Antique/Vintage Quilts from the American Quilt Study Group Display and My Favorite Finds at Quilt Market and Quilt Festival

Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

I’m still in Quilt Market/Festival mode and boy, have I got some goodies to show you today, including another slide show of quilts! I’d like to point out that this demonstrates how far-reaching and important Quilt Market and Festival really are — it literally takes weeks to “unpack” your brain afterwards. That can include looking through literature from companies, sifting through all your goodies, contacting new contacts, making connections about orders or new projects, and so much more. I am most definitely still decompressing from Market and Festival. Whoah! Squirrel……….

American Quilt Study Group Display

One of my favorite quilt displays at Market and Festival this year was by the American Quilt Study Group (AQSG). The display had a wonderful title — “Every Quilt Tells a Story”. It was a really interesting display with quilt examples ranging from the 1850’s up to circa 1980 — that’s one really broad stroke in quilt history! Some of my favorites on display were the double knit polyester quilts, believe it or not! I’ve always wanted to adopt a double knit quilt because the whole idea of working with such fabric always fascinated me.

As many of you know, my personal roots in quilt-making began with collecting antique and vintage textiles long before I taught myself to quilt after I graduated from college. I came to quilting through the side door, so to speak. Quilting, for me, was a perfect merger of my love of the antique and vintage as well as history and textiles. And OH THE STORIES our quilts could tell us….

So, this display was very near and dear to my heart. I even managed to be in the right place at the right time and participated in a quilt walk talk. It was great to hear more about each quilt as well as the collector/owner.

And while I was there, I even joined AQSG! I’m excited to learn more about my own textile collection and to see how I can contribute to the AQSG existing body of knowledge. You can learn more about the AQSG (and how to join) HERE.

Without further ado, here’s the slide show showing the quilts I was particularly drawn to. Again, please note the quilt information is the slide after the quilt.

Pretty awesome, huh? Which one was your favorite?

Speaking of antique and vintage quilt stuff, let me show you some of my favorite finds at Market and Festival.

Favorite Market and Festival Finds

Probably my most special find was Harold the antique quilt with the opened feed bags for a backing. Did you miss my story, “The Quilt that Followed Me Home”? You can find it HERE.

Then there’s the HUGE collection of antique and vintage Orphan blocks I found at 3 different antique quilt vendors — Quilts From Mulberry Lane, Tenny Roche Vintage, and Legacy Quilts . I can’t wait to play around with these….

Speaking of antique and vintage quilty stuff, I also found this incredible piece of Hawaiian quilting at the Lavender and Old Lace Co booth. It is hand-appliqued and completely hand-quilted. Maybe it was going to be a pillow square? Who knows? There probably isn’t any way to find out how old it is because it’s a solid red on muslin, but it definitely isn’t recent. It had a wide red silky blanket binding applied with some kind of fusible product all around the edges. The blanket binding pulled right off, but it did leave some red staining here and there. Ho hum, just part of the piece’s history. I plan to square it up, bind it in a vintage red fabric, add a hanging sleeve on the back, and a label. I don’t know the name of the block yet, but I will enjoy doing some research into Hawaiian quilting.

Of course, I had loads of fun shopping in our very own VRD booth! Being that I live in PA and the VRD quilt shop is located in CA, it was kind of like visiting the shop (at least a mini mobile one). I grabbed a couple kits I’d had my eye on — Pascali and Picture Perfect.

It’s your lucky day, too — we still have kits left for both patterns!

Pascali in True Blue HERE

Or maybe you’d just like the Pascali pattern? Physical Pascali HERE, Digital Pascali HERE

Picture Perfect in California Parks (the one I bought) HERE

Picture Perfect in Dwell in Possibilities HERE

Or maybe you’d just like Molly’s Picture Perfect pattern? Physical Picture Perfect HERE, digital Picture Perfect HERE

I spent time during Festival helping Molly and Heidi to keep the half and full yards of fabric organized in the plastic bins. I had never seen (or felt) the Charley Harper fabrics up close and personal before now. The fabric was so smooth and silky and the images so colorful and crisp!

Of course, after handling it for days, I just had to take my first Charley Harper fabrics home. It was hard to decide which fabrics to start with, so I ended up putting together a winter collection, a fall collection (’tis the seasons…..), and the last photo shows 2 random prints I fell in love with. It was really fun to mix and match the prints from different collections together. I am looking forward to creating a new VRD pattern (you know, in the next 50 years or so) using my Charley Harper fabric finds.

Pat, our VRD Rose Queen, has used Charley Harper fabrics in a couple patterns already, Newsflash and Jolie. Of course, the kits are long gone, but you can still get the patterns — physical Newsflash HERE or digital Newsflash HERE and physical Jolie HERE or digital Jolie HERE. And you can shop our VRD Charley Harper fabrics HERE.

Charm Squares and Fat Quarters, oh my!!! What more can I say???

Have you ever been to Phoenicia in Houston? It’s an amazing specialty grocery store through the park and a block away from the Convention Center. Totally worth the short walk. Specialty grocery just doesn’t do the store justice — it’s a restaurant, coffee shop, bakery, meat and fish store, fresh foods, international foods, hot foods, cold foods, salad bar, fresh fruits/vegs, wine and beer, gifts, and so much more. I haven’t been here since 2019. I had so much fun wandering the aisles upstairs and down. I found some great goodies to take home for my family and even some special stuff for myself. I LOVE Turkish Delight. Have you ever tried it? I go all the way to Houston to find my favorite Koska brand from Turkey. And there were even some new flavor combinations, too!

Here I am sitting out front at one of the little bistro tables enjoying a S’mores cappuccino ( light on the coffee, heavy on the chocolate) and an amazing chocolate eclair. Yum!

Speaking of food, I get really excited to go to Quilt Market (and now Festival) just to have one of the most amazing Texas-sized stuffed baked potatoes. Yep, you heard me right — baked potatoes. I’m talking butter, brisket, cheese, BBQ sauce, sour cream, real bacon, and chives. Yum yum yummy! You can’t beat it for the most filling lunch ever. It’s not cheap, but it’s oh so satisfying.

Here I am digging into my tater……

So grab your own ginormous potato next year at the Food Court and tell ’em Tricia from PA sent you. I think they should keep a world map and a USA map on display (and color in the countries/states) to show all the places where potato lovers come from. Just sayin’……..

When I went to Houston, I took along a little hand-sewing wool felt project for the airport and on the plane. Of course, while I was taking everything in, I was drawn into the wool booth, Yellow Creek Quilt Designs — blame it on the Gnome piece that reached out and grabbed me. Ha Ha! Of course, I bought the pattern for the Gnomes well as a few others. And at another booth, Penny Lane Primitives, I bought this adorable snowman candle mat kit.

Well, I guess that’s it for me this week. I’ve got to get back to work on our upcoming 12 Quilts of Christmas collection! Stay warm and get quilting! And get some rest so you’re ready to first eat turkey next week then shop until you literally drop.

See you next Thursday on Thanksgiving —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @VRD