I can’t believe how much of a roll I am on with this quilt, I think because I am over (well over) the half way mark I feel like I just want to race to the finish line.  That sounds just a teeny bit ‘sporty’ and I am not the least bit sporty…

I’d rather be sewing/reading/or having a tooth pulled than running with a ball.

I have completed a previously prepared block.

Block H7

The fabric in the Flowers and Berries is a favourite Mary Koval fabric which has been in my stash for several years.

I have only a small amount of the red but lots in the blue colourway.

Treasures Uncovered by Mary Koval pattern #25830

I do get excited when I see a very well done reproduction of an old fabric and the red is a brilliant example.

This one's the real deal

When I met Mary and we talked fabrics she told me that she does like to change things just a little sometimes to personalise it and you can see here she has changed a colour in the rectangle shape from blue to green and one pair of dots is black instead of blue.  The scale is altered too (but not too much), but in essence it’s the same fabric. You can click all the photo’s to enlarge for a better look

The reason I chose this fabric for a Maltaville Quilt block, and I’ve got enough for a couple more blocks, is that it comes from a quilt made in 1848 (dated) so only a year after the Maltaville’s date.

The quilt, which that piece of fabric above comes from, is a signature hexagon friendship quilt from Shepherdstown, West Virginia and dated at 1848.  The block above includes the inscription Remember me White cottages.  The quilt forms part of the quilt collection in the  American Museum in Bath, England.

I have drafted and prepped three more blocks.

The blocks which I can prepare in one hit are my favourite, I can zoom along with those, maybe take it to quilting and finish a block in an evening.

Block E1

I have introduced a new fabric in this block above …oh really, that’s not like you

The blue is an RJR Smithsonian fabric from the Rising Sun Quilt, pattern Woodlands # 2209-2 and the brown a Jo Morton fabric which I used in the tree trunk of the bird block.

Some blocks have to be prepped in stages and this is one of those, I do these ones at home in the evenings so I can sew a few leaves then add another layer.

Block C2

You probably can’t tell yet but it’s the Iris block.  I have repeated the madder fabric used in the Saturn block A4 as I hadn’t used it again so far and it’s a fave.

Last but not least I have prepped H2

Block H2 in progress

With this block I am trying something new to me, the circle in the top corner will be a star.  I just want to see if this method is going to work for me so only have one star attached at the mo.

The method was featured on Barbara Brackman’s Material Culture site a few weeks ago here and I am keen to give it a go, it seems a lot easier as long as we don’t get too hung up about ‘perfect’ stars.  The stars in the original of H2 look like they were done sans template so it seemed the best block to try it out.

Yesterday I took a rare midweek day off, I was meeting an interstate cousin in Melbourne for dinner and decided it would be a good chance to do a couple of long planned city things beforehand.  At the last minute I asked Jennifer if she wanted to come too as one of the places on my list was the Melbourne Museum and I know it was on her list too.

I took photo’s of the early 20th century Australian domestic handcrafts on display, and I was interested to compare them to the New Zealand items I have seen from that era, we were a patriotic lot with King and Country featured heavily on both sides of the Tasman.

I’ll prepare a post shortly about it.

I am going to Quilts in The Barn this coming Sunday and am looking forward to seeing Jo Morton’s quilts and catching up with friends, please say Hi if you see me.

1848 Quilt original fabric references sourced from: Classic Quilts from The American Museum In Britain, Laura Beresford and Katherine Hebert, Curators. Scala Publishers Ltd 2009 pp 52, 53.

www.scalapublishers.com

www.americanmuseum.org

Stop press:

Getting ahead of myself, Quilts In the Barn is not this coming weekend but the following one, the 2nd-4th September (thanks Irene xx)