Pepita

My sister sent me this in progress quilt that our great aunt made. It has many papers with it, one showing when she bought the pattern 1932--It was from Women's world. My aunt taught at Greenbrier (I think a prep school type for girls) she had her bachleor's in home ec. and her masters in Latin! Every thing is hand pieced. The blocks are dirty. I hand washed the plain white squares, and then hung them to dry. I also washed the pink and green fabric. To finish this quilt I have to get white fabric. Should I get a color to try and match the white squares, or do I bleach it to get out the stains? I tried oxygen bleach in the first try.

The pattern is called tobacco leaves--maybe roses and tobacco leaves. I think this refers to the very wide large leaf which when I wrote the name out in cyber space it showed many different patterns that all had this broad leaf.

Here are some of my questions. Should I try and make the quilt a little bigger? It is for a double bed. I figure one mmore 12 inch square wide would be enough to make it a queen sized.
Second, do you think I need to hand piece the rest of the quilt? (because she did)
Do you have any suggestions as to how to clean the fabric? The worst is the applique squares, which is no suprise since that was handled the most.
The fabric that is green is written on the selvage and on it it says percale, and 80 something. I can't go and get it right now, it's late and my daughter is sleeping in my sewing room. So I always learned that percale (sheets) were a 200 thread count or higher. Could this mean 80 thread count? It seems like it is a tight weave-not as tight as bali batiks, but more than muslin.
That should get me started!
Thanks for your help.
Barbara
I don't see the place to add an attachment, may have to post again to get that in.