Skip to main content

Two Crazies

Vintage quilts can be tricky things to thrift online. Last month two crazy quilts went up for auction at ShopGoodwill.com that turned out to be little mysteries. I bid on this first one, which may date back to 1905 (there's a silk flag dated that on the top), with a max bid of $50.00. When I was outbid on the second day of the listing I decided to drop out; to me it wasn't worth more than fifty bucks. It finally sold for a whopping $289.99.

The problem with this crazy was the photos that showed the general condition, but not very clearly. Despite that I noticed signs of shattered fabrics (also an indicator of age) that made it less valuable. The embroidery seemed pretty simple, too. Gambling on a vintage quilt's condition that you can't inspect in person is always risky, but a quilt that is probably 119 years old is not a good investment unless it's in pristine condition.

By the time I noticed this second crazy, incorrectly listed as an embroidered tablecloth, bidding had already reached $160.00, so it was out of my price range (the winning bid finally came in at $601.00, which absolutely astounded me.) Comparing it to the other one it's less complete, but the embroidery appears to be more intricate -- only that may be for other reasons than actual handwork.

Besides being unfinished, the problem with this quilt top for me is the startling amount and quality of the embroidery. It's way too much and way too perfect. Also, I couldn't see much of it in detail, even when I blew up the photos.

Here is the backside of the quilt, which does show handstitching -- but not everywhere. The easiest place to spot this is in the center where the parrot embroidery appears -- but no stitching appears on the backside. This clue tells me that some (if not many) of the motifs on this quilt top were embroideries that were cut from other pieces and appliqued in place. It's an old shortcut, and a decent way to repurpose old embroidery, but it's not the sort of crazy I like to collect. If this one is worth six hundred bucks I will dine on my chapeau as well. That's a price you'd pay for a complete crazy in very good shape, not an unfinished one.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Love Means This

Invested in a couple of hand-dyed bundles from one of my favorite fabric artists. This one said "Make me into something for Valentine's Day." So I went for a quilted and embellished tote. I kept thinking about what love means to me as I worked on it. Here's the finished tote. Although I was tempted to embellish with beads and pins, I got sick and only felt well enough to do a little stitching every night. As I worked I thought about how often love seems disappointing to us, especially when it fails to live up to our expectations. But now that I've experienced love in many forms, I can say that it's made me a better person than I might have been without it. Love is a precious thing, and should be appreciated in all its forms. I am very grateful for the love of my guy, my child and my friends who have stuck with me all these years. That's you two, in case you're wondering. :) Also finally found something to do with a ve...
1 comment
Read more

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.
Post a Comment
Read more

Store Closing Haul

The mega Books-A-Million store over in Sanford is closing, and offered an extra 20% off on their current stock -- all sales final -- so I went over to do some shopping. Safely but sadly there was no one in the store but me the entire time I was there. The Holly Jackson novel is for Katherine, the Halloween board book is for Oliver, and the copy of Garden Spells is to keep on hand because I give that book to everyone. The rest of the books are for me. I love Anne Cleeves, and the Galbraith novel sounded interesting (the first couple weren't, but I'm willing to take another chance.) The Escape Room is by a new-to-me author, plus it was cheap. The GreenCraft mag is just a guilty pleasure. Hopefully the smaller BAM nearer to me won't close. I don't buy many books from brick-and-mortar stores these days, but that's really the last one within reasonable driving distance.
2 comments
Read more