Ocean Waves

Last May my local quilt guild, the League of Northern Colorado Quilters, had a silent auction. The fun part was that I bid on and won an old quilt top.  Lucky me!

It's an Ocean Wave pattern and the fabrics are probably from the  early 1900's.  It was in pretty good condition.  It was just missing a few pieces, didn't lay flat, and had a couple of holes.  I guess if I were that old , I might have a few pieces gone and a couple of holes too.

I loved the cadet blues, double pinks, madder browns, turkey reds, the mourning blacks and all the different shirting prints .  The fabrics are a great time capsule for that time period.  Right up my alley.

I was inspired by a friend, who loves to find old quilt tops and either redo them or use the fabrics for new projects.  I decided this little quilt needed me to come to it's rescue and restitch it.  That's what I have started to do.  

I started by taking the quilt apart in sections. 

The quilt was pretty much sewn together by hand using a thick linen thread.  I'm not sure if the same person did all of the sewing.  A few pieces were stitch by machine.  Whoever did that believed the more stitches the better.  It was sewn with about 20 stitches to the inch.  Fortunately, the fabric was not so perforated so that it split.

After everything is apart it's time to put it back together again.  I need to remark the correct seam allowance on all of the pieces.  Because I am sewing by hand I mark the actual stitching line.

Small and even stitches

Slowly, it's coming back together.  The points are much better and it is looking great.  I'm hoping I will have enough fabric to get the top back together again.  Some pieces have just worn out.

I have about 5 of these sections completed and more ready to be sewn.  I'll keep you up dated on my  progress.

The long march through January is perfect for this kind of project.

Until Next Time- Kyle