My youngest daughter is studying "Material Culture" with an emphasis on antique clothing. For a class the other day she was studying a grandmother's flower garden quilt top. Most of the fabrics were from the 1830's. It was done with the English paper piecing method, some of the papers were handwritten from the 1830's and some were as recent as the 1930's. Her job is to try to figure out how the fabrics came to be in a quilt! She said you could tell some of them were seconds or misprints because of the white lines that were visible where the dye didn't take. She said she had been staring at the front of the top for hours and it wasn't talking to her so she was going to turn it over and look at the back. My comment to her was that yes quilt tops and quilts can speak to us. When I see them in antique stores or flea markets some just seem to say "take me home" and others have no appeal to me. Does anyone else ever have this happen??

:D Not only quilts, but fabrics, certain pieces of clothing, shoes and especially chocolate :shock:

I found a grandmother's garden top, only it was a scrappy instead of flowers. It had been hand sewn and was $25. I absolutely could not pass by it because I couldn't let a fellow quilter's hours of work go unappreciated. I started to quilt it in the traditional flower pattern, but have decided I would rather have the top as is, so will take out the little I got done. I am now rying to find a piece of furniture that I can use to show off the tops and quilts I have. So yes, this quilt top definitely spoke to my heart :!:

Anything sewing related or machine embroidery talks to me. I can't ever go into Walmart without going to the fabric section. I hear it calling as soon as I walk through the door. :lol: :lol: :lol:

You are not alone! It's called addiction! :lol: :lol: :lol: