The Rescue Quilts – #11 – The Navy one with the Courthouse Steps and Ohio Stars
The Rescue Quilt series is about finishing up quilt tops that were never completed and then remaking the pattern. Sometimes I find easier / modern ways to make the quilt pattern, and sometimes I change up the pattern a bit to freshen things up. Other times I just finish the rescue quilt and end the project there.
The goal is to honor the quilt maker who made the quilt top by completing their project, to not waste good craftsmanship (usually done by hand), to ogle long ago yummy fabrics, and to breathe in a little old inspiration and make it new again.
You can view all parts of this series here.
Want to get started on finishing your own Rescue quilts? Here are a few articles to get you started:
- How to clean them
- how to find them
- Why you should label your quilt.
- Also, check out this pinterest board of “Inspiring Vintage Quilts” and be sure to follow me there!
Omigosh, I’m so pleased to have this one done. It was a huge quilt, a whopping 92″ square. I feel like my arm muscles got a good workout from moving this beauty about.
I found her on Ebay. She’s from Florida and I’m thinking she’s not that old at all. The product of a quilter who was tired of the WIP lying around, I’ll assume. I can’t blame her quilter, it took me days to quilt this up. I did make it hard on myself, using her to learn how to quilt feathers, but still, she was always going to be difficult.
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She’s made with alternating blocks of Ohio Stars and Courthouse Steps. All in solid fabrics with the same colors repeating over and over. The effect is modern looking and dazzling, I think. When I saw her on Ebay, I knew I had to have her. She’s not my usual rescue. I don’t think I’ve ever rescued something so newish. In fact, I’m not positive or anything, but I could swear that those fabrics are probably AGF, you can always tell when it’s their fabrics by the slinkiness their drape always is. I’m smitten.
Custom Quilt Labels
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It wouldn’t say it was a mistake to practice my feather quilting on this one, but if I had known how long it would take me, I’d probably have gone another route. I kept imagining feathers on that big wide border and my excitement got the better of me. On day four of quilting, I might have been cursing myself and my naivete. This was a chore to quilt. I stopped several times and looked up prices for longarm machines and then cursed again when I knew I couldn’t afford one. Ha!
That being said, OH that border! It’s scrumptious. I love petting the quilting and the crinkly goodness.
What I learned is this: No quilt needs nothing but feathers! Next time I’ll mix feathers in with some other designs, just to make it a bit easier on myself and less time consuming. I feel much better about my feathers now though and more confident. They could get better, but now I know I can do them and that feels good too.
I combined the feathers with the narrow lines to fill the space when there was no room for another feather. This wasn’t in my original plan, but I had to do something. It wasn’t what I had in mind, but I don’t mind the look. I think it really makes the feathers pop more than doing something like a swirl might.
This was all good practice for me.
Quilt Details:
Pattern – Alternating Ohio Stars and Courthouse Steps
Size – 92×92″
Top Fabrics – Unknown, but all solids.
Backing Fabrics – Shades in Robin wide back
Binding – 1/4″ stripe in Aqua
Batting – Warm and Natural batting by the Warm Company
Thread – Microquilter by Superior in silver for quilting
Techniques Used – feather quilting, wall basting, and ditch binding
Quilt Label – from my shop here, tutorial for how to install it here
For Sale – I am selling this quilt here
I’ll be putting up a video tutorial for this feather soon. It’s WAY easier than you might think. I’m in need of pillows for my front porch. All this rain has dampened all the “cloth” items on my porch and we’ve got some mildew stains on what’s up there now. I’m thinking some easier pillows might be just the thing to give the whole porch a refreshing.
Fabric Scrap Bundles for Sale
Very nice! Glad you stuck with it and bet someone is regretting selling it when they see the beautiful finished quilt!
You did a wonderful job of quilting it, Melanie! I do love it and I am trying to figure out how many different colors of solids were used in the top–maybe 10??? I would sure like to know if you had any reason or opportunity to count them yourself before somebody bought it, which I see they have. That was quick for the lucky person!
Oh, I’m sorry! I did not count them. 10 would be a good guess, maybe even a little less. 🙂
This is a stunner of a quilt, moreso for the lovely feathers you created. This is the first rescue quilt story I’ve read. I was interested in reading how you clean them because I have an old quilt top I might finish. it seems that the link might be broken? I keep getting a “page not found” message. Can you point me to your tips on cleaning these beauties, please?