A New Old Quilt for Valentine's Day

It was last week when I completed the last stitch in the new binding around this restored 1880s quilt.  I've been celebrating by sleeping under it each night. Because of its wool batting, it's nice and warm.

Here's the finished quilt on the bed.  I made pillow cases out of muslin with a matching 2 inch red stripe to match.  I think I'll make another set using the green fabric.

When I first started working on this quilt many of the blocks looked like this, but this one was the worst.

So the next generation of the family knows what has happened to this quilt I printed a rather lengthy history on fabric and sewed it onto the back.  If you want to read what I said, it follows below:

Harvey Family

Red and Green Tulip Basket Quilt

85 x 102 inches

There are no family stories or oral history about this quilt, but there has been some discussion of who might be the original maker.  As a young girl I remember that this quilt was displayed on the brass bed in the bedroom on the main floor of the Harvey Cottage at Winona Lake, IN.  In the late 1960’s it was a beautiful quilt but in great need of repair.

In September of 2013 I began the task of repairing it. On January 2, 2015 I placed my last stitches in the binding. This was a labor of love.

The original white background fabric had beautiful hand stitching worth preserving, but the red and green fabrics were in terrible condition. The green had so many holes in it, I could just pinch and pull it off the quilt. I re-appliqued brand new matching red and green fabrics over each block and the outer border. 

There were numerous little holes in the white areas, both on the front and the back. I appliqued new muslin patches over these areas to give the quilt more stability. As I worked I marked the areas that needed to be re-quilted, and that was all stitched by hand. A new binding was sewn right over the original binding to protect the fragile edges. 

This quilt has now been transformed into a beautiful piece, the layout of the blocks, the hand quilting and the contrast of the fabrics is stunning. I’m glad that I was able to preserve it for future family members.

A quilt historian told me that this tulip quilt was probably made in the 1880s. I’d like to think that my Great Grandmother Nancy C. Harvey (1870-1959) sat around a quilt frame with her four sisters: Belle, Alice, Lida and Madge Culbertson, to finish it for her wedding in 1891. There were many hands that stitched on this quilt, some were the original stitchers and some probably sat on the porch to make repairs in more recent years.

Inside the quilt is wool batting and I know that they had sheep on the Culbertson Farm in southern Indiana. The wool fibers had to be carefully placed on the underside of the top to give it loft and warmth.

Ann Harvey Fahl,

Quilt artist and family historian

Happy Valentine's Day.

Thinking about the Label

Every time I finish a quilt, I make a big ceremony of creating a label for the back.  It's true I didn't make this Red and Green Tulip, but I have put in considerable effort into restoring it.  What should I include on this label?

It would be nice to have a little story about the quilt, where it came from and who fixed it etc. But that would make a pretty big label!  Usually, I iron a piece of treated fabric onto freezer paper and send it through my printer. After pressing it, I sew on a border, sometimes add some embroidery, and sew it on the quilt back.

Here are the stkr.it packages

Something came across my desk in October that has presented another idea for the label.  It includes a QR code, which connects a person to a website that includes all the information.  I haven't played with this yet, but it is a great idea for quilts given as gifts.  What is it?

They are called Story Patches.  More information can be found here. I now have a smart phone with a qr code reader so I'll play with it a little bit and report back to you.  Each label is: 

• Modestly priced
• Either a sew-on or an iron-on patch
• Incorporate the patch on a quilt label on the back or in your patchwork on the front!
• Available in black, blue, green, pink and red
• Attach audio, photos, messages and videos about the quilt
• Use your imagination there are many possibilities for their use
• www.stkrit.com
• contact@stkr.it

On the left you can see the sew-in label.

Ask your quilt shop to carry them. Let me know how you like them. I do have some questions about the lifetime of the product. They suggest hand washing or machine washing inside out. You may sew on the outside edge of the label, but no through the code itself.  But how long will your message be stored online?  Will it be there when your great grandchildren read the code?  Or will they even know what it is?

I'd like feedback from those of you that have used them. They seem like a wonderful idea for making a more personal label.

Still sewing red and green tulips.

Ann Fahl