"Vintage" Reveal: Tin Cup Store

Way back in 2019, hubby and I went ATVing in Colorado for the first time. We stayed at Taylor Park Reservoir. One of our rides took us to the almost-a-ghost-town of Tin Cup, Colorado. Getting off our ATV's, I was immediately smitten with the rustic Tin Cup Store and I took this picture.

Almost right away after returning from that trip, I started wanting to render my photograph into fabric. In the intervening years I’ve thought about how to do it. When the most recent list of prompts was announced and “Vintage” was among them, I knew Tin Cup Store’s time had come. Here is my finished quilt:

This is what Wikipedia tells us about Tin Cup, Colorado:  

In October 1859, prospector Jim Taylor panned some gold from Willow Creek, and carried it back to camp in a tin cup; he named the valley “Tin Cup Gulch.” For years the area was the site of seasonal placer mining, but no year-round communities were established, partly because of the danger of Native American hostilities.

In 1878, lode deposits were discovered in the area, and the town of Virginia City was laid out in March 1879. By the 1880 census, the town had a population of 1,495. As Virginia City, it was incorporated in August 1880, but confusion with Virginia City, Nevada, and Virginia City, Montana, caused the residents to change the name. The town was reincorporated in July 1882 as Tin Cup.

The town population declined when the mines were exhausted. The post office closed in 1918, and the last town election was held in 1918.

 Here's an image from when the store was still operational.

(Image credit: "Tin Cup store and gas station" by peterichman is licensed under CC BY 2.0.)

Although some sources claim Tin Cup Store is still open during the summer, I have my doubts about that. When we visited in 2023, the doors and windows were boarded up, and it looked completely abandoned. If you're interested, a photo gallery of the area can be seen right here. 

Rendering the photograph into fabric presented some challenges. The first challenge was choosing fabrics I could use to create the scene, while simultaneously maintaining my sanity. I’m sure I purchased more fabrics than the ones shown below, but these were the ones selected to complete my project.

Starting out, it made sense to create the peak of the roof and its shadow first. From there, I could created the sign and the vertical board siding, tucking the “boards” under the shadow of the roof as I went. When I was finished with the first day’s effort, I had it this far:

It took several days, but eventually, I had it finished from side to side.

The horizontal board siding had its own set of challenges. For one thing, there were some important details that I could not possibly accomplish at this small scale. I gave it a lot of thought. I could leave it off, but these particular details gave the building its character. They seemed necessary ingredients to really capture the spirit of the place. And so I printed this small section onto fabric and cut out the detailed pieces I wanted…the elevation of the place at 10,157 feet. Also, the address number and the “Tin Cup Store” sign cut from license plates. Just below it, can you see the “Tin Cup” name created with horseshoes? Cool, huh? And finally, the license plate off to the right. They were cut out and fused like any other applique.

The sign on the log was embroidered using my machine’s triple stitch.

The screen door gave me pause. How could I create a screen from fabric? Eventually, I decided to add tulle over the top of the inner door pieces to create the suggestion of a screen.

There were a lot of pieces and layers, and so I created it separately, then peeled it up and fused it to the whole.

When it was all finished, it looked like this. I just needed a background.

A fabric for the gravel driveway and a woodsy background were selected and pieced together, and then the store was added.

It was quilted pretty simply. I first stitched down all the individual pieces, and then added some meandering in the gravel for texture.

To finish off the background, I added a sort of swoopy branchy thing around the trees.

A green binding was added, and it was finished. It ends up at 18 x 22 inches.

I’m pretty happy with this quilt mainly, I think, because I love the place. Somehow rendering a scene into fabric brings another dimension to what was once just a two-dimensional photograph. It seems to awaken memories in the way a photograph cannot. It occurs to me that it is the attention to detail that evokes memories, but I’m only guessing. Here’s how it looks from the back.

This was a fun project for me, and the fulfillment of a creative dream. I hope you've enjoyed learning a little about Tin Cup, Colorado, and I hope you like my quilt.

A Sad Little Horse

I didn't mean for this little horse to look so downcast but it is reflective of my making during the last quarter. From September, I hope I will have more time as my childcare days will start at 12 noon instead of 8 am and I should have finished quite a big garden project, which has taken a lot of time...

For today's reveal, though, I just have a simple offering. I have been wanting to use this vintage embroidered tea cosy (I assume it's a tea cosy but it's really too thin to use as one) for a long time but I haven't wanted to cut it and the awkward shape has always ended up putting me off.



Finally, it's time has come!

I am looking forward to seeing what everyone else has made this quarter :)

How old is Vintage?

Isn't it funny when you have a themed piece to create it seems the topic "Vintage" seems to seep into everything creative you have in mind or are working on? Do you find that too - suddenly everything you look at making is an opportunity to explore the theme? 

 

When "Vintage" was first picked I imagined a sewing room with a tailor’s dummy and a quaint desk with a featherweight sewing machine. Then I imagined a vintage typewriter which brought me to these expensive digital typewriters. I really like the yellow one! 

Too many thoughts and sketches living as only sketches until I saw a workshop advertised "not for beginners". That caught my eye and curiosity got the better of me. River of Dreams is an annual quilt exhibition held in Limerick, Ireland and for the last two years the organisers have provided workshops in the middle weekend. This year there was a two-part workshop - drafting in the traditional method of graph paper with pencil and compass on the Saturday and making the design on the Sunday. The class was led by Emer Fahy, and she brought us through the drafting and construction of the LeMoyne star in her design of a 28" block. 

I thought this could be a fun way to look at Vintage. How old does something have to be to be vintage? Google tells me 20+years but less than 100 for vintage and over 100 is antique! Barbara Brackman has the LeMoyne star design going back as far as 1894 so maybe this is not quite vintage but older again.

What I didn't know is that this type of block is based on a circle and doesn't evenly divide into an evenly spaced grid. Rather the diagonal measurement of the corner blocks equals the width of the two centre diamond points. That's what makes the drafting of it a little bit more complicated than an 8-pointed sawtooth star made from Half square triangles. Sewing it together is all Y-seams. 

Emer added a mitred border to up the difficulty level with more Y seams so this was a get as much as you can done in a day and finish it at home type of project.

Selecting material with vintage in mind I went straight for calico - that cream speaks of olde worlde to me and the little flecks in the fabric add character. Whenever I think of vintage photographs or books I think of a yellow tone to the whites and a sunny washed our effect on the colours, so I was trying for that in the pinks and blues with the creamy calico.

Instead of having a border same colour either side of the accent colour as in Emer’s design of pink-blue-pink, I changed them up to give a bit more room for the centre star using inner border as background fabric and then the blue to frame the design with pink leading into the colour change. In the second border I used background fabric with pink as the inner colour to frame the pink stars.

This finishes quite big, and I was a bit stuck on what to do with it. I don't have anywhere for it as a wall hanging and was thinking of making it into a bag to carry a cutting mat and ruler but at 28" it’s a bit big for my 5ft nothing height! I think it needed to become the medallion in a bigger quilt. Do your pieces talk to you sometimes like that telling you what they want to be?

 

So, I went medallion hunting and bought a few books(from the 1980's so I think these count as Vintage too!), lost hours on Pinterest and the Quilt Index looking at some really old quilts and came to my senses and remembered to keep it simple. 

 

Sticking with 45-degree angles that the LeMoyne star is based on I decided on square in a square and flying geese.

As this has turned out quite a bit bigger than intended, is now going to be a 70" quilt  and I changed my mind on the colouring, I didn't get it finished but I hope you enjoyed hearing about my exploration of Vintage - I certainly enjoyed learning new skills and letting my curiosity follow where the theme led. 

So I'll leave you with two vintage quilts of Emer's that she brought for show and tell, no idea who the makers are only that they are vintage Irish quilt tops.

 I honestly did not know what to do with this theme. I thought about vintage fabric or lace but don't have any. I decided that I did not want to do a vintage block. So I found a quilt I did several years ago from classes I took doing vintage sewing techniques. Here are close-ups of the the blocks.

New Theme

A big thank you to everyone who linked up 'Harmony' quilts. It was, again, a wonderful collection and I'm always amazed at how all the quilts are so different, given that we work from the same prompt. I'd also like to wish Barbara and Fiona Happy Travelling :)

Now we have three options remaining:

1. Vintage

2. Spices

3. Mosaic

And the random generator wheel has chosen...

So our new theme is 'Vintage'.

The Reveal Day will be 1st August at 10.00 GMT and, in the meantime, you are of course welcome to post anything related to this theme or art quilting in general here on The Endeavourers.

Happy Sewing!

Janine :)

Harmony

I struggled to think of anything interesting to do for this theme so I settled on constructing a Fibonacci spiral. So far as I understand it, this construction is used to create a harmonic composition in paintings and you can see see some examples overlayed with an outline of the spiral here. I'm not entirely convinced that features in the paintings aren't being selected to fit the template but you can see what you think.

I was also hoping this would harmonise in the Makery with the yet-to-be-finished SAHRR I made recently but, despite using the same fabrics, I'm not sure that it does!

I'm sorry I'm posting late as last night and this morning I was struggling with the internet. I really need to start scheduling these posts :(

I'm really looking forward to seeing what everyone else has made this time :)

Harmony

Harmony. I spent a lot of time thinking about this prompt. I looked up the definition, I thought about harmony in music and in nature. I asked hubs and friends what came to mind for harmony. Ideas popped into my head, but nothing really felt right. 

One day, I sent a text to two of my quilting friends asking if either of them would like this panel. For some reason, neither of them were interested (yes, I'm being snarky). 

As I sat and stared at this panel, a thought came to me: Can I take something out of harmony and put it back into harmony in a different way? Hmm. That might be fun to explore. 

There was cutting involved. A lot of cutting. Very fussy cutting. I took my time, and I used a few different sizes of scissors because some of the pieces were small and detailed. 

Once the cutting was done, I considered how to attach the new pieces onto the new background. I opted for a glue stick; it was not a good choice, but I made it work. I neglected to take photos of this process, but it was a sticky mess. 

Then came the quilting. I managed to find thread that matched quite well, which made me happy because I really wanted to hide the free motion quilting I was doing. It also made it difficult to photograph, so here are a few photos. Hopefully you can see a little bit of the detail. 

And here's Harmony, in a new way. Except for the background and face, all the parts are from the panel. 

This finished quilt measures 20" x 24". The background fabric is from a Tula Pink line, and to quilt the background, I randomly followed the swirls here and there, using a light blue thread. 

This was definitely not what I thought I would end up with for the Harmony challenge, but I sure had fun! 

Wendy

The Secret Chord

 I had trouble coming up with a strong design for this prompt.  To me, Japanese textiles are stunning examples of harmony, but they are perfect the way they are.  I could just display some fabrics without doing anything more to them, but I think that would be cheating.  :)  And when I tried to come up with a design of my own, it was all too easy for "harmonious" to slide off into "boring."

Finally I decided to translate a piece of music into colors and textures.  I chose the Leonard Cohen song Hallelujah, because its chord changes would provide some movement to a composition.

For each note of the scale, I chose the color that represents how I visualize it.  (This is based on their placement on a piano keyboard and not on their tone; it would be interesting to know if I ever had a piano instruction book that used these colors!)

The musical scale as I visualize it.

Then those colors formed triads that each represented a chord.  

This group represents A minor.

I added some decorative machine stitching for the flow of the music, and fused the blocks to some beautiful silk columns.

"The Secret Chord"

I feel that this does capture the idea of harmony, but it isn't as strong a piece as I would like.  It would benefit from being arranged with a beautiful vase and a branch of orchids!  :)

To read more about how I made this, you can visit my home blog, Deep in the Heart of Textiles.

Harmony in quilt making

When the theme of Harmony came up on the wheel, my mind immediately went to music and I had imaginings of quilts with music notes, or intricate lines weaving in and out of each other in waves like sound waves amplyfying each other.  I was very surprised that I went in a different direction. 

 

 

 

I think its because I was having fun just making quilt tops with no purpose in mind other than to make.  My mind enjoyed being in the moment of fabric selection and playing with colours to get them to flow and live well together, and it occurred to me that is Harmony too.   

 

I think it is something we do subconsciously as quilters (unless we are using contrast or asymmetry to draw attention to something specific), we strive to make the pieces fit together in a way that is pleasing or balanced.  

 

I was in a bee of 12 people, and the 11 hive mates made me drunkards path blocks.   I got a 5 pinks and a mixture of other colours and I was struggling to come up with a cohesive design for them.  So I decided to make 2 quilts.  Out of the 12 blocks 1 had a dark centre, and I love the block but it was fighting me in every way I used it, trying to get it to play nice with the others.  Until I added in more dark.  I call this quilt Garden Paths, as I imagine the diagonal lines as paths and the triangles as raised flower beds. Now it feels to me that the dark centre belongs and all is resolved.  Harmony achieved.

 

So with that in mind I had another challenge this quarter.  A friend asked me if I would be in a bee for her and make a block for her quilt inspired by Portuguese tiles.  I had the opportunity to visit Portugal in April when we went for a short city break to Porto and it was glorious!  Beautiful weather, lots of walkign up and down hills, tasting port wine and eating very well.  There was also the chance to see lots of different tiles, all in various shades of lovely blue with white and smatterings of yellow here and there. 

 

 

Some were very intricate and some were painterly, depicting life in the city.  So I had a go at designing my own tile, and I came up with this design that I thought would repeat really well.

And here it is tiled as a quilt.

On its own though as an individual piece I thought the secondary line made it feel unfinished.  It belongs in a group and the line leading off to nowhere felt wrong to me, but I liked the idea of it, so I cropped it.  It still frames the central motif but doesn't pull you out of the frame.  This made me feel better.  Is that Harmony too- feeling in tune with your work?

And tiled it could look like this with grouting lines (aka skinny sashing) in between.

So I had a go at making it.  It was trickier than I thought and the applique is far from perfect but I think the idea works. 

Apologies it's not quilted or finished as a piece of art.  I gave it to my friend for inclusion in her quilt and I didn't have enough time to make a second one.  It's interesting where the theme will take you and I really enjoyed the journey on this one.

Harmony

 

This was a difficult one for me. I thought about music but did not want to make a music quilt. Then I googled 'harmony in art' and figured out that anything that was pleasing to the eye was harmonious - not helpful. The other thing I thought about was people relations but, to me that has been done a million times and is almost a cliché. So I was stumped until I was looking at the wall one evening and realized I had the answer:

Aikido – The Way of Harmony – is a Japanese martial art that was created by Morihei Ueshiba in the early 20^th century. “Ai” means harmony, unifying. “Ki” means spirit or energy. “Do” means way or path. Ueshiba sensei’s goal was to create an art that practitioners could use to defend themselves while also protecting their attackers from injury. The practitioner uses the energy or momentum of the attacker, usually merges with it and taking control before either throwing them away or putting them on the ground with a joint lock.

A little personal history: I began practicing aikido in 1969 and practiced for 30+ years off and on because of moving around a lot. I had instructors (sensei’s) from the west coast to the east coast and the Midwest of the US and achieved black belts in two styles the art (one from Schools of Ueshiba and the other from Shin Shin Toitsu AKA Ki Aikido). Here is a photo of the quilt as it is now hanging beside some of my certificates. I loved practicing, especially when I was the only female and could throw the males around. J Making this quilt brought back a lot of good memories.

I did not do a lot of sewing for this piece. I printed the kanji onto fabric then sewed, with black thread, around each segment. In the past I did a couple pieces of appliqued kanji but these were a little too complicated.

This last photo is of a painting that my husband did of me in 1993.