Thursday, January 3, 2013

A Hint of Honey

My stars! Are all your latest quilts one of your favorites too?  I put these together the other day and have been enjoying it on my flannel wall since. Now I am trying to resist the urge to quilt it right away because I have other quilting I need to get done first.   Sue offered to hand quilt it because it looks old and shouldn't reproduction quilts all be hand quilted?  My argument is no, that there are actually examples of machine quilted quilts going back to shortly after the time when sewing machines were invented.  She also thought it ought to be quilted with simple straight lines going diagonally through the blocks.  Again I had to point out that feathers were not uncommon on antique quilts. I plan to quilt feathered wreaths. They are fun to quilt. And to think at one time I thought they were kinda ugly.

This top  finishes only 73" and I am also trying to resist adding a border, pieced or otherwise.  Borders on antique quilts were common enough, but amazingly if it wasn't narrow, the border was often only added on one, two or three sides. The longer it sits unquilted the greater the chances of it having a border added.  I will take my chances. It's certainly nothing to worry about.

I spent yesterday getting some tops ready to quilt.  I need to get them done for the next book.  I won't start them though till the sampler I'm quilting now is done.  So, if I don't post much, you will know what I am up to.

My honey is thinking of keeping bees in his retirement and noted the honey colored background in this quilt. And it sure looks yummy to me. He likes it too.

5 comments:

Idle hands, empty brain ... said...

It's lovely! I vote for hand quilting, but that's just my personal preference :)

Idle hands, empty brain ... said...

It's lovely! I vote for hand quilting, but that's just my personal preference :)

Dora, the Quilter said...

Love the stars--and I think the honey colored pieces do result in the look of the border.
I've seen quite a few old machine pieced quilts--I love them--even if they were often straight lines. I admire the women who pioneered doing more with machine quilting. (I machine quilt because it takes me so long to hand quilt, and I have so many quilts in my head that if I want them to become real, I have to machine quilt them!)

Dora, the Quilter said...

I meant old machine *quilted* quilts!

Deanna said...

The center makes the quilt glow! I love the effect. Beautiful!