I finished another block for the (eventual) Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt, and started another:



(The pink one isn't done yet; I just lined up the outer ring of patches next to it to show what it will look like when done).

I also cut a few more patches, though the cutting does get a bit tedious.

I was thinking last night about quilting and fabric choice. I think I once mentioned that I got back into knitting partly because of a particular yarn and its colorway - the "Autumn Prints" wool-ease (as you might guess - an autumn-colored yarn, mostly browns and dark greens). I made a scarf and mittens out of it because I liked the yarn, and realized that I really liked knitting (especially in-the-round, which I guess I hadn't tried before that).

Well, I think these 1930s reproduction fabrics were actually what originally got me interested in quilting, back around 1991 or so (I realized this because one of the pieces of fabric I was pressing off to cut into patches had printed on its selvedge, "Aunt Grace's 10th anniversary, 2000-2001." the "Aunt Grace" line was, I think, the seminal line of 1930s reproduction fabrics; there have been a lot since).

Thinking about it, some of the first fabric I bought specifically to make into quilt pieces was from the Aunt Grace line...I think I was looking at one of my mother's quilt catalogs, and they had "medleys" of fabrics (a group of 5 or 6 fabric cut in either quarter-yard or "fat quarter" pieces). And I saw the old original Aunt Grace, really liked it, and wanted it, so I ordered it.

Of course, the fact that this coincided with about the time I moved back "home" to live with my parents while attending grad school (and thus had more space to leave a sewing machine set up and more room to store fabric than I would have had in the "efficiency" apartment I had been living in.*)

(*What a sad name, "Efficiency." At least "studio apartment" sounds kind of Bohemian and arty. "Efficiency" sounds like one step above "SRO," or "single-room occupancy," which an efficiency, strictly speaking, is - maybe without the connotations of SRO, but still kind of depressing. I figured it was called an "efficiency" because you got the cleaning and dishes done efficiently because it was too depressing to lie in bed and be able to see the dirty dinner dishes in the kitchen sink.

Unless I am in a position where I absolutely cannot afford anything else, I will never live in an efficiency again.)

Anyway. I started quilting probably somewhere in around 1991 or so. And I started in part because of the 1930s reproduction prints. I don't know what it is about the colors and prints that appeal to me - I don't know if it's vague memories of summers at my grandmother's, where she still HAD some textiles from that era and that her house was generally a museum of 1930s/40s decor, or if there is just some sort of inborn color/pattern preference. But I like the little "ditsy" prints of the 1930s fabric, especially the white-on-pastel look that's so common.

I also like that the juvenile prints are on a similar scale to the plain-floral or geometric prints, and can be used with them - they don't scream "kiddie print!" until you get up close to them, unlike some of today's Dora/big zoo animal/dump truck decorated prints, where the individual print elements are very large and very brightly colored.

I also like the 1930s juvenile prints because some of them are, as they say on Cute Overload, so redonkulous:



Yes. It is aeronaut bunnies. I do not know why. Planes seem to have been popular in the 1930s prints; I suppose it is because they were a fairly new innovation. I actually have this print in several different colors (it's one of the reproductions; I have a FEW pieces of authentic 30s fabric bought over the years at antique shops and such but they are very small).

I particularly love the parachuting bunnies with the parachutes strapped around their middles.

There's a silliness to some of these prints - like the aeronautical bunnies, like another one I have that is "bubble people" - figures made up entirely of little circles, like bubbles - that makes them fun. I wonder what the designers were thinking about when they came up with these designs and I wonder what the fabrics were originally used for (other than the obvious things like children's pajamas) when they first came out.