Pale Blue Whig Rose Coverlet

Pale Blue (maybe even light gray) Whig Rose Coverlet - wool and cotton

I saw this coverlet on eBay a few weeks ago.  It's very similar to the other whig rose reproduction coverlets I have from the 20th century.  (They are softer than the older ones.)   I thought they were probably all made by The Goodwin Guild,  but maybe not?  Not all of them have tags to prove their provenance.

What makes this listing so interesting is the paperwork and the history of the coverlet and the weavers who made it (although not included in the purchase):

 There is a Wisconsin connection, too!

Viola did the fringe treatment on the edges.  I don't think I have another one quite like this.  

Interesting to have it up close to study!

  

Art and Viola's Weave Shop in California.  I think this might be more about them?

The fact that this coverlet was made within my own lifetime (I was a teenager in the 80s, and in no position to weave myself back then, although I already had a huge fascination for Gramma Medo and her spinning wheel), I still had an appreciation for those who did weave.  It makes me feel closer to them somehow, in that long line of weavers before me.  Sigh!  And now I am making cloth too!  ;-)

It makes me wonder if some of my other reproduction coverlets (without tags) were made by this couple instead of The Goodwin Guild?    Star of Bethlehem is featured in the paperwork above-- I purchased the "Pumpkin Spice" coverlet last fall in the Star of Bethlehem pattern.  Maybe it was made by this couple?

Meanwhile, I am contemplating my next weaving project.  I know it will be difficult to make the circles of a whig rose even and true circles.  So perhaps it's better if I continue to collect whig roses, instead of attempting to make them as misshapen coverlets?  Or try a smaller scale like a scarf or table runner?  Or go for a more square design?

I was the only one to put in a bid on this one, and I won!

The Sugar Plum / Plum Pudding Quilt is Complete

At long last, The Sugar Plum / Plum Pudding quilt is finished!  

I love the colors -- It reminds me of the week between Christmas and New Years, leftover plum pudding.  The shine and glitter of the holidays has gone, and your left with the darker grays and bruise-y plums after the celebrations are done.

 It always reminded me of Harry Potter left at Hogworts over the holidays.

I must have run out of the 4-patch blocks, because there is a gray place holder towards the bottom.  Do you see it now?  That solution works with this pattern.

Pattern: Fuzzy Logic from Brenda Hennings Strip Therapy book

Fabric: Snow Berry Island Batik jelly roll

Dream Wool Batting

Quilted in a 2-inch grid that takes about 5 hours to complete, and 4-5 bobbins 

 

Detail of the diagonal grid quilting and the Snow Berry batiks.

Here are some previous posts about this quilt in progress:

Quilt Sandwiches

Sugar Plum Quilt Top is Complete!

Plans for The Snow Berry Quilt or Plum Dumplings over Winter Break

 

Another Woven Overshot Coverlet: Pink Black and White Beauty

Pink-white-gray-black Coverlet from circa 1810? (Maybe?)

I got this one off of eBay.  I'll admit: It was a rebound purchase.  I'd had my heart set on a different coverlet -- antique and definitely old, sewn in 3 panels.  Indigo blue and creme.  It was fresh from an estate sale and the price was so reasonable.  For days, I had the top bid, and I was sure it would be mine ...  and then in the last 30 seconds, I got sniped.  Someone (prob. with software designed for this very purpose) swiped it out from under me before I had time to raise my bid.  That was really crappy.   

So I went searching for another coverlet ...  and found this lovely specimen.  I put in the opening bid, fully expecting to lose this one, too. 

And then, I won!

$40 plus shipping and a little for taxes.  Shipping was a little high.  Not bad.  The seller says it's 1800s -- I'm not sure I believe that, as I don't think I've ever seen pink in an antique coverlet.  I don't think they had the dyes to do that then ...  But maybe? I'll have to research that a bit more.  Seller says it's in excellent shape -- No moth damage. Just a little tear along one edge.

I love the colors:  Dark gray, white and pink.

 

And an interesting weaving pattern, too.  

• Is it Fox Crossing? 
• Or Dogwood Blossom? 
• Or 9 Stars and Table?

I'm still trying to identify the pattern, so if you see it and recognize it, please tell me!

 

If you are interested, check out Kentucky Coverlets by Lou Tate.  The fulltext is online via Arizona State University in their On-Line Digital Archive of Documents on Weaving and Related Topics.  You can flip through a number of named patterns.  Bookmark the AZ site for future reference.  It's a goldmine of weaving info!

When this coverlet arrived, I opened the package and hung it on the back of the couch so I could see it during the week (The getting-to-know-you phase.)  It's a lovely coverlet, and I do think the seller was right -- It is old, but very well cared for. 

It's not as soft as the first one I bought, which I think might be a much more recent merino or alpaca. 

It is sewn in 2 panels with a stealth center seam sewn down the middle.  There is no ridge where the panels meet.  The only way you can tell is that the pattern doesn't quite meet up as you would expect (This may be why most people who do overshot today make towels or other 1-panel items where they don't worry about the consistency of making the panels meet up properly.) 

The pieces came together quite nicely in that center seam where the panels joined up.  I'm calling this side the top side, because the overshot is in relief on this side.

Here's the flip side or back side, because this showcases the white tabby that makes the weave structure stable. 

Turns out, Carol Strickler, in American Woven Coverlets, says they DID have a variety of colors to work with back in the 1800s--including pink.  The black has a green cast to it -- which is much more visible in sunlight.

Lesson Learned: I decided to wash it.  If it really is 200 years old, that's a lot of dust making me cough when I'm near it.  I know how to wash wool items, and I knew I could guard against felting the wool fibers.  What I did not account for was the singles breaking under the stress of the spin cycle.  

OR ...  Black dye (This one has a slight green caste to it) is notoriously hard on fibers, and that could be the cause of damage.  They might have been fragile to start with, or it had been laying folded along that line which might also have added stress to the fibers.

Part of the reason for buying / collecting a few coverlets is so I can see them up close and study them in preparation for making one of my own.

 

Look at those lovely pink singles!  They have a little sparkle to them in person -- That was the reason I loved Patty Reedy's fleece at Rainbow Fleece Farm.  Her sheep / fleece had a luster to them that sparkled -- kind of like this does, in the right light.  It's hard to see it in these pictures, but trust me: It's there!  All these years, I've been plying the yarn I spin in effort to make it stronger, when I could have left them as singles in preparation for making a coverlet like this.  

The singles did plump up a bit after washing and drying -- as I would have expected. That only makes for a warmer coverlet, right? The wonders of wool!  [As a side note, I think the Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival 2022 is happening this weekend.  I have so much fiber waiting to be spun, that I dared not even try attending this year. ]

Even after washing, this coverlet is still in remarkably good shape, and still makes me happy to look at it.  And it's CLEAN now.

I soaked / washed it with the above Wool Wash (a product purchased at Fleet Farm used for livestock with woolly coats. As far as I can tell, it's the same ingredient, Sodium Laurel Sulphate, that is repackaged and sold as Orvus Quilt Paste Soap for a much higher price in smaller quantities.   Orvus Paste Shampoo is the equivalent now.  I don't see Show Paste Shampoo on their website now.  I'm sure I only paid something like $8-12 for this big bottle that has lasted me many years!

This shot compares the front to the back where the white dominates vs the pink and black.  

You can tell that the pink has faded a bit on the pink dominant side.  Is that sub fade?

I am beginning to understand that owning and caring for these antique textiles is a responsibility if I want them to survive for coming generations.  Then again, there is something to be said about USING beloved textiles--quilts included.

Here is the parade of additional pictures for your viewing pleasure:

 

The following shots are courtesy of the seller.  I wanted to keep them for documentation's sake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 My new love!

Watercolors from France: Still Life ed.

 

The waterlogued version of bowl of fruit.

 

 

Here is the original still life of a bowl of fruit randomly set up by our family friend Michelle DeBax in Toulouse, France.  This was part of a dinner party while we were visiting in the last few weeks.  

Just peaches and plums artfully placed.   And those plums were tasty! 

The Wicked Quilt Top: Yellow Brick Road in Black-White-Gray and Granny Apple Smith Green

 

The Wicked Quilt Top

This was a kit I found in my mom's stash.  I've never made a Yellow Brick Road Quilt, but I know she made several of them.  She had the fat quarters already cut into strips.  It did not take long to sew them into blocks, and then into the top.  This weekend, I added the borders.

Matching the stripes on the pieced border.

The striped fabric needed to be pieced to make the borders longer than the width of the fabric.  I wasn't quite sure how it would go ...  I folded and pressed 1 side of the strip as I would for making binding strips.  Then I matched the silver stripes on the front side and pinned it in place so I could sew the seam and keep those stripes pretty well matched.  It worked!   All 6 seams came out very close to perfect!  Or close enough!

Here's another photo outside, backlit by the sun.  Looks like stained class, except for the dark figure (my son) behind it!

Colors of Scotland

I ordered this 3/2 cotton Sherwood Forest warp from Blazing Shuttles.  She's an amazing Dyer who's been at it since the 1970s, so she's honed her craft well.  Usually her stuff sells almost as soon as she posts it to her shop website (or in live classes).  This set stayed up on her website longer than usual ...  [I get why she doesn't put much in her shop -- The documentation to post a product takes a lot of time and effort.  I have seen photos of her at her live workshops with tables piled high with painted warps.  I suspect that is where she sells most of her wares.  And many weavers have multiples of her warps in their stash.]

Fairy Glen by Gerry MacDonald Artist [Photo from here.]

The colors kept haunting me -- There was something familiar about it, and then I realized it reminded me of Fairy Glen on The Isle of Skye when we visited in May a few years ago.  Yes-- much more red than I expected.  Kind of like this Sherwood Forest Warp!   You don't really think of the rust / red as part of the Scottish landscape, but there it is ...

This photo does not show the colors as I remember them that day.  I seem to have lost a bunch of my own pics from that era.  Alive only in my memory now.  ;-(

I wanted to get a Blazing Shuttles Warp in part to study it:

• How far apart are her color intervals?  
• How do they move across the warp?
• How do the colors transition?
• What should I use for a companion warp?
• What weaving pattern should I use to highlight the warp (not lose it).

 

Holly's Feathered Star Quilt

Feathered Star Block-of-the-Month by Hoop Sisters

This is another one of my my mother's unfinished quilts.  I found the box last summer ...

It's the Feathered Star Embroidered Block-of-the-Month Quilt by The Hoop Sisters, from 2013 or so.  She'd taken a class about 8-9 years ago, and purchased a new and pricey embroidery machine to boot.   One with an extra large hoop.  I thought about finishing this project and learning to use the embroidery machine.  After a thorough search for said embroidery machine and the thumb drive containing the files, I have since decided that this is not the route I want to go with my sewing and quilting endeavors.  In truth, I don't have room for such a big machine at my house, nor all the extra stuff that goes with it.

Instead of finishing the remaining blocks as I originally considered, I have concluded that it's entirely appropriate to fill those spaces with the unfinished blocks, as that's a truer reflection of how far she got with it.  

I've been looking for a photo showing the back.  It's sort of a quilt-as-you-go with a special ruler to trim the front and back of the blocks so that they sew together with just the right amount of seam allowance, and then cover the seams on the back. 

The thing is: These blocks are very stiff.  It's embroidered / quilted so densely that the resulting quilt blocks are very stiff.  I'm not sure washing would help that.   It's not something I'd want to sleep under.  Probably better-suited to being a wall hanging.

Sigh!

I'll have to think about this a bit more ...  What to do next.   Maybe just put it back in the box to let it simmer a while longer ...

My friend Sheila asked a question in the comments about the piecing of this kind of embroidered quilt, so I'm adding a few more pictures to explain:

 

This is one of the in between / filler blocks.   The light and dark halves of the block are pieces in the embroidery hoop before the stitching is added on top.  

 

Here's a block unit that makes up one of the stars.  There is some fabric that is pieced onto the base block, but the actual teeth of the star are embroidered, not pieced as it would be in a traditional feathered star.

 

4 smaller blocks come together in quadrants to make up the full star block.  So in that respect, you are just piecing squares -- but it's tricky because it's bulky -- You are quilting as you go (QAYG).  You can see in this one, the seams don't line up exactly.  I tried one, and didn't do any better ...

 

Here's the back side, where you can see how the embroidered blocks come together.  

Basically, you trim the backing fabric very close, and stitch the top fabric together with only the top layers in the seam (no batting and no backing).

 

I'll have to figure out how to cover all those seams.

For reference, here are the videos and supporting material I could find on The Embroidered Feathered Star Quilt:

Hoop Sisters Feathered Star - Digital Download  [$189 - Yikes!  My mom already had the files from taking the class, so at least I didn't need to purchase it all over again.  It's more that I don't have the will or the interest to learn how, nor a ready and available teacher.  Even if I did, it would be a royal hassle to move the machine and all the supplies to a class, knowing I'd inevitability forget something important.  Then there's the amateur factor -- I don't want to go back to square one, making beginner mistakes.]

Hoop Sisters Feathered Star Videos - 

       * There are only a couple videos here. Not enough to really know what to do.

Hoop Sisters Feathered Star [Google search results]

Feathered Star Whole Cloth Wall Hanging - I Quilt Scarlet & Gray Blog

 

Apple chose to feature this photo of my mom on the calendar / sneak peak.  So in a sense, she was literally watching over my shoulder in the sewing room this afternoon.

Thanks, Ma!