VTT: feedsacks, vintage fabric, cigar boxes

 
I am joining Coloradolady this week for Vintage Thingy Thursday. See what other people are sharing - click on the icon above. Suzanne has the discovered the fun of feedsacks!

Above: two pieces of vintage fabric.  Below: two feedsacks. Purchased at Brimfield.

I recently attended the Brimfield Antique Show at Brimfield, Mass.,  famous in dealer and collector circles.  There are a number of fields where vendors set up their tents in the front, and people park in the back.  There are many antiques, and a bit of junk also!  Let the dealing begin!  I bought a number of feedsacks, and  3 cigar boxes, probably not really vintage:

The box on the bottom is a de Rothschild cigar box, but it's just too shiny in the camera flash, so I cropped it.

It was so much fun, just looking! It was a great time with my mom and my aunt.  As ColoradoLady points out, there is quite a bit of fabric in these feedsacks - they are often 38 by 46 or 47 inches, so more than a yard of fabric.  The weave is coarser than most quilting cottons, but quite usable.  Sugar sacks used a finer weave fabric. Mine did not have paper labels attached.  I have already cut  into my feedsacks (gasp! yes) and the vintage fabric for pieces for my Whirling Stars quilt.  The red fabric above will be used for the border.  I have featured feedsacks before for VTT, and here I go again.  Do you have something you just have to collect?

Editted to add: I'm also linking in to My Cottage Charm Treasures and Trinkets Thursday.

PS. Next week: doll tea sets! Oh No!

Viridian

Whirling Stars: 6 blocks done

The progress is slow but sure. I have 6 blocks done, including the applique of the yellow circle in the middle. Here's what they look like right now.

I described the beginning of this project in this post.

It seems like I have been sewing SO many pieces of vintage fabric and unbleached muslin together, and to only have 6 blocks done? Stay the course, quilter!

The block to block setting is the same as in my vintage quilt, and in the pattern I am using, which is in the book Feedsacks! by Edie McGinnis.

To me the blocks look a bit busy put this close together so I may separate then by muslin sashing. I am also thinking of red cornerstones. Then the triangles and cornerstones will make a shoo-fly block. Interesting.

viridian

Whirling Star: New Project

As if I need a new project. But it's going to be a beautiful quilt.

First, I'll start with a vintage quilt that has seen better days. This was one of my very first purchases from ebay, lo these many years ago.

A somewhat unusual pattern, very energetic, and very bright with the red and green. The red fabric is weak though and is breaking. Certain other fabrics are weak too, wearing so much that there are holes in the top. Doesn't matter, I use this quilt almost every night.

Next: about a year ago, I bought a book on feed sacks (of course!) that also had patterns in it for recreating some classic 30's and 40's quilts.

Feed-sacks! by Edie McGinnis has some good information on feedsacks (not sentimental mishmash) and some projects I didn't care for, but also this:
A detailed pattern for my quilt! I've stared at this for a while now and I have decided that this summer is the time. As with my nosegay quilt (see this post) I have decided to use real feedsack fabric, vintage cotton scraps, whatever I have on hand. It helps that I recently purchased two box lots of mixed scraps of cotton and feedsack off ebay.
I could use reproduction fabric - but somehow the fabrics are too pretty and it wouldn't look right. Actually I am probably buying the pretty fabric, leaving behind the browns, navies, plaids etc.
I am using reproduction red for the corners, keeping with the theme of red in my old quilt. I am using new unbleached muslin, and yellow for the centers, so each block looks like a flower. Here is the first finished block.

This pattern finishes at 12 inches. In my vintage quilt, each block is 9 inches square.
I am excited by how this project is developing. I think I have enough vintage and new fabric to finish a lap quilt for sure, probably a single bed quilt.
So, alas, the nosegay wall hanging, the bunkhouse quilt - they are newly created UFO's (unfinished objects) - for now.
I'll post more as I get more blocks done.
Viridian