Fabulous Crazy Quilt, bed runner in progress, and my "hexie" Christmas tree.....

I had the great good fortune to purchase an old crazy quilt this past week!  I had seen this quilt 5 years ago, but the owner was not ready to sell it at that time.  I was amazed that she had hung on to my name and phone number and called me to say she now wanted to sell it!  

It is absolutely gorgeous and in very good shape.  A few places where some silk patches are just beginning to tear a bit, but basically no damage, otherwise.

It wasn't an heirloom from her family and I have no knowledge of who made it or how old it is.  Here are photos of each individual block.  Click on them to make them larger.  Having to reduce the size of the photos  to save blog space detracts from the clarity of them.   Very nicely done initials on the side......BWT?

 Obviously someone named Walter in the family and the initials....WMT.  Can't decide if the single letter is a T or an F.  Looks like an F to me, so I'll just say it is for my name....Freeman :-)

A heron? embroidered over the black and red patch.

 The flower embroideries are wonderfully done and all the seam stitching is very varied and intricate.

 I need to research why a "hand mirror"? 

 She had two other quilts and they also had the mirror shape on them.

The spider web for good luck.   That rose in the center is very nice out of large ribbon.  The rainbow is painted.

Beautiful sunflower.   I doubt you can see it, but in that pink patch next to the sunflower is a hand with a top hat over it.

A fan area and a butterfly. 

 The embroidery on the blue is of a soldier.

There are 3 umbrellas on the quilt....one closed and two open.   A fan.

All in all, a very beautiful quilt!  I love it!

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I've been busy on a couple of projects for myself, and several Christmas projects that I won't post in case my relatives look at this post.

I've been wanting to make a bed runner and saw this pattern in a magazine for an entire quilt done with these blocks.  I liked it but didn't want to make an entire quilt and thought it would work for a bed runner.  The top is basically done......except I'm trying to decide on the size of the border.  In the top photo you see a 4" border on top and bottom. 

In this photo I have folded the border down to only 2" top and bottom which matches what is currently on the ends of the runner.

Shots of the ends.....top one unfolded.  If I decide on the 4" borders, I will add another 2" to the ends to match it. 

 Folded here to match the ends.

I had fun making it and that is always a plus for me.  I would make more of these blocks for another project.  Very simple log cabin style blocks.  I wanted a variety of batiks in the fabrics and just happened to have the light colored batik that ended up being the rest of it.  Almost ran out of it, but my local quilt shop owners sold me some they had in their personal stash...thank you, Holly!

My "hexie" Christmas tree.  I am embroidering over some of the background snowflakes with white thread and beads and then will have to decide how to finish it.  It started out oval rather than round and may end up that way.  Won't make that decision until I finish with the snowflakes.  Also debating on a star for the top of the tree.....a star button?  an embroidered star?  none at all?