Vintage Reimagined with Island Batik

“Give the Past a Personal Touch”

That is the monthly challenge for Island Batik Ambassadors this March. An invitation to reimagine a vintage quilt (or a building or furniture or another artefact of some kind) into a new quilt.

As the muse for my challenge piece, I have chosen an early Australian quilt by Martha Bingley. Not much is known about Martha Bingley or her quilt (pictured above). Except for one picture of her and the information contained on the quilt itself. There’s a good reminder to label your quilts right there, people!

Martha’s crazy quilt is now owned by Annette Gero. It is also featured in Annette’s book about Australian quilting history called “The Fabric of Society – Australia’s Quilt Heritage from Convict Times to 1960”. The quilt is dated 1883 and is slightly unusual for its time and place. Perfect Chameleon fodder!

Can you see why this quilt is notable? Let’s take a moment to muse this quilt from yesteryear. And I’ll share with you where reimaging vintage Australian quilts has led me so far.

“Take something from the past and give it personal touch that is yours”.

Last year we had a similar challenge. Initially I found it quite daunting. But in the end, I had a lot of fun reinterpreting a quilt that I found in “The Fabric of Society” by Annette Gero. So, I did it again in August. And when you’re on a good thing….. do it again, again!

The fabrics featured in this post were given to me by Island Batik to use as an Island Batik Ambassador.

Vintage Reimagined #1

The first time I reimagined a vintage quilt, I chose a locally famous coverlet by Mary Ann Wellen, c1860. The original quilt is known as Aunty Green’s Floral Appliqué. My version of it is “Shadows of Aunty Green”, which was shown at my local quilt shows to great success, and now hangs in my dining room for my everyday pleasure.

Shadows of Aunty Green is a scrappy shadow appliqué quilt. The appliqués were covered over with organza before they were stitched down. This gives a really pretty effect, but it is very much a wall quilt, not a bed quilt.

Vintage Reimagined #2

I was allocated a pretty line of fabrics called Victoria and Albert to feature in our major Island Batik blog hop in August last year. The fabric collection sported fairly demure colours and was also a bit William Morris-y in feel.

So I just felt I had to do another vintage reimagining. This time I fell in love with Clara Bate’s english paper-pieced quilt c1898-1915, also featured in “The Fabric of Society”. Aunt Clara’s quilt is made from a pattern called honeycomb and it is covered with crazy-quilt-style embroidery.

I gradually chose to deviate away from the original quilt, having a full width feature panel instead of the centre panel and not replicating the crazy-embroidery. I did retain the honeycomb layout but ended up putting it on point, and I also added embroidered dragonflies.

The end result was “Shimmer Light, Shimmer Flight”. Although directly inspired by Aunt Clara’s quilt, it ended up being nothing like Aunt Clara’s quilt. But it is really special in it’s own right and is used regularly by my daughter. Very reimagined, very loved!

Vintage Reimagined #3

So. This time around I figured I would stick with my “winning formula” of choosing an Australian vintage quilt and reimagining the history out of it!

Martha Bingley lived in Adelaide, same as I do now. Although where I live would have been bush and then farmland in her time. Her quilt is made of crazy quilt patches cut into diamonds. Did you notice that? This is the main feature that drew me to her quilt. So when I read that these diamond shaped blocks were unusual in the crazy quilting fad of the late 1800s, I knew I had to do something in honour of this lady. She was presumably a bit of an individual, like her quilt. And like all the women of her time, would have had to have been both tough and resourceful. You can see the one known picture of her on this museum page.

Progress so far

I have a lot of small Island Batik fabric scraps left over from previous projects. Even after I removed the really bright fabrics that I felt weren’t right for my Vintage Reimagined project, I still had this large box full!

It seems like the proper thing to do, to be making Martha’s tribute quilt out of actual scraps as she probably did. Although, I am making my diamond blocks in a faster, less labour intensive way than Martha. I’m using machine-pieced improv methods to construct my blocks in just cotton batiks. I also enjoy doing it in good lighting and in a comfortable home, neither of which she would have been able to imagine the likes of.

As I am stitching, I am wondering what it is that made her go out of her way to make diamond blocks. Hmmmm. I’d love to know what made her think of that…. Had she seen it somewhere, was it an easy way to handle her scraps, or was it so she could arrange her fan blocks in the centre? Was she just simply sick of squares? Or perhaps “L.A.D” requested it? Of course, we will never know, but it can be fun to wonder.

So far I have eight blocks done, although they are not fully trimmed yet.

Making sure the crazy quilt will not send me sane….

Because I don’t have the luxury of months to embroider all the seams in these blocks, or even to replicate some of Martha’s complex blocks and stitcheries, it will be quite likely that I will let the batiks shine and keep this quilt more “modern improv” than “vintage crazy”. The Chameleon can do enough vintage crazy for both of us.

Actually, I’m not even 100% sure what my final quilt plan is. But that is the beauty of crazy/improv piecing…. for now I don’t need to know. I just need more diamond blocks. And later, some (re)imagination. Hopefully I’ll have a good many more blocks to show you on Tuesday. Until then, have a great weekend.

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The Chameleon turns rainbow with pleasure when he hears from you. I am more reserved, so I will respond in gratitude by email instead. Now that it’s your turn…. Scroll right to the end, leave me a comment and tell me, what do you think? Thanks for connecting!

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