My Tennessee Souvenir, A Feedsack Quilt

We traveled to Pigeon Forge, TN last week for a much anticipated summer vacation.

We love going there!

Dollywood, white water rafting, outlet mall shopping, lots of good restaurants & tourist shops & this year plenty of antique shopping & a trip to The Biltmore Mansion in Asheville, NC!

Early in the week I spotted an old quilt with lots of feedsack prints in an antique mall.

They closed at 5:00 and we showed up at 4:50, but the woman offered we could shop since there was another couple already shopping so we took a quick look around.

Whoever made the quilt had done a nice job & the quilt was most likely not used but had been washed (probably by whomever had it for sale).

I wasn’t crazy about the binding on the quilt so I didn’t buy it.

The rest of the week I couldn’t stop thinking about the quilt,

so Friday, Chloe & I ventured back to the shop to see if it was still there.

It was still there and so I bought it!

If you didn’t look closely, it was perfect.

But alas, I’m a quilter so some things are blatantly obvious even from a distance…

This binding was horrid & not original to the quilt!

So while sitting on our back porch with this wonderful view, I set to work removing the ugliness from my quilt.

Fortunately I had a small pair of scissors along with me in my hexagon go-bag.

I had made a couple of these in some down time on our trip.

In less than 2 hours all signs of ugliness were history!

On our drive home we stopped at one more antique mall and I found the perfect replacement binding fabric from the same era as the fabrics in the quilt.

It was even on sale!

No comparison…

With the removal of the binding, the smallish size of the quilt and the odd binding made a lot more sense.

You don’t see many quilts of this era that aren’t bed size

unless its’a baby or doll quilt & this is a bit smaller than twin.

I knew there had to be a story.

There ALWAYS is.

Look how the unbound edge of the quilt is so ragged.

Someone took scissors to it.

I don’t know if a dog got hold of it or something else tore into it.

In two places the edge of the quilt had bites out of it that would not be covered by typical binding.

Instead of putting a wide binding on it like the previous “quilt preservationist” did,

 I went to my feedsack stash & pulled out a piece that would work OK and appliqued little patches in those two areas.

It’s by far not a perfect (or even a really close) match but after I had them on,

I couldn’t tell where I had put the patches because all of the fabrics are so busy;

the reason I was drawn to the quilt in the first place.

I straightened the edges of the quilt & sewed on the new binding that I had made.

As I was photographing it I noticed this cutie patootie print.

How cute is that Jack-in-the-box?

Now I love it just the way it is.

I can’t wait to look at every patch of fabric in it

& when I do I’ll look at it I smile instead of wanting to rip the binding off!

What are you doing this summer?

I hope it’s a fun time.

Just Keep Sewing…

Susan