Quilting Progress and a Book

I had finally shamed myself into getting the pile of tops onto the quilt frame … and I have made great progress.  These are the three tops that are fully quilted, including their borders – now they just await bindings:

 And this is the back of the fourth one that has been quilted on the frame, but needs quilting in the borders (I do that on my tabletop machine).

I stopped for awhile because I want to mull over whether to change thread color.  Because the top fabrics have a lot of black in them, I quilted the center squares with black thread and it looks just fine.  But the top and bottom borders are rainbow stripes with no black and I don’t know how black thread would look on that … I’m thinking about what to do!

I did get some exercise walking up to the library even though the sky looked threatening.  The osprey sitting in the lower-left on this tree branch had sense enough to stop flying, but I went anyway.  I made it there and back before the downpour, thank you very much!

So, I’ve been reading a book called “The Age of Homespun” that has some interesting stories (although it is quite tedious reading – sort of like a college textbook!).

One thing I learned was that the history of textiles was often able to be followed using wills and probate records that included inventories of the deceased’s possessions.  In some of those documents, e.g., letters, inventories and probate documents, quilted petticoats were called simply “quilts”.  Wouldn’t that be confusing if you were looking for a bedcover?!  These quilted petticoats usually had some kind of simple crosshatching over most of the surface with more decorative designs on the borders.  One woman even quilted a full-masted ship in sail along with mermaids on hers!  This is one example from the Old Sturbridge Museum’s collections:

Tomorrow’s tasks include finishing a few more quilts, maybe get to those bindings and get those bug jar appliqués in the mail.  Just more fun ….