Vintage Modern Monday

This week I decided to look at quilts specifically.  I’m inspired by women that used to sit and hand sew big quilts. My great-grandmother Waggoner made a wonderful around the world quilt.  My grandmother had it on her bed in the guest room.  As a little girl I would sit and just look at it, follow the blocks around, and usually found a new print that I had not seen before.  Thank goodness my grandmother kept her mother’s hand sewn pieces, I have them put away in my sewing room.  Wish I had inspiration to do something with them.

Wonder how old these actually are?

Can you imagine the time that it took?  Then again they didn’t have TV, internet, Facebook, 60 hour a week jobs to get in their way.  They lived very different lives from us even just 80+ years ago.  How many of us had home ec in school?  We did very limited sewing in the class, mostly cooking.  Luckily my grandmother had taught me to sew long before the class.  It was very boring for me.  Imagine what those women could do with all of the technology we have now.

Sewing Machine Quilting

 

                                                                                           
Spring 1980 edition.

 

For a couple of summers my mom and her friend would go to estate sales and auctions for fun.  Sometimes they would find wonderful old fabric stashes, patterns, pieces, etc.  This had to be my favorite…it was filled with fabric.  My mom’s friend gave it to me as a college graduation gift, I thought it was perfect.

In case you didn't already know it is a suitcase.

So how did we get to what we call Modern?  What can we learn from previous trends and create something new?  Found this great history that I recommend you spend some time reading.

http://www.bluebirdgardens.com/?realm=Quilts&page=Quilts%20History

Found these quilts on Etsy.  Fitting that one is an Around the World, I found this before I started writing the post.

Vintage Modern Monday

Indianapolis Modern Quilt Guild met on Saturday and we have some wonderful ideas coming up through out 2011.  The Indiana State Museum in hosting an exhibit to look at the history of Indiana quilts.  This sparked an idea…what if we did something Vintage Modern.  The word traditional is not really welcomed.

We are hoping to make some pieces inspired by the phrase Vintage Modern and showcase them during a First Friday later in the year.  Here is something that I found that may invoke some inspiration.

Reminds me of a skinny version of the dresden plate.