Lemoyne or Lemon Star - need advice
 

This is an old quilt made by a friend's G Grandmother, who died in 1904. It is an unfinished quilt that I volunteered to hand quilt. Want to do something fairly simple - any suggestions? I am nervous about handling a quilt this age.

For a quilt that old it looks like it's in fantastic shape. Sorry I'm not helpful about how to quilt it.

That is a beauty!! Good luck in your search for answers. Sorry I couldn't help.

I'm no expert but maybe you could do an on point square inside the brown stars; echo around the stars, and then stitch in the ditch around the brown star squares. For the white squares maybe using brown thread, quilt a star shape to match the brown stars and then follow that in white or cream thread and repeat the same sequince you did in the brown star squares - the on point square, the echo around stars, and stitch in the ditch around the whole square.

I'm sitting here just admiring this quilt top ... how fabulous! Would you consider something that would have been done around the time this quilt top was made? I'm not sure what that would be, but looking at historic quilts might provide some inspiration. I look forward to seeing the end product.

Lots of white, and open spaces. I would use white thread, and some fancy feathered quilting. That is a beautiful quilt top. Hope you will share pictures after it's quilted.

Fancy would be beautiful! However, many quilts were done with an all-over design such as Baptist Fans.

Maybe you could quilt in the ditch, around the stars and also quilt stars matching in the white squares. That would be too extensive by hand but would be pretty.

I was thinking the same thing!!!