Thursday, March 16, 2006

Family Treasures

Several years ago, my mother visited my grandmother who lived in Racine, WI. She brought home a beautiful machine appliqued, tied basket quilt. She gave it to me. As we were looking at it, she turned it over and said, "Look at all the beautiful hand quilting on the back!" Lights started flashing, bells started ringing and I said, "WAIT!!! There's no hand quilting on the front, it's tied! I think we have two quilts here!" Sure enough, I clipped the threads around the back edge of the quilt and we found this buttonhole appliqued beauty underneath! My mother looked at it and remembered the quilt from her childhood...her grandmother made it. Apparently, my good, German grandmother made a second quilt when the first one got worn and put it right over top of the first quilt! No need to waste that quilt...it was perfectly good! I'm so glad she did because although they are worn, they are wonderful! In the second basket quilt picture, you can see that she added a last row of baskets upside down and off centered. This part was folded over and stitched down on the back of the quilt...maybe to be folded down when the bed was made and the baskets would be right side up? I plan to fix what I can on the baskets and quilt it with Baptist Fans on my machine. The other quilt is in very delicate condition and I have it hanging on a quilt rack. I feel so blessed by these treasures...and now I have quilts from 5 generations of quilters in my family...from my great grandmother, grandmother, mother, myself and my daughter. On another note...I finished unquilting the quilt and it is back on the machine to be quilted again. It's going much better this time! Thanks for all of your encouragement...I certainly needed it!
And now I'll post this again...blogger hasn't let me do anything since yesterday!

12 comments:

Kairle Oaks said...

Oh, my! What a special treasure you have found!!! The story behind the quilts make them just that much better!
Kairle

Linda C said...

WOW, what a beauty you have there! And they are family quilts on top of it.

I know you were having some blogger troubles, Carolyn because we couldn't open up your blog this morning either.

This was worth waiting for!

Cher said...

wow...glad to see your blog back too...blogger was not allowing your site to open this morning for me anyway-what family treasures indeed! you were so smart to figure out the two for one quilt trick! I hope you have had a chance to document these quilts stories...all of the ones you mentioned that are family. Good luck on finishing up that quilt for the customer-glad to hear it is going better now.

Evelyn aka Starfishy said...

Very nice story! My grandparents were also very frugal and saved everything - I think it comes from living through harder times than we do. Nana would darn tablecloth holes, rip sheets apart to remove the worn areas and resew them into smaller sheets, etc. etc. Nothing ever went to waste. The found quilt truly is lovely! And, I am sure your grandmother used both of them alot!

Cheers!

Evelyn

Vicky said...

What a lovely story! Your treasures are beautiful!

Mary Johnson said...

Lucky you! I only have one quilt block that my grandmother appliqued but I do have quilts from my Mom and my sisters.

Passionate Quilter said...

What a great find! Two family treasures. They are both beautiful. You lucky gal! I bet you feel like it was Christmas!!

Laurie Ann said...

Wow! That's really neat. You have a gifted family!

Finn said...

What a treasure to find that hand quilted one inside the other..*VBS*

I'm just delighted for you!!!! And even better, to have your mom still here to remember the hidden quilt...that is priceless.

I'd give much to have a "family" quilt, from any generation of my family. None of it was done by my mothers side, and altho my dad's mother quilted(and his sister is the Aunt Lucille of hexagon fame) I have nothing of her hers either. Not sure it exsists anymore. If it does, Aunt Lucille had or has it. And she's 96 going on 97 this year.

I'm just thrilled that you have and treasure these two quilts..*VBS* Hugs, Finn whose pieces are often of the past

The Calico Cat said...

How lucky to have all of those family treasures! I will inherit a quilt aht my great grandmother made in the 30's (drunkards path) when my grandmother passes away - her mother made it, but her mother died young so my grandmother never learned ot quilt - so I am the next generation to quilt...

Darcie said...

What heirlooms! And your Baptist Fans are going to be perfect, Carolyn! Way to go!

Holly said...

Wow! How amazing is that! You come from a wonderful heritage. I think I'm the first in my family to quilt.