peppermint twist

i so enjoyed making this fun little project. here are my thoughts as i was just beginning. i love mini quilts, love anything with an antique feel, love red & white, love the prints - especially the fun shirting prints. (shirtings are white or cream with tiny little prints in red, black, or blue.) they were used to make men's and women's dress shirts throughout the 1800s, particularly in the later 1800s. they add so much more texture and depth to a quilt than a solid white fabric can. the shirting prints were one of the first things that caught my eye on the first antique quilt i ever purchased .

i purposely included the fabric manufacturer's mark, "lecien" in the center corner stone. i've noticed that including marks like this is common in antique quilts, because our quiting fore- mothers wanted and needed to use every inch of fabric they had. it adds a fun spark of interest to a quilt. it also makes me happy to include this mark because this fabric company makes most of the reproduction fabrics available in japan and i have bought many of them over the years. most of the polka dots, stripes, and checks in "peppermint twist" were made by lecien and bought in japan.

the motivation for making this quilt came from strips of red & white fabric that were left over from valentine's quilts i was commissioned to make. i cut too many strips, and was pondering what to do with them, when i remembered the antique quilt that i had wanted to imitate. but, because i love throwing as many fabrics from my personal stash as possible into every quilt i make, i didn't use as many of the left-over strips as i planned. so in the pioneer spirit of thrift, i used the strips to piece the backing, and i'm happy with how it turned out. i still have strips left and now i'm having fun picturing a chinese coin coin doll quilt that i can help mia make with them.

no more blogging for a bit, because tomorrow i'm off to quincy/nauvoo, illinois with my gracie (on her 9 month birthday), to spend a week with gloria.

SO excited! can't wait! but already missing my brock (who spoils me, by letting me go, and in so many other ways) and my kids (who don't spoil me, but make me happy nonetheless).

hey! that's the top of gracie's head that you can barely see in the photo of me & gloria at the mark twain caves..... the three of us will be hanging out again tomorrow night.

Comments

[glor]

yay!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Em]

I love the quilt! I am sure if I worked on my sewing skills and got over my fears of it, I would really enjoy quilting. My favorite thing in scrapbooking is combining patterns and colors of paper. So I think it is along the same lines and would be a lot of fun. Hope your trip was nice!