, the neighbor's dog, etc. Now wait. And wait. And wait. It is going to take a while for the sheet to dry -- the warmer and drier the weather, the faster the quilt will dry, but it still isn't going to be in any hurry and neither should you. Eventually it will be dry and you will be able to pick up the quilt and enjoy its new clean beauty.

Here are a couple web sites with more information on cleaning quilts: http://www.museum.msu.edu/glqc/quiltcare.html and
http://www.quilterstudio.com/CareAndCleaningOfQuilt.htm

Quilting 101

My BFF came over the other day for some help with her first quilt. She had taken a beginning quilting class and had finished her quilt top and was ready to put it all together and quilt it. Her blocks were beautiful - points matched, seams were straight, she obviously had a good instructor and she is a fast learner. Unfortunately the class didn't really cover sandwiching, quilting and binding. The instructor just sort of said do this, then this, and then do this and you're done. Well, not quite. A perfectly stitched quilt, whether your first or your 51st, can be ruined by poor sandwiching and quilting.

So we spent a couple hours on putting together the sandwich, which thanks to Mary Honas (of Harper's) I had learned the right way after doing it wrong for several years. Once the layers were together and smoothed out as flat as possible we began to pin. Every 2 inches on this wall-size quilt. Why pin every 2"? Well, if you don't want puckers and pleats you're going to have to place the pins close together and because of the construction of the blocks, 2" was what was called for. Whenever I'm teaching or showing a new quilter how to do this I always stress pinning close together. I understand it seems like a bit of overload, but the end results are worth it. I always show them quilts I've made where I pinned every 12 inches thinking that was enough. The mess, especially on the back of the quilt, usually convinces them.

We ended the afternoon talking about my favorite books for beginning quilters. I have two: the Basics by Kathy Delaney (Kansas City Star Quilts; pickledish.com) and Your First Quilt Book (or it should be) by Carol Doak (That Patchwork Place). I am constantly referring back to these books to remind me how to do something, or to make sure I'm doing it "right". What are your favorite beginning quilting or how-to-quilt books? I'd love to hear from you.

Where does time go when we're not looking? It's been way too long since I updated this blog. But I'm back and I'm going to try to be better about writing. Happily I've found time to sew and have made a few quilts and made a jacket for myself. I haven't sewn clothing for decades but the jacket was easy and I love it. Watch for photos in the near future.

Last fall my nephew presented me with a quilt challenge. He handed me a large piece of camouflage fabric - medium weight twill -- and asked me to make a quilt for him. "As big as you can" were his instructions.



My immediate response was, "You're kidding, right? No, he wasn't kidding. But I'm happy to say I did it and actually like the resulting quilt. I used snow ball blocks and the alternating corners turned out looking like the crosshairs on a rifle scope. The quilt measures about 64" x 72".





My nephew has two German Shorthair dogs, Sooner and Rosie, that hunt with him. I just happened to have a fat quarter piece of flannel with German Shorthairs on it. So I fussy cut the dogs and put them in the corners. the corners have an extra strip where I embroidered the dog's names. That will make the quilt extra special, I hope.





With the leftover scraps I made a small (42" x 42") quilt for his grandson so they can have sort of matching quilts.





Aren't these quilts fun? I never would have thought about making a camouflage quilt if he hadn't asked me. I hope they both like them and spend lots of hours cuddled up together in their Man Quilts!

Mom's Crazy Quilt

Sorry, sorry. For those of you who have been checking my blog I apologize for not updating it in some time. Life has been crazy. So here is a cool crazy quilt to go along with life.


This quilt is My Mom’s Crazy Quilt. I first discovered when I was going through some boxes after mom died. I found several quilts that had been made by my aunt and grandmother which as some of my most cherished possessions. But then I found a box of fabric scraps and this unfinished crazy quilt. At the time, I thought this was the ugliest quilt I had ever seen. Not one of those beautiful silk and velvet crazy quilts with all the embroidery, but just a mishmash of cotton fabrics sewn helter skelter on some old cotton sacks. But in twenty years times change and so do tastes. Now, when I’m especially missing my mom, I can take out this quilt and touch the fabric that she touched and give it a hug.


I don’t recognize any of the fabrics as being mom’s dress, or the kitchen curtains, or a sundress that I wore. They are all from “before my time”. I don’t know when she started making the blocks, but the foundation fabric is old sugar and flour sacks; you can still see the printed label on some. Some of the fabric pieces are feed sacks, too. But others are pieces that I’m sure were from dresses because of the quality of the fabric. And some must have been curtains that hung in homes I never knew. I have a letter my mom wrote to her mom in 1934 stating she had just ordered some fabric to make new curtains for the house they were living in on a farm near Herman, Nebraska. That old house still stands, although the roof is gone and there is a tree in the middle of the house now. And perhaps this quilt contains some of the fabric that she was so excited about. What a wonderful thought.

Let’s take a look at some of the prints in this delightful, and not at all ugly, crazy quilt.

When it snows...make snow cats!

Snowing again. Snowing, snowing, snowing. Started this morning; we have 9" on the back deck so far. Our youngest cat loves to run in the snow. We know he's part Bengal. We think the other part is snow leopard.



It's absolutely beautiful out. The snow is wet and sticky so the trees make it a while wonderland. The wet snow is also perfect for making snowmen, or rather snow cats. It keeps getting fuzzier and fuzzier. By this evening it will be a long-haired snow cat.



And speaking of getting fuzzier, the snow is clinging to Murphy's tags, turning them into a snowball.




I could be quilting, but we're having too much fun. Let it snow!

Researching the fabric

The fabric is hard to pin down to an exact year. Let's look at some of the individual fabrics.


First, the pink used in the sashing and flower buds. The sashing is lighter than the flower buds but they are both rose pinks. The floral prints have background colors such as mint green, turquoise or aqua, sky blue, and bright yellow. These prints and colors were popular in the late 20s into the 30s.

However, there is also a print with a burgundy background, and a navy blue with white polka dots. These prints and colors were more popular in the late 30s into the early 40s.

So when was the quilt made? You can never say exactly when a quilt was made unless it is dated (that’s why you ALWAYS label your quilts, right?) but we can say it was made from a pattern published in 1930 using fabrics popular in the 30s so I’m going to put an estimated date on it of 1930s. My guess is that they at least started cutting fabric for the quilt soon after the pattern was published and probably finished it sometime later.
I mentioned earlier that the quilt was hand pieced and hand quilted. The maker was a skilled seamstress and probably experienced quilter. The pieces are accurately cut and stitched -- and still holding together, so they knew how to sew. The quilting isn’t as precise as the stitching, but I believe they used an original design. The flower pieces are shadow quilted, no biggie there. But in between, in the squares, there is a quilted butterfly.

It’s a bit different in each one, as if they drew a basic pattern, cut it out, and then traced it onto the blocks. You can see this best in the blue and white polka dot print. I love it.

Now that I have the pattern I want to make a new quilt using contemporary fabrics. I think it will be interesting to display them together. Still wish I knew who made this one.

The hidden quilt is revealed

These cold, snowy days have been great for uncovering the hidden quilt. Removing the binding and ties has revealed a beautiful pieced quilt -- one that is in remarkably good condition. There is some wear on the binding, but that's it. Why did someone cover up this quilt instead of simply attaching a new binding? We'll never know.

Interestingly, a double layer of flannel had been stitched to the top edge of the quilt. This was always the first to wear out because it was pulled on more than the other edges. I have quilts from my grandmother that have a decorative edge sewn to the top of the quilt when it was made to prevent wear when used. Underneath the decorative edge the quilt is unworn and unfaded. What a great method of preservation.

The now unhidden quilt is made of medium quality fabric and appears to be filled with a thin cotton batting. By all appearances it was "purpose made". In other words, it wasn't pieced together from old clothes or made as a utilitarian quilt. It was made from a pattern to display the maker's sewing skills. The quilt is hand pieced and hand quilted. The maker was obviously skilled as shown by the sharp points and evenly spaced stitching.

Using several resources I've been able to determine that the quilt block pattern is called Sage Bud. This pattern was published in The Kansas City Star on November 29, 1930 (Kansas City Star archive pattern #146). The blocks in the quilt were pieced precisely following the published pattern. A very pretty rose pink was used for all of the buds and a lighter rose pink used for the sashing. The colors in the prints are all still clear with no bleeding and just a little fading. The quilt was obviously used but well taken care of. I still can't believe someone covered it up.

Now that I know the pattern is from 1930 I'll use that date in the next step of researching the fabric. In the mean time, Murphy is testing the the newly exposed quilt.