This
quilt has a story, although I don't know much of it. I found a box
of beautiful hand stitched quilt blocks at an estate sale earlier
this year. The fabrics are soft and look old, probably feed
sacks and repurposed clothing. Each 9” block contains four 4½”
LeMoyne Stars around a center square. I can't imagine hand stitching all those tiny
points with such precision!
Interestingly,
these lovely blocks had once been in a quilt, then taken apart.
There is cotton batting fuzz on the backs and tiny holes around the edges from picked
out stitching. I'm guessing that the red material bled onto the
original sashing, since a few look slightly faded. I don't know
happened to it, but someone took that quilt apart to salvage those
blocks, and meant to finish it. I guess now that someone is me.
There
were 37 blocks total. I chose sixteen that had some green coloring
to make a Christmas wall hanging. I added narrow green sashing after
doing a couple of repairs and squaring up blocks. Considering they
were hand cut and hand stitched, most were nearly perfect.
 |
| Christmas Past vintage quilt rescue, 2021 |
To keep the vintage look, the backing is natural muslin and binding is a green mini check. I used a machine stitch that looks like handwork for quilting with cream thread. My hand stitches are not that pretty. Christmas Past finished out at 42” square.
I'm
so pleased that I rescued vintage blocks that someone felt were important
enough to carefully pick a whole quilt apart. Now they'll live on in
at least two projects. And that's a happy ending in my book.
Merry
Christmas to all,and to all a good night!
