I'm lucky enough that when I started quilting, I also started keeping a "journal." It's a file in my computer (backed up to another drive) called: Quilt Provenances. Each time I start a quilt, I make an entry in the journal. I put in the name of the quilt, the date I started. If I don't do that, I forget when I started the quilt!!! :oops:
It's kinda' funny because the quilts are in order chronological order of when I STARTED...of course the finished quilts would be a completely different matter.
My aunt was an amazing quilter from the "old days." She started quilting when she was eight, in 1913. She hand cut with scissors, hand pieced and hand quilted every quilt she made. She made her own templates out of linoleum or cardboard. When she died, I had three quilts she had given me and inherited all of her quilts. I only knew the story on one of them. The rest I have no idea when she quilted them, what the story was behind them. I've taken them to appraisers, which gives me a ballpark figure of time. But since she always used scraps from dresses she made for herself, my sister and me, plus fabric given by friends to her, it's really hard to settle on a time.
She taught me a lesson...always document your quilts!!!