Chicken scratch is cross-stitch using the squares of gingham as the "even weave" for the design. Wish we could still find good gingham to do this. So many of the ginghams nowadays have too much polyester in them. I had a skirt with a design all around the bottom when I was in high school. I've kept it just for the work that was on it. Fill in the white squares with thread that matches whatever color is in the gingham as in this design. I remember doing an apron with roosters on it but, of course, it had extra colors.

Interesting that someone did the stitchery through the batting. Bet that was fun--not!! I'd be awfully tempted to put another layer of light batting under that when making the quilt but then I like puffy quilts.

I remember many pieces my Grandma did of this stich. It looks like the squares were worked and then joined. I would be tempted to take them all apart and insert more sashing, corner stones and maybe even some alternating blocks to increase the overall size/shape. You definitely have a lovely treasure there.

Score! If I had found this, I think I would take the blocks aparts, sash them and add borders to create the size I wanted. Until I held in my hand the item you found..not sure what I would do about batting and quilting, but believe I would add a layer of batting and backing and quilt only the sashing and borders, but maybe "tack" the blocks. Just suggestions cause it's difficult I'm sure to know just what to do. Thanks for sharing.

This reminds me of a thing called "Huck" stitching........you use HUCK toweling and follow a pattern, kinda like the way you follow the pattern for counted cross stiching

WOW! What a treasure you found. I think I would take all the blocks apart & add a white sashing around them. What ever you decide, it will be beautiful. I also would stitch around the stars when quilting it. IMO.

The person who did this stitching was VERY neat. When I was a child and learning to do embroidery the first thing my mother did was look at the back. If I tried to cheat how I moved the thread from one area to another, I had to take it out and do over, no matter how nice it looked from the front. Didn't take long for me to learn to do it right the first time.

Thats beautiful. You have lots of great advice here. Just wanted to say congrats on your new find. I had not seen Chicken Scratch before.

someone had something like this on the board before and I googled it and I go a whole bunch of chicken scratch patterns free. I also found a 100% cotton red checks at JoAnn's. I wish their other colors were 100%.

My husband's aunt made one almost identical to this, but she did the chicken scratch only on the gingham. She then added batting and backing to each square and quilted, by hand, around the star. The back had to be finished sort of like a quilt-as-you-go. As she got older, her stitches got larger and larger. I ended up finishing it for her, bought a white lacy bed skirt, and made matching gingham pillow cases. It added a personol touch to her nursing home room!

That is a beautiful quilt. Don't know enough to make suggest.