Vintage Treasures Left Behind

Last week, we showed you our new vintage treasures we obtained on our visit to Hershey, PA. As you can well imagine, there were many more left behind, offering us inspiration through our memories and photographs. We hope you will enjoy this tour through the antique malls with us.

This quilt appeared to have been made mostly from clothing scraps, with many wools from probably men's suits. It is an interesting combination of styles, with patchwork embroidered in a crazy quilt style.

Some wear gives clues to the batting used; this appeared to have been a fairly thick cotton batt.

A more typical crazy quilt, made mostly clothing or decorating scraps, including corduroy, wool, silk.

One of several embroidered motifs

A peek inside; this appeared to have been layered
with an old sheet or piece of bedding. 

This stunning fan quilt made great use of the negative space; the quilting work was exquisite.

This simple nine-patch quilt had a unique charm. We weren't sure what is was that drew us both to it, but it definitely spoke to us. Wonder what its story is? The floral border/backing has an interesting look with the stripes in the blocks.

Who doesn't love an old treadle sewing machine? 

The machine came with the manual, which was priceless. One cannot imagine a manual today referring to user error!
In case you are unable to read the text, it begins thusly: "Do not expect to get along entirely without trouble. Difficulties will arise of a more or less serious nature...and remember, that you yourselves are liable to make mistakes..."

The pins were rusted into the pincushion.

This heavy wool quilt was tied. Quilting would have been almost impossible, as it was nearly an inch thick!

We found an stack of interesting embroidered pieces, unlike any we had seen before. We couldn't figure out at first what the background material was...

...but this one which wasn't framed solved the mystery: stamped paper.

Another simple design...

...with more lovely quilting.

Of course, with our love of stories, we found some inspiration in this old print of Little Red Riding Hood.

Embroidered linens...an ugly duckling, perhaps?!

This lovely lady was on one end of a table runner, apparently a stamped kit.

And the man was on the other end.

An ambitious project! Only 48 states at the time.

Quilt top made from feed sacks.

A stack of basted crazy quilt fan squares, some with embroidery, most without.

And a stack of marked cross-stich embroidery squares, some embroidered and some unfinished.

Doesn't every sewing room need one of these!?!