Gabriel’s quilt

It’s so rainy and overcast, I’m in a bubble of cloudy weather. Better than being under a heat dome. I don’t spend much time in the garden though, too wet. I hope the seedlings are okay. I’ll check them later but there may not be much I can do besides pick off slugs.

Meanwhile…

My mom’s mom, Hazel, was a quilter. Recently I adopted three of her quilts. And I already have one, which makes four. I’m going to undertake some repairs on at least two of them. They’re within my capabilities.

On this quilt, all of the dusty maroon colored patches have deteriorated badly. The other colors are fine. It must be the dye that weakened this fabric. I counted 39 in this orientation (calling it “right”) and 9 in the other orientation (calling it “left”). So I’ll make 48 of these and applique them over the damage. Some may need a bit more batting to replace what’s been lost.

I made a trial patch, just pinned so far. I don’t have many old-fashioned looking prints in my stash, and no fabric in that maroon-red-pink color at all. So I’m going more with a green/blue/aqua theme. These colors are in the quilt, so it shouldn’t be too jarring.

As usual, some trial and error is involved. I made a template with 1/4 inch seam allowance, and then found it too hard to turn and iron. So I retried with 1/2 inch. Much better. Then I overenthusiastically cut more than 9 in the left orientation, wasting some fabric I liked. I could stitch a few wrong-side up, but not sure – my grandmother might disapprove! I’ll try to cut enough to stitch them all right-side up. I think I’m on track now. I just need to come up with the right configuration of snips to make the curved top lay down nicely. Still have too much bulk in one corner.

Isn’t it amazing. The wrinkles, all those pieces, the stitches. The feel of it. The fabrics are so — vintage. It’s kind of shocking to realize that taste in fabric prints changes so much over time. And there’s a hand-stitched name and date in one corner, in my grandmother’s handwriting. “Gabriel Sue Walden, July 21, 1953.” Gabriel is my aunt. The date is obscure. Is it just the date the quilt was given? It’s not her birthday, she was more than 3 years older than me! I looked it up – she was born January 31, 1939. She was unmarried (I think – it’s complicated…). July would have been a weird date for a graduation. Maybe I’ll be able to find out.