Selfsufficientish.com

I know this is a strange request and this may not be the appropriate place for a thread like this, but I am running out of time and my brain is hurting from all the Gooooooooooooooogle pages.

I'm interested in finding some old quilt patterns that I know crossed over the Atlantic from Ireland or Scottland. Do any of you know where I can find traditional patterns? My great-grandmothers' quilts are too degraded to figure out what the patterns are.

My grandmother made all of her grandchildren a quilt when we married, they were all unique and each pattern held special meaning to her. But now my youngest cousin has just set a date for his wedding and my grandmother is no longer able to quilt. So my sisters and I want to make our cousin a quilt from some of her old clothes and blankets using one of the old patterns so that his will be unique too.

Please help if you can.

Have you tried using Google images? I just had a quick look using "patchwork patterns" as my search criteria and came up with lots of lovely images. Once you've seen something you like the look of it should be fairly easy to work out the patterns you need. If you want a hand working out the shapes for the templates, let me know.

Cheers
Zoe

Oh sorry, edited to add, yes you obviously have tried Google images. Did you see anything that you like, even a bit? Or that was roughly the right look? A traditional wedding gift was called wedding ring and had circles of colour made from the patches, I think it's lovely.

Or were you thinking more of a design with images of birds, flowers, houses etc. set into it?

If we can get some idea of the sort of thing you are looking for, I suspect we can work out the pattern between us.

My friend and I are making a log cabin quilt. I don't know if you know this design. It has a square red centre as the hearth and then strips all round, two light sides for the walls and two dark sides for the roof. We have been doing it for years! We meet once a week and sew and chat for about two hours. Whether we will ever finish it remains to be seen! pbf.

Thank you both so much for answering. I thought I might be the only quilter!

What we are looking for is an old pattern, similar to a double wedding ring but it is made of interlocking stars. A spikey ring type thing The best I can liken it to is a hollowed out lonestar that is linked to another in the same fashion as the double wedding ring. Our great-great grandmother, who was either Irish or Scottish, (we don't know which one made it) made it before coming to America. It was bordered by an Irish chain variation.

The first quilt I ever made was with my grandmother (I was 7) and it was a log cabin from scraps. We didn't have any red, so we used pink and orange for the fire and won a ribbon at the fair for being 'experimental'.

You need a quilting bee. Or at least a once a month stitching night with several friends. At first every one will work on their own projects, but then they will see how slow you're going and help out of pity.

By the way, if you haven't seen a mirage pattern, you have to google it. It is amazing. I think kaleidoscopes are beautiful too.

I love patchwork and have been making patchwork things since my teens. I just wish I had more time to play (isn't that always the way).

The image you describe rings a bell. I think I have seen it somewhere but I'm sure it was in a book. I've looked through my books and can't find it so it must have been one ok that I borrowed at some point.

All I can find is a broken star pattern that seems simple enough to link around in a wedding ring style but it may not be exactly what you were looking for. http://www.amishquilter.com/amish-quilts-star-c-85.html

Good luck with the hunt.

Zoe

sortanormalish wrote:Thank you both so much for answering. I thought I might be the only quilter!

...... nope... I quilt ...........and a man to boot.

Big Al

Hello

Do you mean something like the interlocking wedding ring design here http://www.nvo.com/thebartlettpair/brochure/list.nhtml
or here?
http://www.freewebs.com/dixiedoodlecoun ... gQuilt.jpg
but with stars ?

I'm not too sure I understand what you're looking for but will keep my eyes peeled best I can

Up to age about twenty my gran thought she was doing me a favour paying me 25p an hour to cut out patchwork pieces for her instead of working extra hours at my normal job ... which paid a wee bit more than 25p an hour. I tried telling her that but she never believed me ha ha

Good luck, it's a nice idea

Zoe, that looks very much like the star. But as I said interlocking like the quilt on the freeweb link provided by JillStephens7. I will cut out some paper to see if I can get it to work.

My grandmother paid me a quarter to cut pieces too. She said a girl had to have a good ocupation or be able to catch a good husband else she would end on the streets in shame to her family.

Big Al, I don't know what to say, I'm intriqued. If my husband or father picked up a needle, their arms would probably turn black and fall off. You do understand that many women find this skill of yours sexy? Or is that your diabolical plan? Some men have etchings, you have a nice warm quilt (carefully crafted of fabrics and colors engendering trust and/or lust in the object of your desires). I'm sure our grandmothers warned us about men like you it their old fashioned vague metaphors.
Is this your MO? You invite her out for a stroll through the cool night air to admire the stars then invite her in to see your stitchings. You step out to fix a cup of tea and offer a quilt so she can get warm after the cold night air and then...Big Al swoops in on an unsuspecting woman who has been disarmed by the beauty of his creation and

Actually, sounds pretty nice. May have to see if the husband's arm really would fall off.

I guess I could do the swooping...

Hmmm ... I can't find any interlocking star patterns like that

Maybe you will have to make your own pattern like Zoe suggested

I love to make quilts, nothing fancy but sewing hexagons together and made loads over the years and given them away..
I did enjoy making one on the sewing machine, nine square blocks framed with black strips on the edges and red squares in the corner. I made it for my son to take to Uni,a bit of home incase he missed us.
Has anyone seen the film How to make an American Quilt? I love it.

It wonderful to know a man quilts, I have Male friends who are brilliant on the spinning wheel too.

I have never seen How to make an American Quilt, but I'll look for it.

We (my sisters and I) have figured out how to adapt a lone star pattern to make them interlock. The pattern we found, at the Quilt show in Paducah, was actually different stars that faded into each other. This was accomplished using the colors of the fabrics. We decided to use white for everything but the actual interlocking star bit. It seems to be going ok. We'll see when it's finished.

I usually machine quilt. Some people say it isn't authentic, but what is authentic, at least here in the states, is that women (and Men) used the best tools and fabrics available to them. My machine makes a much better stitch than my hand.

Wonderful that Men are quilting? HA! I told one of my friends. I thought she was going to rip the computer off the desk. She informed me, rather lustily, that she 'wanted' that kind of man, proving the point I made previously.

This thread has inspired me!
This is the year I finish the quilt!
I started it five years ago. It`s nine patch squares of random cotton, just stitched together, quilt-as-you-go. nothing clever.
All the squares are pieced and quilted and most of them stitched into rows.
It`s stored in big bags behind the spare room door and whimpers softly to me when I catch sight of it.
Don`t cry, dear quilt, I haven`t forgotten you! Just neglected you!

Has anyone seen the quilt exhibition at the V&A? I went the other week and it was really interesting (although I wasn't that taken with some of the modern quilts). There were lots of women standing examining the quilts and explaining to their friends how they were constructed so clearly the art of quilting is alive and well . There was one quilt made of wool scraps by a man who was a member of the temperance movement. It took him 18 years and he used to take it to temperance meetings to show what could be achieved with patience. I couldn't help thinking the idea of spending 18 years on the same quilt would have driven me straight back to drink, but let's hope it had the opposite effect on the people at the meetings... My partner loved it, but he stood looking at it saying, '18 years? He could have had it done in a month if he'd put his mind to it!'. Needless to say he's never quilted anything, perhaps I should set him off and see if he can put his money where his mouth is.

My project last winter was to finish a quilt. I'd made a whole load of patchwork cushion covers out of old blue and white shirts some years ago. But when I got rid of the chairs, I didn't need the cushions any more. So I took the covers apart and remade them into a quilt. I also used the 9 squares method with strips of stronger colour between each square. I padded it with an old duvet that had seen better days and backed it with a sheet picked up for a few pence in a charity shop.

My project for next winter is to recover the three-piece suit in the conservatory. I fancy making patchwork covers out of old denim so I'm collecting old jeans from all my friends.

Zoe

I like this idea of using an old duvet.
Yes!
Must admit I usually turn the old one into a dog bed if I get a new duvet. This idea better!