Andrea Proudfoot's Alphabet Quilt

Recently I discovered this neat little alphabet quilt made by Andrea Proudfoot. It was on the Goodwill auction site.

It came with a blue ribbon from the Siskiyou Golden Fair in Yreka, California.

It also came with a very detailed, handwritten label on the back with information about how the quilt was designed and made.

One of the most intriguing details to my eye was the quilting in the lower section. She included a copyright, and I can't recall seeing anything like that before. I suppose in the early to middle 1990s, quiltmakers were thinking of protecting their design work. It just struck me as something unusual in a quilt.

A quick Google search yielded an obituary in the Mt. Shasta News, from December 2013. Andrea Proudfoot was a fascinating person, and she had a connection to Oregon. I would love to hear from anyone who knew her or remembers the fabric store in Oregon.

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Andrea Hofer Proudfoot, aged 76, passed peacefully Saturday, November 23, 2013, after battling Parkinson's Disease for over 30 years. Andrea grew up in the Washington, DC area; and received her BA in Home Economics from the University of Maryland. She moved to Oregon and successfully owned and operated a fabric store. She designed and produced clothing, as well as developed a baby pack which she marketed throughout North America. She moved to Yreka, California in 1983 where she married Robert and lived in view of Mt. Shasta. She began a new career as a quilter. She marketed several of her designs and received awards for her completed quilts. This last phase of her life included many treatments that attempted to halt or diminish the symptoms of Parkinson's Disease. She participated in a fetal tissue implant study and, as a final part of the study, has donated her brain to Dr. Curt Freed of the University of Colorado.

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a good trade

pieced quilt, polyester, unknown maker, Kansas, c. 1975, 72" x 86"

Every once in a while, collectors will trade quilts. This wonderful polyester quilt came from Marjorie Childress, who got it from a seller in Kansas. I had one she liked, so we traded. It was a good trade.

I love how the block looks like a sun rising over a mountain. It has to be the sun rising since it's yellow. Wouldn't it be orange if it was setting?

Almost everything about the quilt is polyester, the top and back fabric, the binding and the batting. The yarn ties are either wool or acrylic.

Polyester quilts do not always have polyester backing fabric, so that was a fun detail. The brown polyester coordinates with the brown fabric in the top. Just three colors, but so much impact! I love it. Thanks, Marjorie!

coming soon

I found this quilt through the Goodwill auction website, and it was a super bargain, so I couldn't resist. All polyester, the quilt is 84" x 100" and is coming from Traverse City, Michigan.

The maker cleverly combined half-square triangle patches, "Broken Dishes" patches with four quarter-square triangles, and solid square patches to create a dynamic, concentric design.

I love how the colors shift in the diagonal rows of half-square triangle patches, and the "Broken Dishes" patches complete each corner. All of the solid square patches are one color. Pink as a neutral! Who would've thought?

frame fix: before/after

A long time ago I worked as a picture framer. One year, I even asked for a Fletcher FrameMaster framer's point gun for Christmas, and I still have it!

No other tool like it, but I didn't need it for this project. I found two delightful 1930s crayon drawings in ready-made frames, the kind with the bending staple/prongs on the back. The thing I wanted to change was the color of the frames. I mean...who would put white frames on those drawings? It was ghastly!

So I went out to the art supply store and got some paint. I thought a bright reddish orange with a slightly antiqued finish would work, so that's what I did.

I like how they turned out, and it'll be a lot harder to sell them now. The pair of lovely little crayon drawings will be available April 1st in booth C-1 at Antique Alley on NE 42nd in Portland. For more information and hours, click here.

Wilma's quilt

There were two quilt shows on Saturday, and by the end of the day I was bushed. But there was a nice surprise at second of the two shows, hosted by the Metropolitan Patchwork Society at the Beaverton Library. I turned the corner and saw this beautiful red, white and green quilt and I thought, "That looks familiar."

It looked very much like one of the quilts in my book, a rescue quilt. The only difference was the cornerstones, nine-patches in the original and stars in the new one. Then I read the tag.

How awesome is that? I loved what Wilma said about being 96. She figured she'd best get going on the project. A New York Beauty was on her bucket list. So, with the help of her daughter she completed this beauty.

As it turned out, Wilma was there with her daughter, and I met them both. What a delightful surprise!

I love knowing quilt makers can look at my book and make a quilt, even if there isn't a pattern. That's one thing I really wanted the book to do. Thank you to Wilma and her daughter for making my day!

Airing of the Quilts - Sally's Quilt

Sally Hass put her whole life story into her quilt, "Celebrating My First 80 Years"

There were two quilt shows yesterday. The first one I went to was the 23rd Airing of the Quilts at the Milwaukie Center. One of my quilts was on display, the magnificent Giant Dahlia. I was happy to be next to friend Gerrie Thompson, whose Steam Punk quilt was simply dazzling.

But the quilt that stopped me in my tracks was "Celebrating My First 80 Years" by Sally Hass.

I'm not afraid to admit I was a little misty eyed when I saw Sally's quilt and read the description. She poured her heart out and put her whole life into the quilt, and I could feel it. I pulled out my phone and took as many pictures as I could.

Before I left, I got the chance to meet Sally and talk with her about her quilt. She told such great stories, and those stories were in the quilt. It was magical moment to kick off the spring quilt shows here in the Portland metro area. The second of the two shows was the Metropolitan Patchwork Society Show. Stay tuned for more about that, and congratulations to the Friends of Milwaukie Center for another wonderful Airing of the Quilts.

The NBC Quilt

Here's an unusual quilt. It's an NBC quilt! I don't think I've ever seen a quilt made with a television network and its logo as the theme. Had to have it! And it was a bargain.

The quilt was made in West Virginia in the middle to late 1970s, when NBC used the "Trapezoid N" logo to celebrate its 50th anniversary. To read more about the history of the NBC logos, click here.

The quilt is 28" x 32" and is hand appliqued, hand quilted and embroidered. It includes four hand-appliqued Trapezoid N logos, a hand-appliqued peacock outlined in hand embroidery, and "NBC" in large, blue embroidered letters.

NBC has had many logos, but the iconic Peacock was not the first. NBC, the National Broadcast Company, had its first logo in 1944. It was a radio microphone. The first Peacock logo came 12 years later.

NBC Television Logo (1944)

NBC Color Xylophone Logo (1954-59)

original NBC Peacock (1956)

NBC Snake Logo (1959-1975)

"Laramie" Peacock Logo (1962-1975)

"Trapezoid N" Logo (1976-1979)

"Proud N" Logo (1979-1986)

Peacock logo (1986-2013)

Gradient Version (2011-2013)

Stylized Crystal Variant (2013-present)

Stylized Crystal Variant (2013-present)

The NBC quilt is forever connected to the middle-to-late 1970s period because of the "Trapezoid N" Logo.

I remember when the "Trapezoid N" logo was first introduced, but not so much when it disappeared. It seemed like the peacock was always there. So interesting to have these two logos memorialized in a quilt. The maker must have been a big fan of NBC. Don't miss the star motifs in the quilting.