One of my projects completed in 2020 was this School Days quilt made of wool and entirely hand stitched.
I had a delicious length of wool in a subtle plaid (thank you, Mary, for this glorious gift) that I wanted to use for the background. I love the schoolhouse block, but it’s traditionally a pieced block. I didn’t want to cut up this wool and sew it back together, I wanted to appliqué. So I refashioned the traditional pieced block into an appliqué pattern.
The lines in the plaid meant I wouldn’t have to mark anything if I made the schoolhouses the right size to fit within the repeat of the plaids. So a little measuring and planning, and I was ready.
I selected 20 different wools from my collection and ironed freezer paper templates on to the squares. From that point on, I had a perfectly portable project needing only needle, thread, and thimble to work anywhere.
I even laid the houses out on the background to get a pleasing distribution of color and pinned a swatch of fabric in each house’s position so I would know what went where.
I stitched each house to the wool using a whip stitch and thread (usually perle cotton #12) to match the house.
When that was done, I layered it with a piece of hand-dyed linen on the back, pinned it in place, and began quilting. I didn’t use batting – I thought the bulk of the wool-on-wool quilt was enough with a lightweight back. I used 12 wt Aurifil thread for the quilting and found it a delight to pull though the buttery wool fabric.
Again, I had nothing to mark, just stitched along threads in the plaid. It was sheer delight to have one spool of thread, a pair of scissors, a needle and thimble, and pick up and sew. Relax, relax, relax.
Having no batting meant no where to hide the knot, and “popping” wasn’t easy either. So, in another connection to past methods, I left the tails loose as if the quilt were “tied”. But my ties are on the back, not the front.
When it came time to add a binding, I didn’t. Add one, that is. I cut the backing 1” wider than the top, folded over, folded over, stitched down. That’s the way our grandmothers did it, and now I know why. It’s lots easier than cutting, pressing, stitching by machine with mitered corners, then hand stitching down. I will continue the latter process on most quilts, but bringing the back to the front on this one was a pleasure.
This was one of the quilts I carried on our photo trip to Indian Springs. Some of these photos were made there, some in our front yard. The finished size is 36” x 48”.