Lucy Boston

Monday, April 9, 2012

the hot pad blocks

Don't know if you have ever read any of the
books or historical writings
about the quilts made of hot pad blocks....
it's like the crocheted granny-square method:  
A group of women make-up some
crocheted blocks in a specific size. 
Who doesn't have the time to crochet
a few squares every day? 
Then the crocheted squares are collected and whipped together,
and to make a blanket or blankets...

Well, this is the same theory...but in hot pad/quilted style.
There is a great new book that tells the history:
(I love the history part of quilts and blocks, don't you?!)
  Cot quilts
made with hot pad blocks!!!
The blocks in these quilts
are for the most part, large in size.
Each woman in the sewing group
made as many large, quilted blocks as possible.

Each block was
pieced, layered, quilted, trimmed and bound-
essentially, made into a hot pad...
When the group met with their finished Hot Pad blocks,
they whipped-stitched together enough finished blocks
to make a cot quilt. 
Here's one of my blocks:
layered and quilted

trimmed and ready for binding
Now, I will tell you that I have down-sized my blocks.  Nothing wrong with a 14" hot pad block.  I just prefer smaller... it will take twice as many for me to get a cot-sized quilt made, I know. Don't know if that's a good thing or not. 
Anyway,
I'm considering doing my
"Path to the Civil War" blocks this way.
That way, they would still be bound in the chrome orange,
but it wouldn't "jump in your face" so much.
What do you think? 
For my Path to the Civil War, I have most of the blocks pieced already.  Only about a row and a half left to do.  And I'm stalling on finishing it.  I'm stalling because I don't think I want as much of that chrome orange in the quilt as is pictured in the pattern.  But I love that chrome orange!  Here's the quilt pictured on the front cover of the pattern book:
A Path to the Civil War: Aurelia's Journey Quilt
That's a whole lot of chrome orange right there.

I have a friend who did her quilt as pictured.  And, I love it.
Here's a pic of Laura's living room...
Notice the chrome orange over the back of a couch?
Oh, my, I love it. 
Decisions, decisions!
What do you think about finishing a quilt in this "pot holder block" method?
Let me know, please.

OK, back to quilting!
And thinking about my unfinished quilt blocks. :)

Happy Monday!!

1 comment:

  1. I LOVE the idea! And I have the book!! It is my sort of thing, one small piece at a time. Are you going to do classes?

    ReplyDelete

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