There has been a lot of interest recently about how people store their finished quilts.
I am sharing how mine are stored on the bed in the studio. This has been a perfect way to store them.
As I put the quilts back on the bed in the studio this past summer I photographed them on the bed as I added each quilt. I did this so it would make it easier to find any particular quilt.
This shows the bed before I started layering on the quilts. You can see the trolleys under the bed with the small quilts. On the left in my antique treadle sewing machine, another story, another time.
This is a sampler quilt I started in the late 1970's. At that time there was a very limited selection of quilt fabrics available to us. There are only 5 different (3 different print patterns) fabrics in this quilt. It was done quilt as you go. The borders are cut and ready to add but this in not high on my priority list to finish, even though it won't take a lot of time.
This is a 1920's quilt. I became the custodian of this quilt top that my great Aunt Alma had pieced. I had it quilted by an anonymous Amish quilter. All it needs is a binding. I just need to find the correct fabric to bind it.
I also became custodian of this quilt top pieced by my paternal grandmother Matilda Gruenwald Koeper. She was the sister to my great Aunt Alma.
If you have seen Julie Silber's lecture "The Grandmother Connection" you have seen this quilt top. If you haven't seen Julie's lecture, book it for your guild or conference. It is probably my favorite quilt lecture of all time, not just because I am one of the featured quilters. You will love it. I found a quilter who's work I felt was the quality I wanted to do the quilting on this. She started the quilting, but had to stop when her wrists gave out. I am still searching for someone who can complete the quilting with the same quality of work.
Please stay tuned as there will be several more posts to complete the layering of the quilts on the bed.
If you look at both of these quilts it looks like the sisters shopped together or traded some fabrics. The bed that holds the quilts is an odd size antique East Lake Bed. It's close to 3/4 size but I had to have a special mattress made for it.
Over 45 years ago when we lived in Ohio I passed up a chance to buy one of these along with 4 crazy quilts for 25 cents at a country auction. I still kick myself about that.
I paid a whole $10 for this 30 years ago! We had it stripped and we refinished it.
I made this quilt in a class I taught "Quick Kid's Quillts". It turned out to be so much more than a simple kid's quilt.
This Amish Shadows quilt is one of several I have made.
Another Amish Shadows with blocks made at the same time. I didvided them into two groups. This was made from the group that contain yellows and golds in the blocks. The blocks in the previous one contained blues and roses.
This quilt also originated in the "Quick Kids Quilt Class". I call it Amish Pathways.
It uses a very unique color palette, even more unique when I created it.
Some of the quilts I have made are too large for the trolleys under the bed and yet not nearly bed size. This is a replication of an Amish Trip Around The World quilt.
Five Forever is the quilt I made for the Quilters' Express Trip to Japan competition.
It won first prize and was exhibited at the Yokohama Quilt Festival.
This Origami Bow Tie Quilt was so much fun to make.
Cubic Jubilee was made from hand dyed fabric gradations. It was a challenge to make, but turned out to be very successful.
Amish bricks is a replication of an Amish quilt. If you look closely you will see there are many variations of each color. It also has the appearance of a scrap quilt with so many different solid colors. There is color progression and contrast in this quilt. It is hand quilted.
This quilt was designed for a Mystery quilt weekend I offered. It is my adaptation of an antique quilt I saw somewhere. It is long and narrow like a hired man's quilt.
This started as an antique quilt top I purchased. I fell in love with it when I saw it. A friend who did some of the best hand quilting I have ever seen quilted it for me.
This is one of my early bed quilts. I had someone quilt it with a long arm machine.
This is actually a very large wall quilt I made for my husband's office. Since he retired it is either on this bed or hanging over the stairwell. It is a combination of commercial fabrics combined with the shaded hand dyed gray fabric. I dyed the fabric myself. I had hoped to use these photos to keep track of what layer a particular quilt was on to make it easier to find it. This worked for a while, but as many of them have been acquired by quilt collectors this no longer works to find them.
I do often change the order of them and maybe next time I need a new series of quilt turning photos.
