Lessons from an Old Bright Bowtie Quilt
What a Beauty!
Join me as I dive into the history and craftsmanship behind this gorgeous antique bow tie quilt in this blog about this vintage bow tie quilt! While the bow tie pattern is the star of the show (or is it?), there's a hidden gem in the design: a mesmerizing secondary circle pattern that emerges when you step back and take a closer look. In this post, we’ll explore the quilt's design, discuss its vintage fabric choices, and examine how quilters of the past used clever piecing techniques to create this intricate optical illusion. Whether you’re a quilting enthusiast or a history lover, this quilt is sure to inspire!
To watch the full video on this quilt, click HERE or on the picture above.
All of the Details:
Size: Approx. 71.5” x 86”
Age: 1930s/1940s based on the fabric
Acquired: I got this at a yard sale. It was marked $10.00, but the woman selling it recognized me from last year where I purchased an old log cabin quilt from her (see that video here). She gave it to me for $5.00 because she knew it was going to a good home and that would be using it to help other quilters. So sweet!
Quilt History: Unfortunately, the seller didn’t know anything about this old quilt.
Blocks Size: Approx. 7” Square
Number of Blocks: 99 Bowtie Blocks (9 blocks per row with 11 rows)
Number of Pieces: 495 on the quilt top, not counting the borders and backing/binding! Whoa!
Sashing Strips: These blocks are butted right up next to each other, so there isn’t any sashing strips.
Construction Technique: Made completely by hand—hand pieced, hand quilted, and hand bound.
Quilting/Tying: The quilting is 100% by hand. The quilting in the blocks shadows the block construction while the quilting in the borders is done on a diagonal. Interestingly, one of the four borders is quilted in the opposite direction, however.
Fabric: All cotton with a mix of solids and prints.
Batting: Cotton
Binding: Self-binding; pulled from the back to the front
Condition: Considering the age of this quilt, it is in great condition! There aren’t any holes, tears, pulled stitches—none of that. It is dirty, however, especially were the quilt was folded. My guess is it was stored while folded, causing the crud to accumulate on the folds. Most of the dirt is on the back and on the binding edges. This tells me it was folded with the back of the quilt out—thank goodness! There is also quite a bit of fading, which makes it pretty cool. I know, I know—I should love that part, but I do! 😀
Blocks
Each bowtie uses the same fabric and all of the bowties in the blocks are made with prints while the background/circle blocks are made with solids. The juxtaposition of this is amazing! It creates a wonderful secondary pattern, too, making the blocks pop.
Adding to the design of these blocks, the maker took special care to turn the fabrics so the direction of the prints go in the same direction. This extra attention to detail makes this quilt even more amazing.
Secondary Pattern
When the bowtie blocks come together, they make a wonderful secondary pattern with octagons. Although they really are octagons, the eye tricks you—or, at least, tricks me—to look like circles. This gives the quilt so much character, movement, and texture. You can tell the overall design was well thought out and well executed.
Adding to this, the solids and the prints play so nicely together! I love this technique. It adds a lot of character to this quilt.
Borders
The quilt has this wonderful pink border. The maker used a diagonal quilting design to accentuates the borders. But interestingly, the quilting on one of the borders goes a different direction. Do you think this was done on purpose or was just a happy accident? I love that it has this feature!
Backing
There is a floral backing that was pieced together with one seam down the center. The floral is an all over pattern, but interestingly, other than the wrap binding, it does not appear on the front of the quilt. Because of the busy pattern, you can’t really see much of the hand quilting.
As you see from the picture, there is quite a bit of dirty on this, especially on the back. The fold lines are especially dirty.
Lessons We Can Learn
Although there are many lessons we can learn as modern-day quilters from this quilt, here are a few I chose. Let me know if you can think of others.
Solids with Prints: Sometimes as makers we think we can only use one or the other in a quilt; this maker showed us all that we can mix solids and prints with phenomenal success! In fact, you could argue that the star of this quilt is the secondary pattern of the octagon or, as your eye sees it, a circle-ish shape. As makers, we can learn to let go of these types of self-imposed rules and have fun with color, prints, solids, whatever we would like!
Secondary Pattern: I can’t say enough how much I LOVE this secondary pattern! When these bow tie blocks come together in this configuration, it makes a wonderful secondary design, if you can call it that. My eye actually sees the background as the primary design, but for the sake of speaking like a quilter, the primary design would be the bowtie blocks, right? Either way, it is amazing how the two elements play together nicely causing a slight optical illusion. Paying attention to secondary patterns—and even better—using them to flip the script in quilting making—can be fun and rewarding.
Refolding Quilts in Storage I will be washing this quilt to see if I can get out some of the staining, especially the lines from this quilt being folded in storage. This is a great lesson for us all as quilt makers. In caring for any of our stored quilts, it is important to refold them occasionally. Dirt happens!
Quilting: I just love the way this quilt is quilted. It is simple, yet effective. I love how it highlights the blocks. Sometimes when we add quilting, it can be distracting, but with this, the simple design just gives each block a pop, allowing those wonderful fabrics to shine. I can learn a lot from this.
Fading: A Happy Accident: Okay, hear me out: I love the fading! It looks intentional. Now I am not saying we should purposely allow our quilts to fade this way (or should we), BUT I do love this look. We could achieve this with fabrics, however. Just think of how that would look? An ombre bowtie quilt would look so cool!
Thank you so much for reading about this beautiful old quilt.
Kris