Antique quilts

I am "flying high" today. I stopped at my mother-in-law, Dorothy's, house last night and she gave me 6 quilts to bring to Garden Club and share. They are just treasures! My very favorite one is a Flower Garden Quilt that she embroidered when she was a freshman in high school. The pattern was in the Bloomington Pantagraph newspaper each week. Her sister copied off the pattern and then Dorothy stitched one block a week. Her mom then put the quilt together with a picket fence border around the outside. Dorothy's stem stitch is just BEAUTIFUL! The ladies in club were so interested in it that they thought they would like to do it for a block of the month. To my good fortune, a quilt appraiser came in the store from Iowa right after club and I showed her the quilt. She said the pattern was designed by Ruby Short McKim and I could go to her website and probably find the pattern. Of course I went and googled it immediately. I found it! I am going to order the book and get started. I'm hoping Dorothy will let me display the quilt for a little while. - Another quilt I have is a quilt made by her favorite aunt. The appraiser thought it was probably a purchased kit. I didn't even realize they had kits back in the 30's and 40's! - Dorothy said that most of the fabric was probably ordered from the Sear's Catalog. Her mom ordered scrap bags of fabric and the fabric would come in all shapes and sizes. The bags were probably like our scrap barrel! Some of the fabrics look just like our reproductions. It is awesome! - The double wedding ring quilt has a purchased bias binding on it. The appraiser said that she considered the binding to be a "hot gadget" at the time. Bias binding was something very new and the "gadget girls" were the ones who purchased it. - Dorothy's aunts would come to her house around 8-8:30 AM and would stay until it got too dark in the house to quilt. Just think--they didn't have Ott lights! - Dorothy's mom's stitches are soooooooo tiny. I don't know how she got them so small and even! Her mom never took any of her quilts to the church to have them quilted, she just quilted them with her sisters. Oh what fun they must have had!-

TTFN,
Carol