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PLEASE hurry up and post pictures of this treasure before they get buried at the bottom of a long thread. It sounds just wonderful from your description!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tartan (Post 6372877)

Fascinating! I sometimes wonder which of my quilts will be examined years from now. In your Grandmother's case, it may not be her best but a utility quilt. I dread that my polyester double knit will be my sole surviving quilt. I am tempted to burn it before I die.:D

Right now I'm piecing a double knit quilt using my DIL's grandmothers squares. Talk about a challange! So far, I've pieced 6 quilts for her. Apparently Grandmother liked to piece squares, but not putting them together. They are all being loved and used because we know she would have liked that.

You know, the appliqued chimneys may have been becasue she ran out of red while making the block but later found more red.

Would be interesting to know why some of the prices are as they are.

I think the quilt police came along many years after your grandmother made her quilt. They probably organized after books came out about quilting with the "rules" laid out.
She most likely worked with what she had at the time.

What a find! It is certainly worth finding all that interesting detail of construction. Yes, I recommend finding a textile restorer before even cleaning the quilt. I talked to a restorer about my great-grandmother's quilts and ultimately, cut out the best part of each quilt and threw the rest away. The fabric was literally shredding in large sections due to sunlight damage. I rebound the 16 inch sections and enjoy them on my wall.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tartan (Post 6372877)

My MIL who passed away this year at 102 (!) made several of the double-knit quilts... all of them are log cabin.... I agree, they will NEVER wear out! She also made most of her own clothes, I remember seeing her wear the fabrics that are now in the quilts.

Quote:

Originally Posted by noveltyjunkie (Post 6373995)

Thanks folks- I have taken a zillion pics but haven't uploaded any yet- sorry! I have decided to start by noting in an exercise book how each block is made and where each fabric is placed. I am surprised that that is what I felt like doing first, but there you go. It's like making a pattern, I guess, although I have no intention of remaking it. (I make have to remake some parts as a few of the finer dress making fabrics pop up torn in block after block- maybe I could find something similar and get them in there somehow. It is 9 x 10 log cabin blocks and after working much of yesterday and much of today I am on number 14!!! It will go faster from here as I recognise the fabrics (I have only had one block so far that didn't have a new fabric in it- I am up to 68 fabrics total in those 14 blocks) I am laughing at some of her tricks as fabrics which appeared to be different turn out to be small pieces cut from a fabric with a bigger pattern. My jigsaw puzzle skills were never more useful than they are for this project! So far the most poignant bit was looking inside (another!) split in her binding and seeing something brown in there. I feared the worst- insect- bit it was a knot in a length of brown thread. There was something very poignant for me about looking at that knot and knowing that my grandmother's hand made it, without the least idea that I would ever be looking at it. I'm sure she never thought of my future existence, but you never know- maybe that's why her own mother made her redo those centres- "your grandchildren may be looking at this 100 years from now" Roll eyes from teenage seamstress "mo- THER!!!"

I think of my quilts as my heritage - thus I label each with my full name - including maiden name - and home town. They are all over the US, because I've given most away. Of course, all my children and grandchildren have several. I have pictured a future great grandchild handling one of them and wondering what I was like. (S)he will see pictures of me and where I lived, but the quilts will tell her/him more about me than any photograph can. I have quilts from both grandmothers and from one of my husband's grandmothers. All lived on farms or ranches and worked hard all their lives. I knew one of my grandmothers quite well, but the quilt shows me a side of her I didn't know. I wish we had talked about quilts!

How wonderful!! I am 77 and I remember my aunts, my mom, and neighbors.. how hard they worked and then sat way into the night with a kerosene lamp burning, to see their work..how my mother, grandmother, and others treasured every little scrap to put into the blocks they made! I would listen to them talk when they got together to share ideas on what they found worked or didn't or traded a piece to fit to help finish someones project..simple things that made all the hard work worth it all.
Thanks for sharing!

I'm sorry but I can't upload my pics. I think I need to update my software or something. I cant even make a break between paragraphs in my posts any more. Sigh.

My mother gave me my grandmother's trousseau quilt. It is a strange pink cotton sateen with a wool bat and clamshell hand quilting. It was made by her and her friends. My mother remembers the quilting part; this was a second marriage for my grandmother as her first husband died when my mother was a toddler. This quilt is one of my treasures.