Thursday, May 6, 2010

Meta's unfinished work


My friend Carol is moving and she gave me a box of scraps from her attic. Inside was this partially completed piece.
It's not large, 36" x about 30". But what a wonderful fragment. You can see how the maker worked. She pieced scraps together, then attached them to the muslin foundation.

Sometimes a piece is appliqued onto the top to cover edges. The fabrics are quite a hodgepodge - everyday fabrics mostly: ginghams, stripes and plaids, clarets. Carol knew who made it: her grandmother Meta Themer who lived in Kingfisher, Oklahoma with her husband Will. Meta was born ~1898 and died in the early 1980s.

Carol is delighted to have it out of her attic and I'm delighted to have it to show you.

5 comments:

  1. I am aching in jealousy...I adore tops like this more than anything... b e a u t i f u l

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  2. I love the colours, the crazy style and the history that goes with it- delightful!

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  3. I'm studying this one carefully. I've got a pile of odd-shaped scraps, and trying to decide whether to piece them with or without a foundation. Any advice? Looks like Meta did both.

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  4. Oh! What a fun gift! It looks like those scraps of Meta's are quite old...not something she worked on later in life. I bet you will have fun with this piece (she says enviously!!)

    Thanks for sharing with us, I love seeing that not old quilters from previous generations did their quilting "by the book." It frees me to know, hey, I can be that way too!!

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  5. You are right: Meta did both. I note little sections of scraps pieced together before they were stitched to the foundation.

    Remember: they didn't HAVE quilting books. they made their own rules, how freeing is THAT!

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