Have you seen the red and white quilts of the Infinite Variety collection? They made a big splash at the American Folk Art Museum in 2011, and I was lucky enough to see some of them at Houston Quilt Market/Festival a couple of years back.

Image from the American Folk Art Museum

I’ve always been a fan of the graphic nature of two-color quilts, and seeing the red and white quilts got me thinking about building my own collection, but with ORANGE and white quilts! I remembered a quilt I bought back in the early 1990s…

Twenty-some years ago, there was a cable program that showed antique quilts for sale. Many of the ladies in my quilt guild spent their weekends glued to this show, calling in to pounce on the vintage treasures. This was before the internet became a household thing (something I can barely imagine now!) I fell pray to watching that show one weekend, and this lovely ORANGE and white Snail’s Trail joined my household shortly thereafter:

 

 

I’ve often said it was waiting just for me to love it. It’s from the 1930s, machine-pieced but hand-quilted. If you’ve ever seen me lecture, I often bring this quilt with me. I love to show how imperfectly made it is, and how none of that detracts from its beauty. This quilt really taught me to appreciate seeing the hand of the maker, and it has always been so precious to me because many points miss and the ORANGE fabric shadows under the white in a lot of places.

Anyway, until this spring, it was the only antique quilt I owned. And then I found this Drunkards Path on Ebay:

 

 

So I bought it. Now there were two. A fledgling collection was hatched! Look closely… you’ll see that the outer row of blocks is from a slightly darker fabric. Running out of fabric is obviously a timeless problem!

And then a few weeks ago, my friend Lori found this quilt top and nabbed it for me:

 

 

It’s a hot mess of stretchy bias edges and funky points. Just look at how several of the center stars are, shall we say… irregular! It’s hand-pieced and I wish I knew if it was made by one or many people. I adore it. And I guess the ORANGE and White Collection is truly underway now 🙂