Ten Antique Quilts

[Margo]

My sister-in-law found these 10 quilt tops in her mother's attic. She thinks (?) they were made by her grandmother, and asked me in February to quilt them in time for Christmas gifts for members of her family. OK......I'm getting them quilted on my Handi-Quilter 16, but there is no fancy quilting here.

First of all...these are charming quilt tops! I really think they were created by at least 2 people. It looks to me like one person pieced all of the blocks by hand and assembled some of the tops and I think that someone else (possibly?) assembled some of the quilts with a machine. At any rate, we are talking about very frugal folks. Most of the blocks have patches that have been assembled from a variety of similar fabrics. I'll show you some of the photos I took along the way. The photos of all the quilts were taken before they were quilted.

Also....grain of fabric, matching corners of piecing and sashing, trimming extra threads, and any pressing at all were NOT on the agenda of whoever pieced these tops! Bless their hearts!

It would have been congruent with the period of the fabrics to have used muslin on the backs of all of them but Brenda asked for colored fabric backs, and I was able to find extra wide backing fabrics for all of them so I didn't have to mess with seaming the backing fabric.

The first quilt I called "Bull's Eye", but I don't really know what the pattern name is. After quilting and washing/blocking it now measures 62" x 71". This is one that will probably be OK to get some gentle use. Most of the fabrics are woven plaids, and I was able to find a blue flannel backing that is very close to the color of the sashing. The blocks are small enough that I could quilt a motif in each block with my (robotic) Pro Stitcher with one pass, then do some free motion continuous curves in the sashing.

[Margo]

This Churn Dash top has some interesting fabrics and creative piecing.

[Margo]

I called this one "Geese On The Square"

I really think that it is too fragile for much use as a quilt, but hope someone will be glad to have it as a family momento.

[Margo]

Turkey Tracks.



This one had a surprise on the back. It was probably feed sack fabric, but it was fun to see the number 2012 on the back of one piece of it!



I think these fabrics are strong enough for gentle use so I added a little more decorative quilting. The fabrics range from feed sacks to highly polished cotton, to linen to almost a burlap texture!

[Margo]

Double Pinwheel 1

The fabrics on this top are sturdy enough for some gentle use. There are lots of different khaki fabrics and shirtings.



I used an edge-to-edge design to repeat the angles of the block layout.



And there is lots of creative piecing!

[Margo]

Here is the second Double Pinwheel quilt.



Similar fabrics in the top. I used a green backing on one and a blue backing on the other.
Same angular quilting design.

[Margo]

I don't know the name of this block, but I call it Tiles 1.



These fabrics are really fragile and I just quilted an overall meander to hold it together.



And the red is NOT color-fast! :shock:

[Margo]

Here is Tiles 2: They finally ran out of the red for the border, so this one only has two red borders!



These are the threads that I removed from the seams of just this one quilt. These were on the TOP of the quilt! Fragile, flimsy fabric, and they weren't concerned with the finer details of trimming threads!



For these two quilts, I just did a large, meander. The backings of both of them are Stonehenge Grey to go with the grey and black fabrics for a masculine feel.

[Renata]

Margo, these quilts are amazing! What a memory of times past and a memento for future generations. You certainly have the skill and finesse in deciding what needs to go onto these quilts. They are matched up with just the right person to do this delicate work.

[Margo]

That brings us to the last two quilt tops. I have these two log cabin quilts left to do.

This large scale log cabin will get a red Stonehenge backing fabric, and probably just an overall quilting design.
There is one block that is turned the wrong way, but I'm not going to change it.



And this is my favorite of the group. I call it the "Cream of the Crop"!!
Brenda asked that I add borders to make it a little larger, and that will give me a place to add some nice feather quilting.



After all of the minuscule piecing that was done on the quilts with larger blocks, I think it is so funny that there are places in this quilt where there should be 2 "logs", but she had a piece of fabric large enough that she wasn't about to cut it, and used just the one large piece! And there is also lots of pieced logs too.
Absolutely charming!

I'll add photos of these when I get them done.

[romira]

These are all so great!
Wonder what stories they could tell.

thanks for the photos, Margo.

[kathyst2]

Margo, what a treasure! I love to see these old tops get a new chance to be out in the world, even if some are too fragile to be used as a quilt. The color choices are folk art for sure. This reminds me of Gyleen Fitzgerald's book about bringing old quilt tops to life. I'm sure the makers of these tops are happy up in Heaven knowing that someone got around to completing them.

Kathy

[Zarah]

Thank you for sharing this, Margo. What a variety of colors and fabrics. You have done a tremendous job in finishing them

[scottishquilter]

Margo thanks for the photos. It was very interesting to see what was being made early on. I love your very kind words "interesting fabrics and creative piecing". In those bygone days it shows that people had to make do with what they could find as there was no quilt shops around. It also shows that in every era there were UFO's, this generation didn't invent them :lol: :lol: :lol:
Please continue to tell us their story.

[pam7040]

Margo, I heartily agree with Renata. These quilts couldn't have found a better person to treat them gently, sympathetically and finish them for the family.