Sarah's Circle Sewing Club Pictures

Hello Pieceful Quilters,

This week we will be winding up the first session of our newest club, Sarah's Sewing Circle. We have done quite a lot in one session, so I thought I would review a little, and share some pictures and memories about how it all started.

First, if you look at our logo, you will see a picture of my GG Grandmother, Sarah Atkins Phillips. Quilting and sewing run deep in my family, and I have been fortunate enough to inherit some beautiful and historic quilts, along with "the sickness." Don't you sometimes think that the need to touch and collect textiles is something you are born with?

Collect.. Yes, that is a nice way to put it. In addition to the quilts I have inherited, I seem to be unable to pass up an antique quilt or top if it has a lot of fabrics in it. I can't seem to stop staring at them! The fabrics from the 1800's and earlier really draw me in. Do you suppose I am a reincarnated fabric manufacturer? Ha-ha.

So now, we come to the quilt that started it all. This wonderful six-pointed star quilt that I purchased in Paducah a couple of years ago from Cindy Rennels. Cindy can usually be found at quilt shows with lots of beautiful quilts, tops and other antique textiles. As a matter of fact, she sucked me in again at Rosemont. I've got it bad!

So here are some pictures I took of the quilt when I bought it. I think that is Cindy's hand on the right. Here are a couple of close-ups. The quilt is not in perfect condition, but the double pink screamed at me, and I had to have it! I was going to reproduce it the original size, which I still am, but it seemed like a perfect project for Sarah's Circle, so I photoshopped up a little version of it for our Club Poster. Don't you just love the secondary star pattern that is formed by the pink triangles? Here is my version before it was quilted. I had been doing some English Paper Piecing with hexagons - see some of my previous posts for pictures of those. I much prefer the smaller hexagons that were typical in England in the 1800's to the more commonly known Grandmother's Flower Garden quilts that were so popular here in the 1930's.

Anyway, I digress....
The first quilt we actually did in Sarah's Club was based on an actual Doll Quilt owned by Sandy Schweitzer, our local AQS Appraiser and quilt historian:

Sandy's Doll Quilt is well-loved, and rather crudely assembled, but it is wonderful in all the great madder reds and browns that were so typical in the 180o's. What is also very neat is the "back art." Part of the back is pieced from the scraps. The pattern is simple, so it was a great kick-off quilt for Sarah Club. We put together kits, and no two were the same. I even included a few of my treasured stash fabrics in the kits to add some authenticity, since I had a few great madders in my "collection."

I was pretty pleased with the resulting quilt, which, although much brighter and cleaner than the original, seems to capture the essence rather well:

Of course, "back art" was in order, and I was able to piece most of the back from the scraps in the kit. I think we may have put a few too many fabrics in the kits (is that possible?), but I wanted everyone to be able to pick and choose from a nice variety. We do still have some of these kits in the shop. Call if you want one (847) 516-7911.

The final project for the session you can see below, hanging next to my star quilt. Deb Walker, my co-leader designed this wonderful medallion quilt based on an antique one we found online at

http://www.womenfolk.com/. This is a great site for those of us that are interested in quilt history.

We do have patterns available for this one. We never did make up kits, hoping to encourage the club members to use their stashes and/or to purchase snippet bundles in pink, brown and cream. I know that Deb used Triangulations to do her half-square triangles. If you have never used this great software, you are really missing out!

In addition to the quilt projects, we are turning in blocks for a signature block swap this week. As you can imagine, I haven't started. What's new? I did finish (mostly) Kathleen Tracy's Little Nine Patch quilt:

Kathy gave us permission to kit this quilt using the free pattern she has on the Fairfield Website.
The kit includes a print-out of Kathy's pattern, backing and binding. We will be introducing it at the Seasonal Samplings Free Demo right before Sarah Club tomorrow. Be sure to attend to see the latest seasonal projects along with this cute little quilt.

That's it for now. I need to get going and finish this week's email newsletter. I don't know where today went!

Hope to see you all in the shop this week. (Or call us to order anything by mail)

Carrie