Vintage Valentines Applique Quilt Blocks
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There can be hundreds of fabric pieces to hand applique each of these quilt blocks. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)
Vintage Valentines Applique Quilt Blocks
This was a labor of love and not because it is a vintage Valentines design. Applique, or the art of hand sewing fabric pieces to make a final design, has been the most expensive way to make a handmade quilt since I started Bluebird Gardens in 1998. Even then, applique quilts were primarily affordable in the US only because they were imported. Depending on their experience and skill level, applique quilters back then were asking $15-$30/hour for their work, and those prices have only slowly increased.
This customer had started one of the 12 quilt blocks in this hand-applique Vintage Valentines applique quilt and needed help getting it finished. One of our excellent piecers volunteered to help her get this completed.
If you don’t know what applique is, it is the process of cutting out fabrics in designs, hand-sewing them so you don’t see the stitches and layering the fabric to make a pattern. It calls for meticulous skills and attention to detail.
Each heart is individually hand-sewn onto the valentine design. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)
You can see how many fabric hearts make up this detailed applique quilt block. There is little room for error because the fabrics are hand sewn in a specific order to create the overall design.
Compare this to All Hearts Quilt, made with machine embroidery and patchwork strips sewn by machine.
This applique quilt block looks simple until you look at the pieces of each flower. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)
If you’ve done any kind of sewing, you know keeping everything flat is a challenge. In applique work, keeping the fabrics from puckering is an art form.
The largest applique quilt block is the center block with over 150 individual fabric pieces. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)
So let’s do a little math. Can you guess how many hours it took to hand applique 12 different Vintage Valentine quilt blocks?
The total was 215.10 hours.
If we apply a couple of hourly rates:
At $15/hour = $3,226.50
At $30/hour = $6,453
So the next time you go to a quilt guild show or see a handmade applique quilt, take a closer look. Handmade applique quilts continue to hold their own as the most intricate, and most expensive, handmade quilts to make in the US.
