Baltimore Blues: Winter Migration

Winter Migration by Sharon Denney Parcel.

Pattern in McCall's Quilting magazine (Nov/Dec 2016 issue)

Sharon Denney Parcel made a lovely winter quilt from my latest reproduction fabric line called Baltimore Blues.

The pattern is in the magazine or you can download a digital pattern for $6.99 from McCall's site here:

http://www.quiltandsewshop.com/product/winter-migration-digital-pattern/just-arrived

You can also buy a kit for the top for $119 from the magazine:
http://www.quiltandsewshop.com/product/winter-migration-quilt-kit/just-arrived

Sharon has written a blog post featuring a technique for making the pinwheels inside the Martha Washington star in the blocks:

http://www.mccallsquilting.com/blogs/blog/2016/10/06/winter-migration-visit-sharon-parcel/

Make the quilt now. Put it on your bed in July when you could use an early frost.

Irish Chain Plus Chintz Border

Triple Irish Chain with an appliqued vine border.

1840-1890

Quilt styles change. Perhaps the biggest reason for change is interest in novel fabrics. In the 1840s calicoes seemed to grab every quilters' attention.

Block quilts of red and green were IT.

Replacing the old-fashioned taste for chintz and softer contrasts.

Shelburne Museum Collection:

Early-19th-century medallion with chintz borders.

Irish Chain quilt from Stella Rubin's shop

But sometimes it's hard to leave the past completely behind.

An up-to-date Irish Chain of green and red calicoes

with a very out-of- date chintz border.

From Julie Silber's Inventory

So there is a whole class of quilts---Irish Chains with chintz borders.

Double Irish Chain, possibly Maryland, circa 1820. 

International Quilt Study Center & Museum. 1997.007.0811

Online auction

Click here to see the whole quilt:

http://www.stellarubinantiques.com/items/1269557/item1269557sra.html

None of these is date-inscribed and they might go back to the 1820s, but I'd guess most are from the 1840s when red and green quilts became the rage. 

Although here is one dated "1850" by Mary T. Barnes in 

the collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

Change is hard. I just got a new phone.

Now I need a new purse.

Double Four Patches in Morris Earthly Paradise

Double Four Patch

Mid-19th-century.

The pattern is BlockBase #1103.

I figured out a free pattern for this period quilt.

The repeat is hard to see in the quilt above but it's simple.

Here it is

drawn up in EQ7.

It's two double four patches, a light and a dark.

Here they are shaded in my Morris Earthly Paradise fabrics with

a plain ivory Bella Solid.

The blocks are alternated and placed on point.

Earthly Paradise

90 x 90 inches

Double Four Patch blocks finishing to 8"

It looks complex but you can see it's just simple four-patches on point,

with complex shading.

Morris Earthly Paradise JellyRoll

For contrast a Bella Solid in very light.

Perhaps 2-1/2 yards?

And your favorite dark Morris print?

2-1/2 yards?

8331-15

Morris Earthly Paradise, 

Compton in Damask Black.

Cutting a large-scale print into 4-1/2" squares would provide a lot of variety.

Or just go to your Morris scrap bag.

Cutting an 8" finished Four Patch

To make the most of Moda Precuts for the four-patches.

Cut A - 4-1/2" square

Cut B - 2-1/2" square

Just keep sewing till you run out of fabric.

How big is it going to be?

You've got about 7-1/2  yards of fabric. (Jelly Rolls contain about 2-3/4 yards.) It should be full-bed size once you cut it all up into small pieces and sew it back together again.

Tessellating Patterns: Links

Three-sided shapes will tessellate.

Last year I blogged about tessellating designs for quilts---pattern that fills the surface with just one shape.

Six-sided shapes will tessellate

I also made some Pinterest pages on various categories. Here's an index to my series on Tessellations.

Just in case you wake up one morning and say: One Piece. That will simplify my life!

I started the series on this Material Culture blog.

Triangles

3-SIDED SHAPES TRIANGLES

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2015/08/tessellations-1-triangle-patterns.html

https://www.pinterest.com/blockbase/blockbase-one-patch-triangles/

Rectangles

4-SIDED SHAPES SQUARES, RECTANGLES, PARALLELOGRAMS ETC.

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2015/08/tessellations-2-four-sided-shapes.html

https://www.pinterest.com/blockbase/blockbase-one-patch-rectangles/

Tumblers

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2015/09/tessellations-3-irregular.html

https://www.pinterest.com/blockbase/blockbase-one-patch-miscellaneous-4-sided-figures/

Diamonds

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2015/10/tessellations-4-more-4-sided.html

https://www.pinterest.com/blockbase/blockbase-one-patch-parallelograms-diamonds/

Irregular 4-sided Shapes

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2015/11/tessellations-5-unusual-quadrilateral.html

Carol Gilham Jones: Sixty Degrees of Tessellation

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2015/11/tessellations-6-quadrilaterals.html

Mennonite Quilt from Stella Rubin's shop - 5 sided shape

5-SIDED SHAPES

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2016/01/tessellations-7-five-sided-shapes.html

8-sided shapes won't tessellate

7 & 8 SIDED SHAPES WON'T WORK

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2016/02/tessellations-8-what-wont-work.html

CURVED SHAPES

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2016/03/tessellations-9-curved-shapes.html

https://www.pinterest.com/blockbase/blockbase-one-patch-curves/

Hexagons have the most variations.

I did many posts on patterns with regular and irregular six-sided shapes.

6-SIDED SHAPES HEXAGONS

https://www.pinterest.com/blockbase/blockbase-tessellating-6-sided-shapes/

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2016/04/tessellations-hexagons-1-random-shading.html

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2016/05/tessellations-hexagons-2-rings-of.html

So many that I had to start a new blog because the pattern indexing was taking over the old blog.

The rest of these are on the CloudofQuiltPatterns blog.

http://encyclopediaquiltpatterns.blogspot.com/2016/06/tessellations-hexagons-3-medallions.html

http://encyclopediaquiltpatterns.blogspot.com/2016/06/tessellations-hexagons-4-medallions.html

http://encyclopediaquiltpatterns.blogspot.com/2016/06/tessellations-hexagons-5-long-hexagons.html

http://encyclopediaquiltpatterns.blogspot.com/2016/07/tessellations-hexagons-6-diamond-field.html

http://encyclopediaquiltpatterns.blogspot.com/2016/07/tessellations-hexagon-7-repeated-star.html

Framed Hexagon Sets

Quilters' Guild Collection at York UK

See all their mosaic patchwork here:

http://www.quiltmuseum.org.uk/collections/mosaic-patchwork/all/1700-2016/

Time to get those Morris Hexagons set together.

That's Nancy's top. Don't scorch it!

More ideas:

Hexagon blocks can be framed with other hexagons.

By Mrs. H.D. Moore, Stevens County, Minnesota

Long hexagons...

About 1880

From the Michigan Project & the Quilt Index

Or really long hexagons

About 1900 from Cumberland County, Pennsylvania

The green pieces here are strips cut with 60 angles at the end,

like long hexagons.

For our Morris Hexathon blocks the sides would finish to 4".

The shape can be squat or long.

Godey's Lady's Book showed the pattern in 

September, 1854

and the Ladies's Art Company sold a pattern about 1890

called Brunswick Star,

which may have been the source for this quilt

from about the same time.

The Kansas City Star called it Golden Circle Star in the 1930s.

Elizabeth Hartman's book cover

You can also add seams to the frames.

Add a triangle in the corners, about 1920.

About 1970

Same concept, shorter and stubbier frame---

it's a rectangle and a triangle.

Deborah's Sushi Roll from a class with Lee Fowler.

Triple frames.

More triple frames, vintage quilt.

Dutch Stars & Hexagons

Or piece the frame out of hexagons and diamonds as AdyQuilts did for her copy of an antique Dutch quilt.

See the whole wonderful quilt here:

https://slowquilting.wordpress.com/2013/05/18/firs-post/