Freda's Hive: Feedsack quilts for Glenna

Glenna is calling for feedsack quilts to be posted to help her out with a trunk show for a retreat.

I've been buying feedsacks and patterns from Glenna for years. I love Glenna's real feedsack charm squares and I have a small collection.

I've shown this quilt before on my blog but its really one of my favorites because of the lovely feedsack variety and the red squares framing each block. They are only snowball blocks but the red really sets off the jumble of colors and patterns and give the eye something to rest on. The machine quilting is amazing. My friend Wren quilted it and most all the blocks have different designs quilted into them. A good manyof these these feedsack squares came either from Glenna and Darlene Zimmerman and some other pieces I picked up along the way. Eileen and I did a personal vintage fabric swap a while back and she gave me some absolutely wonderful pieces. Sarah has been showing some lovely feedsacks on her blog, too.

The border fabric is vintage as well. The yellow and red are my favorite color combinations. But don't you love the turquoise in there too? It's got a bit of Monica in there.

This is the first feedsack quilt I made. I wanted to use the bubble gum pink from the 40's to border it. But as you can see I learned a lot from this quilt. I learned the value of contrast of light and dark. This quilt is probably 6-7 years old or more from when I pieced it. My daughter Shelbie hand quilted it for me.

For some of the blocks I used Glenna's flower block (see the cover of her new book), which was in the first pattern I ordered from Glenna way back when. Glenna how old is that pattern?

I learned that hand applique and feedsacks do not really go together. Feedsacks are too loosely woven, of course. And I learned to use white and more subtle neutrals - a valuable lesson for any quilter. Of course I knew this principal but I guess I needed to relearn it. I showed a close up of some of these blocks for Darlene. If she can figure out that in that maze of print some of them are teapots and teacups! I look at this quilt now and I can see so many ways I could have improved.

I really tried to do too much in one project. However, to me it is still very sweet because of lovely feedsacks but mostly because Shelbie quilted it for me. It took her a long time. Like I said, I used Glenna's flower for some of the blocks but I sketched the teapots, cups and hearts. It was the first quilt on my road to drawing up my own patterns. So it is an important quilt in my journey.

Even with the blurr of colors, I think it still has a lot of charm. Every quilt tells a story.

-nanette