I Never Met An Antique Quilt I Did Not Like

An antique quilt was recently gifted to me. After several long soaks in the bathtub with cool water and Biz, it finally was clean enough to handle. It is quite lovely in the simplicity of the blocks used. This quilt is totally hand pieced and hand quilted. Scattered here and there throughout the quilt are poverty blocks, those blocks where pieced fabric was used to finish out the block, similar to our modern day crumb block.

As you can see from the hour glass block, which are in the four corners, some of the fabrics are from the 1880s; those black and white mourning prints and that double blue give it away. OTOH, the backing does not fit in and looks more like it is from the 1930s feed sack era.






Before you see the whole quilt, you need to see how much it has deteriorated. You can click for a larger photo. See those little tufts of red? That is what is left of a certain red fabric. You can also see where someone has tried to stabilize the center portion of the block by stitching it down with black thread.





Here is the whole quilt. Isn't it a fun graphic quilt? Each block is approximately 4.5" and the setting is 14 blocks by 14 blocks. The over all quilt size is roughly 63" x 63". It is by no means a perfect quilt and has seen better days, but it is surprising how well it has held up for how old I believe this quilt to be. The quilting stitches are not very consistent but cover four blocks in an off-center log cabin design.





I am glad that I was able to "rescue" this quilt from possibly being a cutter quilt in the future. I have received permission from the GF who gave it to me, to pass it along to another GF. The second GF saves old quilts like this and just refolds them for display on an old trunk. This will be a welcome addition to her collection.