Today, I uploaded a file with photos of a few of the miniature quilts I have designed. To see them and to learn more about them, please click on the following link:
http://www.quiltersmuse.com/miniature_quilts_photo_essay.htm
Patricia Cummings
Interest in certain kinds of quilts ebb and wane, depending on the market, and who is teaching what class, or who has just written a book. Miniature quilts, like many other kinds of miniatures, are perennially appealing. I’ll never forget the charmed feeling I had when viewing a large collection of miniature quilts, placed carefully on their own little beds, a guest exhibit done by Tina Gravatt at the Vermont Quilt Festival.
Of course, that is one of the key elements to having, making, or collecting miniature quilts. One likes a way to display them. Miniature beds are made in all sizes and from all materials. Some of them I’ve seen in antique shops have stayed there, due to high prices. A few other ones have come home. Some things are a buy for the soul.
Miniature quilts and miniature beds go along with collecting miniature dolls. I only wish I had realized that miniature dolls can be restrung when the strings that hold them intact break. I threw away some dolls I’d brought home from Spain as I didn’t know the difference. I just thought they couldn’t be fixed. Of course, some people collect miniature teddy bears or Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls or even small beanie babies, with the idea of placing them atop one of the beds.
Miniature beds are particularly fun because of their many styles: brass beds, iron beds, wooden rope beds, Eastlake style beds, canopy beds, trundle beds, and others. They come in all sizes, and often one has to create a mattress, a pillow, and sheets to fit the size of the bed, as well as the top layer: the quilt.
Sometimes, I believe that middle-aged women and older women like to recapture the essence of the childhood they perhaps never had. By collecting miniatures, they too can “play,” and in some instances, share the fun with a grandchild.
Be on the lookout for miniature doll bed patterns. The Wenham Museum has some patterns for sale for a Redwork quilt and other piece miniature quilts. Making miniature quilts is so much fun, I bet you can’t make just one! They take little fabric; just your time and imagination and creativity. That’s the extent of my thoughts for today!
Patricia Cummings
While browsing in an antiques store, I came across a shoe box that was loaded with hexagons, one and a half inches in size. The collection of circa 1930s/1940s fabrics looked interesting enough to bring home. On closer inspection, I found that some were damaged because they had been basted onto templates made from old magazine pages, and/or had come into contact with the cardboard shoe box interior, over time. Wood acid had leached into some of the fabrics, making them unsuitable for use.
I sifted through all of the pieces, and started removing the basting stitches on some hexagons that I thought I could save. When I removed one of the papers and looked at the back of it, I could see that there was a picture that appeared to be President Harry Truman, standing on one end of a train, campaigning.
After sharing this information with an online list today, a very kind person sent me this link to photos from the Truman Library that feature President Truman campaigning from a train in 1948:
http://images.google.ca/images?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&q=campaign+trail+train&btnG=Search
At any rate, I had taken that particular hexagon that was basted onto the black and white magazine photo, and I had made 1/4″ size hexagons (finished size), using “Paper Pieces,” a product that makes it easier to construct hexagons, as the papers are pre-cut to size.
Here is a picture of the little quilt that I made, without a particular plan. It just developed, as I went along. It is 10 1/4″ wide x 10 1/2″ tall.
I am very lucky to have such a supportive and artistic husband. On the index page of our website, you will see the current result of a collaborative effort of ours, this past summer. If you can imagine it, I was sitting in the sweltering heat of last August, hand embroidering on, all the bricks of the fireplace scene, and needleturning all of the flames.
The resultant “mini-quilt” took far more doing than I’d originally planned. However, Jim and I both like the final result and we hope that you enjoy the miniature vignette we created.
Keep happy thoughts.
Pat and Jim
