Depression Era Dresden Plate Quilt Top

I found a Depression Era Dresden Plate quilt top at the Royal Oak Flea Market. The seller said,
"Today only, $20." I happened to have $20. So it came home with me!

The 84" x 83" top is hand appliquéd and hand embroidered. The Dresden Plate fabrics look pristine; they were bought new and show no fading or wear. They may be machine pieced as I can not see any hand stitching. The muslin has some yellowing, but it is a good weight and not thin and the thread count is good. The corners of the plate blocks have a lavender appliquéd piece that makes an interesting secondary design.

I discovered that my friend Theresa was also at the flea market and bought a Hexie quilt!

Next door to where I bought my quilt top a lady had two kit quilts on display. She said she had lost the paper with who made the floral bouquet quilt but believed it was dated to 1949.

She had this crib kit quilt which I have seen before. It was for sale for $95. She thought it was from the 1950s.

Quilts were being used as table toppers.

 I liked this two color star quilt because I rarely see a brown and white quilt.

A Gifted Grandmother's Fan Quilt

Some years ago a friend gave me his mother's quilts which had been used in the family cabin for years. The matching twin size quilts included fabrics that he recalled seeing in his mother's dresses.

The tops date to the late Depression Era, but were finished in the 1970s with a pre-quilted fabric in a preprinted calico flower appliqué pattern. The tops were machine quited along the blocks to the pre-quilted fabric. The pattern is a Grandmother's fan variation. Each fan has a red center with scrappy blades.  The center of the quilts show fading.

 

  

 There are cute figurative prints.

 

 There are lots of polka dots and plaids!

Pentwater Quilt Display a Success

On Saturday, July 13 the Centenary United Methodist Church of Pentwater, MI offered a quilt display in conjunction with the city's annual Art Fair. Quilts were brought out of closets and taken off beds, representing 19th through 21st century quilt making. About sixty quilts were arranged on the church pews in the sanctuary. The church building was erected in 1875, although the Methodist church in Pentwater was the earliest church in the area, back in the hey day of  lumbering in Michigan.

Pentwater is a resort town these days, with many retirees from all over. In summer the village blossoms with cottagers, summer folk, campers and the marina filled with Lake Michigan boaters. So it was not surprising that 19th c quilts showed up, like the two crazy quilts featured above. Three 1890s crazy quilts were brought to the show! The embroidery on these quilts was spectacular! 

One quilt even featured a photograph of the maker printed on fabric.

Many well loved Depression era quilts were on display. A Kit Quilt Trip Around the World was purchased for $5; it is on the left in the photo below. Later it's clone arrived!

Lots of strips and gingham in this Drunkard's Path! Perhaps shirts, aprons and dress materials?

 This faded Dresden Plate on a pale yellow ground has particularly fine quilting, noted by attendee Jeffrey Cunningham (originator of the Coppersville Farm Museum quilt show, "Quilts and Their Stories.")

This quilt interested me; the blue fabric predates the Depression Era pieced fabrics around it by quite a bit. But quilters have always hoarded fabric, and during the hard times anything was fair game.

Two Sunbonnet Sues came in. The pink sashed quilt was discovered under a bed mattress! The second Sue was made by the owner's mother and incorporated fabrics from the girls dresses.

This Carolina Lily variation is unusual as the flowers are green and the vases red. The stems are also unusual, going to one flower instead of one to each flower. 

A Gees Bend area quilt purchased in the early 1970s was also shared.

I will post more photos from the show next time!

Feed Sack Fabric Memories

My brother is visiting and we went to local antique shops. I found some feedsacks for $4 each and scooped them all up. There were three each of two different plaids and a pretty medium blue with a large white flower. I am building up my collection again and think I will use them in a quilt soon.

Back in the mid-1950s my family would travel from Tonawanda, NY to the Allegheny Mountains in Pennsylvania and visit the Putt's Farm. This was our typical outing on Easter Sunday or some time during the peak color season in the fall. I recall the moutain sides filled with trees leafed in oranges, russets, browns and yellows. I thought they looked like Trix cereal!

The Putts ran a working farm. I could pet the black and white cows, if I watched where I walked in the cow field. Once I saw Mrs. Putt candeling eggs gathered from the hen house. The boys would drive an old truck up the steep hill side, and we'd rattle back down...there were no breaks on the truck! Once Dad showed me how you could chew on the small twigs of a tree that tasted like birch beer.

My mother would get feed sack fabrics from the Putts and bring them home. My grandmother sewed them into summer clothes for me, simple sleeveless shirts and shorts. There are home movies of me running around the yard, jumping on and off the swingset, wearing the brightly patterned (and too large) feedsack clothes. Grandma made the clothes large enough for me to wear two summers, with 'growing room.' So I spent the first summer with shorts that stuck out like a skirt and sleeves that fell off my shoulder.

I inherited a quilt from my grandfather's aunt, a Dresden plate made in the 1950s that uses older feedsack fabrics. I have used feedsack fabrics in 1930's reproduction quilts and to repair Depression era quilts. I used feedsacks as borders and sashing for a crayon-tinted embroidered quilt. It is amazing to think how long these vintage fabrics have been kept in stashes, waiting to be put to use.

The zany plaids I found this weekend will inspire me and find their quilt.