Island Batik Ambassador's Looking Back, Vintage Challenge Complete!

For the month of April the Island Batik Ambassador's were challenged to create something new from a vintage quilt or quilt pattern.  I googled "Kansas City Star Patterns" as I knew the Kansas City Star Newspaper used to run quilting patterns in their paper.  I found a clipping that is in a Michigan Museum called The Circular Saw, which you can see below.  Here's what I adapted from the pattern using Island Batik's Plum Delicious line.

Here is the original Circular Saw Pattern from the Kansas City Star newspaper I believe in the 1920's or 1930's.

After piecing the top I layered it with my favorite Hobbs Batting.  This time I chose their Heirloom 80/20 Cotton/Poly Blend because I wanted my quilt to be relatively flat like many antique quilts are.  I then went digging through my Aurifil collection and found the perfect shades for quilting!

I decided that the quilting on this quilt would be all random flowers that came to me from the top of my head as I was sewing.  This was a blast and a challenge to create 16 unique flowers for this quilt!  I love to look over it and see all the different flowers.  It's fun for the eye to look at.

I really like the echoes on this one.

The curls in the petals of this flower are such fun.

This flower is made of all curls and the leaves coming off of it are some of my favorites.

A look at the work in progress.  You can see I quilted the outer flowers before the inner flowers.

I like how this flower spins.

This flower reminds me of a chrysanthemum. 

This daisy has some curly pistil's coming off of it!

Almost a compass rose kind of flower.

The final quilt!

This is the 6th post in a series on this quilt.  Check out the other posts below.

Part 1 - Making a drunkard's path block with applique

Part 2 - Making a curvy center with applique

Part 3 - Putting the New York Beauty pieces together

Part 4 - The top completed

Part 5 - The beginning of the quilting

Thank you to Island Batik, Hobbs Batting, and Aurifil Threads for providing material, batting, and thread for this project!  It was such fun and makes me want to dig back into more old Kansas City Star patterns and play.  

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Island Batik Ambassadors Looking Back, Vintage Challenge - Part 4 - Completed Top

When I started trying to decide what to make for the Island Batik Ambassador's Looking Back, Vintage Quilts Inspiring New Creations challenge I wasn't quite sure where to begin.  I have an amazing quilt of my great grandmother's that I plan to show you soon that I thought about replicating, but when I pulled it out, while I adore it, I wasn't inspired by it.  

So what to do?  Duh....go searching on Pinterest.

But what to search?  I tried "Vintage Quilts" and got a big hodge podge of things that Pinterest always gives you.  Then I tried something else.  I know that Kansas City Star Newspaper has been publishing quilt patterns for a long time.  So I did a search of Kansas City Star patterns...here's what I found.  I LOVED it!  This piece of history is in a museum in Michigan.  

Now, you know me if you read my blog on a regular basis....I have trouble following patterns.  Not because I can't, but because I like to make them my own.  So I started playing around in Electric Quilt 7 to see what I could come up with.

Kansas City Star, The Circular Saw. A Pattern Using Both Large and Small Pieces, January 13, 1932

Here's my final top.  I added an extra little curve to the New York Beauty type block and I added and extra block in the corners.  I absolutely love how this came out!  I can't wait to get started quilting it.

Here are the parts from my first three posts in this series:  The inner curve

The center square

The New York Beauty pieces

Here's I've finished the first New York Beauty piece and set it with extra fabric.  You can see I had to add some extra pieces due to a sizing error on my part.  Oops.  It worked out okay though.

Here's I've pinned the second New York Beauty block in place.

All done stitching....now it needs to be squared up.

And the top is complete!  I love the way this orange and plum from the Island Batik Plum Delicious Line play together with one of their neutral backgrounds.  It's such fun and I can't wait to get started on quilting it!

I must admit that I'm especially proud of how the center square came out.  It's aligned just right and was worth the extra time I spent making sure that happened.

Come back next time to see the quilting process!

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy