Vintage Made Modern

This month's Island Batik Ambassador challenge was to be inspired by a vintage quilt. I admit, I struggled to find inspiration! A few weeks ago when I was hunting for just the right inspiration, my mom purchased a box of quilt paraphernalia at a flea market in Kansas. It turned out, this box was a quilter's personal collection of patterns and homemade templates from the 1930s! She sent me a stack of the patterns in hopes it would be just the ticket - and it was!

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The patterns my mom sent me were actual newspaper clippings from the Kansas City Star newspaper from 1932-1937. The quilter had carefully cut the patterns from the newspaper, and I am shocked at the remarkable condition they are still in!

The back of the quilt patterns are just as exciting to read! On the back of the Double Nine Patch pattern that is dated 1932, an article states there is less than a week in the primary campaign, and Governor Woodring and Alf M. Landon will likely get the Democratic and Republican nominations for state governor. On the back side of a Square and Half Square block pattern dated 1933 are recipes for Pumpkin Custard and Pepper Relish. On the back of a Railroad Crossing block pattern dated 1935, there's a graph showing that one person in every seven in the US is receiving emergency relief funds from the federal government. Another pattern dated 1935, The Churn Dash Quilt, has an article on the reverse about how livestock owners in the 5-state drought area affected by the dust bowl can receive emergency relief feed for their cattle. The Four Pointed Star pattern dated 1937 has a rather humorous (to me) article titled "The Groundhog is Wrong." The paragraph reads: "Exploding the groundhogs' reputation as a weather forecaster, Mrs. Blanche Grieve of Portis, Kas., reported she had kept detailed records for the last twenty-five years on his prognostications. The groundhog saw his shadow sixteen years of the twenty-five and in almost every instance was completely wrong about the weather for the next six weeks."

I sorted the newspaper patterns by what I considered "time consuming" and "doable." Then I got out my stash of Island Batik fabrics to see what was "modern." Since this is my second year as an ambassador, I do have a bit of a stash of fabric that Island Batik has sent me! I had scraps of multiple whites, purples, pinks, and teals that I thought coordinated nicely. Most are from their basics, blenders, and neutrals.

Once I chose the fabrics, I was able to quickly pick the "Jacob's Ladder" pattern as being a good fit. The pattern has the text: "This pattern is the gift from Miss Evelyn Baster, a quilt fan. It is a new expression of a very old theme, Jacob's Ladder, attractive in any two colors." The pattern states Copyright, The Kansas City Star, 1934. The back of the pattern has prices of hogs, poultry, and wheat.

I used my Electric Quilt software to create the Jacob's Ladder block and play around with settings and fabric placement. After playing a bit, I found a design that I really loved!

Here, I've outlined the original block so you can see how I recolored and rearranged some of the pieces to create the quilt design.

Some of my fabrics scraps were two small to use for this design, and most of the white ended up being from the same fabric instead of as scrappy as I planned. But a bit of creative cutting and compromise allowed me to continue with my design. (Using only the fabric I have on hand is sometimes the biggest challenge of all!)

I stitched up the half square triangles (HSTs) and trimmed them using my sheetrock tape-ruler hack. (I really need to post a tutorial on that! It makes trimming HSTs super quick and easy!)

After chain piecing the four patches, I laid out the blocks on my temporary design wall (just a cheap vinyl table cloth).

I love this shot of the morning sun highlighting what it looks like behind the seams!

I pin basted the quilt on our dining room table and auditioned thread colors for quilting. (Shown here are Aurifil 50wt threads in Medium Lavender #2540, #2455 Medium Carmine Red, and Light Jade #1148.) The batting is Warm & Natural by The Warm Company.

Then I completely changed my mind and went with Aurifil 50wt thread in Shining Green #5017 for a bit more color and contrast.

You know I like to try new things, so I decided it was time to try spiral quilting!

I printed a spiral from my computer with spacing between the lines equal to the guide on my walking foot - about 3/4". Then I used my Hera marker to trace the lines onto the quilt sandwich.

I used the walking foot on my Juki TL-2010Q domestic machine to quilt the spiral. I dizzy quite easily, and this type of quilting did affect me a small bit!

The center was quite challenging to get the lines to appear straight and not wavy. Next time, I think I'll cut my printed spiral on the lines, then use a disappearing ink pen to draw along the cut edge to get a more precise line to follow.

Once the spiral got bigger, it was much easier to quilt and the wavy-ness of the lines was much less noticeable.

Once quilted, I used 2 1/4" binding and stitched it on by machine.

The back is an Island Batik basics fabric called "Peony." It's not a perfect match to the front, but it was the most colorful Island Batik fabric that I had more than a yard of!

I love the finished quilt! It's 40" square - a great baby quilt size!

I also love the spiral quilting! It went super fast and is definitely something I'll do again.

The vintage pattern gave a diagram and had two templates for cutting. I made it modern by using a computer to test fabric placement, using bright fabrics, rotary cutting, the two-at-a-time HST method, chain piecing, machine piecing, machine quilting, and machine-stitched binding. I do appreciate all things vintage, but I'm very thankful for the advances of modern quilting!

Be sure to watch the Island Batik Facebook page for more ambassador projects inspired by vintage quilts!

Linking up with Linky Tuesday at Freemotion by the River, Let's Bee Social at Sew Fresh Quilts, Wednesday Wait Loss at The Inquiring Quilter, Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication, and Needle & Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation.

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