Quiltingboard Forums - Antique Family Quilts

My mother inherited these quilts with the passing of my grandmother. I got them given to me when I started telling my mother what she needed to do to take care of them. Mom just smiled and said why don't you just take them now, you'd get them eventually anyway. The only condition is that they can never be sold. The first one is the oldest, made in 1872, as a baby quilt for my great-grandfather by his mother. It was the very first thing she sewed on her very first sewing machine...she even machine quilted it. It's made with 5 different red shirtings for the blocks. The 2nd one is dark blue (with small white stars) and white. It is a community quilt made by the Ladies Union Aid Society in 1889 (written in the corners of the quilt) and includes the names of more than 320 people (including about 50 relatives) living mostly in Stephenson Co, IL or Green Co, WI. The patch work is not the greatest (completed by hand) but the quilting is very nice. There are 2 red & white quilts that I have no information about when they were made or by whom. The plain red is a Jacob's Ladder set on point and the quilting is very nice in diagonal lines. The blue and white quilt bears a label saying that it was handmade by my great grandmother and her mother. I believe Hattie did the piecing and her mother quilted it. It is very, very finely quilted with fans and hearts over the patchwork and a wave pattern in the border (matching the border of the community quilt almost exactly). My mother says that this quilt was always on her grandmother's bed and even in my earliest memories of the room that my great grandmother had at my grandparents house, I can remember the blue and white patches. Unfortunately, one section is badly sun faded from the window. The last two are string quilts made by Hattie for my mother and her twin brother. Both are machine quilted. I feel very blessed to have received these quilts and cherish them dearly. My grandmother sewed every day and made the most beautiful clothes but she never quilted. As a quilter, it's nice to be able to reconnect with a quilting heritage in my family. I hope you all enjoy the pictures. Thanks for looking.