Yes it is hard to believe. They are pristine! The pinks are still pink; it's a Treasure.

.................and no rulers, cutters, or sewing machines..............

beautiful colors and fabrics. You might check in your area and see if there is a quilt guild or a quilt shop with info about quilt restoration experts nearby who might advise you. If you don't have shattering in the fabrica, you can probably handle them---gently, but still handle them. I'd rather have the treasure you found than a silver do-dad any day. Just think your great-grandmother touched those fabrics, sewed those blocks, thought about how to put them together, went through the same processes you are going through. Lovely connections..

Beautiful fabrics and blocks and all done by hand. WOW! What a find.

I hope the quilt in the cedar chest is well wrapped. If it touches the cedar wood there will be stains. Good luck.

That is what I did with blocks from our Great Grandmother--four sisters so we now each have a wall hanging using those blocks. I found some repro fabric that worked great for the borders. I gave each sister a history sheet, telling who had made the blocks, etc.

A note about storing old quilts in a pillowcase. I've read in an article about preserving quilts that this is fine as long as they are new pillowcases. Ones that have been used even though they have been washed still have some body oils in them that could transfer to the quilt.

If I had a scanner I could post the article but I don't. Maybe someone could do a search on storing vintage quilts.

I love this place and all you people!!!! I feel so satisfied heaaring, reading and looking at quilts and history and family!!! I am in my sewing room and this is just a little bit like heaven!! You guys are like family

I have made quilts from old family blocks and each time there were different challenges to meet. One was so old that every time I rocked my needle up and down the fabric split!! YIKES!! So I had to finish the quilt by stitching straight up and then straight down!! Man, I thought I would grow old just working on dthat one quilt!!It was a bunch of beautiful old crazy quilt blocks that I had to square to size and set together with sashing and I quilted it in a huge spider web pattern that my husband helped me map out! It was great fun!