eBay -- part 1

I don't have The Right Stuff for eBay auctions. They require patience, determination & a skill that I just don't have. I have a won few auctions, but mostly they go like this:

• I see a newly listed item I like. I bid the seller's minimum, put in my maximum & wait.
•  In the next few days, I am the only bidder. I start congratulating myself for being a smart eBay buyer -- not only will get this thing, but I will get it for a bargain price!
• A few more days & I am still the only bidder. I convince myself that I am the only person who wants this thing. I also convince myself that I want this thing more than anything in the world.
• At the last minute -- & I mean The. Very. Last. Minute. -- someone sweeps in & out-bids me. *My* beloved treasure will be going to live with someone else. I am heartbroken.

So, as a rule, I stay away from eBay. But sometimes I need to look at quilts & eBay is a good place to see a wide spectrum of quilts. Recently, I was scrolling through the listings & came across one that really grabbed me: a simple double 4-patch top set with a variety of solids. It was nearing the end of its auction period & no one had bid on it. So I did, but with little expectations. In the remaining days, no one else did bid, so I actually won it! A few days later, it arrived in the mail.

I am delighted! It is so charming! I would guess it to have been made in the late 20s to early 30s. Such a variety of prints, plaids, stripes & solids! As usual, I wish it could tell me its story. In those days when money was so tight, why didn't the maker finish it? Some of the tiny 4-patch squares are pieced! And where did the maker get all those different fabrics? A garment factory that sold scraps, maybe? Anyway, it is keeping its secrets & I am left to wonder & fall in love.

We now return to my regularly scheduled life.

My weeks of frenzied activity at work were followed by a half-week of intense & long-overdue cleaning at home. Then came the arrival of friends from overseas & 2 days at the Quilt Festival, followed by sight-seeing with the friends. Quilt Festival was fun. The exhibit hall was a mess -- construction inside & out, but that didn't hurt the beauty of the quilts. Inspiring -- and exhausting. The pedometer on my phone said I walked more than 13 miles over the days I was there. I didn't just walk, I also bought an insane amount of fabric. Trainers, forget the medicine balls & free weights, do you know how heavy fabric is!?! I'll say I bought the fabric to increase the efficacy of my walking workout.
You're buying this, right?
No?
Well, I can't tell you why I bought so much fabric. 'Because it was there' is the best I can come up with. Alluring stacks & bundles of pretty colors, all now trying to find a place in my bursting stash.

I also got another quilt top -- very cute & cheap -- my main criteria for vintage quilts & tops. A bright, cheery wagon wheel made in the late 50s to early 60s. It is small & I am thinking of finishing it up with big-stitch hand quilting. Across the aisle from my cute, cheap top was a finished quilt that was beautiful & not exactly cheap. It was slightly older than my top, probably mid-50s, a log cabin all made in cotton sateen solids with a few sateen prints added in, hand-pieced & hand-quilted. With the seller's permission, I took some photos, hoping images of this beguiling quilt would be enough. But I kept finding myself in the neighborhood -- just visiting, you know, admiring it. Then I found myself asking the seller if she would take any less.

Now, a chance to catch my breath. And to enjoy my purchases.

Pinterest

I know you know about Pinterest. Maybe you have your own pin boards or maybe you do like I did, lurk & look at the boards of others. I was resistant to starting my own -- I knew what an enormous time-suck Pinterest can be. I could imagine sitting down with my morning coffee, checking in to see what was new; the next thing I would realize would be that my coffee was cold, my feet were asleep & the sun was setting. But I succumbed & drank the Pinterest kool aid (you can find the recipe on Pinterest!). At first, it was almost as bad as I had imagined -- I never actually wasted the *entire* day, but I certainly squandered quite a few hours. I had no idea about the social aspect of Pinterest -- a pinner can send pins to friends, chat, comment, etc. Then there is the curiosity of finding someone, a stranger, whose tastes are very similar to your own & wondering, "Would I like this person? Would this person like me?"

Anyway.

Work has been keeping me from what I love -- no cutting, no piecing, no quilting. I've hardly sewn a stitch in weeks. I get home physically spent. Evenings, I eat some dinner (thanks, Shug!), then sit in front of the television & scroll through Pinterest. Scrolling one evening, I saw a charming, scrappy plaid quilt & pinned it to my "I want to make that" board. A few days later, a Pin Pal commented on it, which caused me to look again & more closely at it. Yes, it really was glorious! The source of the pin was eBay, so I clicked through to see more details. There it was, a buy-it-now listing & a really good price. A few clicks more & about a week later, this glorious quilt was mine!

As always, I wish this quilt could talk. The fabrics are old but the quilt is brand new -- never used, never washed. At first, I wondered if it had been recently finished with true-to-the-era backing & binding. There are a few fabrics in the patchwork that make me scratch my head, like the larger-scale florals & a neon orange, but most are clearly from the early 20th century. It is pieced & quilted by hand; the quilting is simple straight lines in one direction -- except on two opposite sides, in a of row of blocks, there is perpendicular quilting. The backing is four plain feed sacks machine-stitched together & here are where the "problems" are: several dark, smeary stains. Blood? Did these stains spoil the quilt for the maker, leaving it unfinished, unused?

All I can do is wonder & fall passionately in love with this glorious quilt!

Pandora's closet

Actually, not Pandora's closet, just my closet.
It doesn't contain the ills of the world, but it does contain a LOT.

In the corner of my sewing room there is a piece of furniture that was formerly used as a chair. It is now the base of a mountain of fabric, quilt tops & backs, basted quilt sandwiches & more fabric. I was rather hoping to return it to its original function, so I began tidying. I gathered things I was not going to get to any time soon; I pushed towards completion several things that were teetering on the brink of being done. It is very subtle, the uninitiated eye might not see the difference, but I think there is a slight decrease in amount of chaos in the room. (Though the chair is still not a chair.)

When I was rearranging things in the closet, I pulled out a summer, battling-less & backless, quilt that my Mom bought for me many years ago. Sadly, I don't well remember the details of when or where she got it. I have a vague recollection that she found it at a neighborhood garage sale, sometime since Shug & I have been married. I also vaguely remember not being all that pleased with it -- the appliquéd ladies were not my style &, at the time, I was not fond of the fabrics. But I love it now & wish I could thank my Mother for getting it for me.
Thanks, Mom, I love it! And I love you!

When I'm gone

Recently, Joe Cunningham wrote a post about being asked by the husband of a quilting friend to come help deal with things in her quilting studio. The friend had not died, but was in nursing care with Alzheimer's disease & would never again make a quilt. Very sad in itself, but really, truthfully, there will come a time when each of us will be physically or mentally unable to continue doing our passion. The hard fact is: that's Life. In the comments, many offered sympathy for the disappearance of his friend, ideas for how to deal with her things & commiseration on all our eventualities when the contents of our quilting rooms would need to be dispersed. But the thing I found so sad was among the comments: one woman said she now only made quilts that she thought her children & grandchildren would like to inherit, not "following her muse" & it had taken the joy from her quilt-making. Now that is just tragic!

Shug & I have 3 nieces & a nephew, all sweet fans of their Aunt's quilts. In a way, this simplifies things for me -- that is, I don't expect my quilts to be absorbed by them. I'm sure they will each take some -- to use, to display, just for sentiment -- but I'm certain some will end up being sold & scattered to the winds.

I'm OK with that! Because I am also certain there will be someone like myself who will happen upon one of my quilts & it will speak to them: "This would make great dog bedding." "This would be useful to keep in the car for emergencies." "This would make a cute picnic blanket." "This would go perfectly in the guest room." "This would look beautiful on the family room wall." *Someone* will love & adopt my quilts like I love & adopt quilts. They will never know who made it, maybe wonder about me, but my quilt will be at home in their home.

To whit, my latest adoption: this sweet, simple log cabin. I would guess it dates to the late 40s to early 50s. There are a few feed sack fabrics, a flannel, a pique & quite a few woven plaids & stripes. It is hand-quilted, has a grass-green backing. I can't tell what's in the middle of this quilt sandwich, not batting, maybe flannel, maybe nothing (though the weight suggests something).
I really could not love it more.

Groovy, baby

I found this little lap-sized quilt on Etsy & quickly snapped it up. It's from the 1960s, one of the decades in which not many quilts were made. The pattern is a simple rail fence. But the fabrics! Besides being bright, most of the prints have a woven texture. I think it is lots of fun & very groovy!

if quilts could talk

I suspect that many people, both quilters & non-quilters, have happened upon a well-loved, home-y -- maybe a little homely -- quilt or top at an antique shop, thrift store, garage sale & been moved by its sweet nature & good price to buy it. Someone didn't love it, but something about it speaks to us so much so that we do & want give it a Forever Home. I've had the very good fortune to have inherited quite a few quilts & tops, but still, I've brought home quite a few more.

My most recent addition I got at this year's Quilt Festival -- a mid-20th century string top. The strings are stitched to cloth foundation squares. Many of the foundations are coarse white cotton -- probably sacking of some sort. But there are also a few prints & some pink rayon squares (smart, I thought, the rayon gives a base for the string sewing without adding much bulk or stiffness). I had thought it was all machine made, but closer inspection showed there are quite a lot of hand-sewn squares, maybe more than machine-sewn ones. And the hand-stitches are nice & small, suggesting a skilled needle-person (probably a woman, but you never know).

And the fabrics! WOW! Everything is here! There are solids, florals, printed & woven plaids, stripes wide & narrow; coarse sacking, fine sheeting, seersucker, pique, twill & one that might be silk. In the prints we see flowers, fruit, birds, teddy bears, Mother Goose characters, cowboys, palm fronds, dots, buttons, fish, houses, Mickey Mouse & friends, a parade, a girl at a soda fountain & deep sea divers! There are more than one color way of at least two prints. My guess is that most of the fabrics are from the late 1940s to early 1950s. But there are some muted prints that make me wonder if they are from the 1920s & a bold pique that could be from the 1960s. I really wish it could tell me where & how its maker got so many fabrics!

Making this top into a quilt will hide its inner story, but I suppose by documenting it here, it will live on. Quilt historians say that a quilt is as old as the youngest fabric in it, so if I do finish this top, I will bring it in the early 21st century. The backing I assembled is two fabrics -- one I found in my parents' house, a butterfly stripe from the early 1960s, some stripes cut away to embellish play clothes made for me by my Mom. The other is a big hunk I got at a Big Box store. I think I want to hand quilt it, big stitch next to the string seams -- so it will be a long-term project. But no hurry! And I really want to spend some time with these fabrics.