Even though I adore my "Treasury of Quilt Stitches" , the real treasure is Miss Carole Samples herself. I am ever so grateful that she has documented all this needlework... I used it on so many seams on my suffrage quilt... There was a certain "rightness" using seams documented from quilts of that era on my quilt about the women of that era.
I love sitting down with my graph notebook (a gift from Susie Wolfe) and my Miss Carole "Treasury" and working out seams.. I had a sheet Carole sent in yesterday's mail and before I went to bed I had worked the seam circled (1885). Every time I work one of these vintage seams I feel a kinship with the women of that long ago time... In my graph notebook I break the seam down into steps and make a note of where and when I used it.
And what I did that was REALLY right was my organization of Carole's templates. It has make them a dream to use. Having all the shapes on one sheet was inspired and the color coding has worked beautifully for quickly finding the appropriate template.
Since this was in 2011 and you might have missed or forgotten this, here are the links to that project. If you have the templates you will love this...
http://olderrose.blogspot.com/2011/11/scissor-holders-and-miss-caroles.html
http://olderrose.blogspot.com/2011/11/taming-templatesattention-miss-carole.html
Sometimes events happen in your life and you don't realize until later how pivotal they were and the effect they had. Taking the class from Carole Samples several years ago was just such an pivotal event for me. Besides being an unparalleled resource on crazy-quilt history and seam history, she was sharing, gracious and witty.. and I loved her!! She talked almost nonstop for 6 hours both days and never digressed from what she wanted us to learn about her book and templates.
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