Three Patches with Laura
My church has a retail outlet shop offering a variety of donated items. Sometimes it is someone’s de-cluttering efforts, or unsold garage sale, or an estate cleanout.
Somehow a couple of bags of partiatlly completed quilt blocks were donated–and a friend of mine set them aside for me. I paid less than $5 for three plastic bags with quilt parts.
It is not the oddest thing I have bough there—-one offering included a lot of stuffed doll legs, a couple of arms–not heads or bodies. I really don’t remember what I did with them—but I got a lot of odd looks at the checkout counter—and even odder from my sons and hsuband.
For the past few years I have also dutifully filled out a UFO list for now two different groups; one has 12 items, the other has 6. The one with 6 items offers a chance at a prize drawing of more quilting stuff—I decided I would play along—but not put my name in the pot as I really do not want or need more stuff!
So No. 6 on my list is to work on this bag of quilt parts—a couple of completed blocks, some partials, and some cut out squares.
The squares are 2.25 inches square and are sewn with an 1/8 inch seam—a bit difficult to replicate. They are also sewn by hand with the tiniest of stitchs.
The construction is not how I would sew them.
I’ve been trying to find a gray that will be similar enough to work—or pehraps I should use a variety of whites. I’m not sure how many blocks I will be able to make with the parts I have—but it will certainly be an interesting project.
The fabrics are a mix of prints and stripes. I wish I knew who this person was—her sense of color and pattern and design is intriguiing.
Attached to the bag was a cutout from the newspaper with a photo of a corner of the quilt—it is a Laura Wheeler design. I haven’t been able to find a reference to it in any of my reference books.
Interestingly also, the designer/starter of this project calculated the number of blocks, pieces needed to complete a 72 by 90 quilt—a fairly common size in the early days of the quilting revival.
Don’t look for this to be finished in the next couple of days–I’m still studying about how I am going to insert those missing pieces on the partially fnished blocks—or maybe I should practice on the pieces–the four patches to develop my skill at an 1/8 inch seam—and no it wont’ be by hand–I’m far too impatient.
Sylvia Weir Art 