Impromptu Quilt Show

I hope everyone had a good weekend. We did here. My daughter and her fiance came down to visit and to get a little more wedding prep shopping done. Between the shopping and all the meal prep for the family I didn't get much sewing time in. My husband and I are so used to just throwing stuff together to eat that it seems like a major production to produce a sit down meal for four or five, although I certainly spent many years doing that. It's fun, though, when everyone finally sits down around the table.

Yesterday we had a treat. My sister-in-law stopped by with some quilts that belong to my mother-in-law. My SIL has become the family keeper of the quilts since my in-laws moved into an apartment. Most of the quilts were made by my husband's grandmother but a few were made by his aunts. Unfortunately, since none of them were labeled we're not sure which is which. We really need to get my MIL to tell us what she remembers about the history of these quilts.

My husband suggested taking pictures, so we hung them up one by one on the clothesline and snapped away. I thought I'd share them over the next few days. I love having this record of family history.


This is one of the prettiest ones and it's in pretty good condition. The flowers are appliqued on using a blanket stitch. We think this is one my husband's grandmother made. Some of the flowers are appliqued with black thread, but others with red thread. I couldn't tell if the blocks and lattice strips are hand or machine sewn, but the quilting is all hand done. And no, your eyes aren't deceiving you, the flowers are a little wonky. Maybe they were made by different people? If you click on the picture you can see some of the quilting. The quilting designs are done all over, with no regard to the lattice or the blocks. Different quilting motifs show up in different areas, so this might have been a group quilting effort. My guess is that this was made sometime during the thirties, just based on the block design and the use of the solid colors. The back is a coarse cotton, almost like a feed sack material. It is very thin, almost as if no batting or a very thin batting was used.

I'm not sure what this pattern is called; I've seen a modern version of it using HST's, but this one is done with diamonds. Again, I couldn't tell if it was machine or hand pieced, although I suspect that it was all hand pieced. This, too, is hand quilted, but not as closely as the one above. This time the quilting is more organized--even in this small picture you can see the lines of quilting going through the squares diagonally. It has much less wear than the flower appliqued quilt and appears to be a bit more modern. I love the way the sewer solved the problem of making this rectangular by adding the checkerboard blocks in the corners. It is also thicker and softer than the first quilt.


I'll post some more pictures later in the week; Picassa is giving me fits tonight. If you have any information about these quilt designs, I'd love to hear about it.

I also think I am caught up on my quiltalong nine patches, although that won't last for long!