Mid 19th Century?

This post has two of the quilts that Gail brought over yesterday with more pics:

Check out Barbara Brackman's post on her Civil War blog this morning about quilting designs. Look at the sampler quilt, second picture down that has an appliqué design very similar to this one. The quilt she has pictured is dated to the mid 19th Century... could this quilt be that old? I think it could. It is completely hand made with cotton batting.

The large appliqué blocks are set on point. Here is a picture of one of the corner setting triangles with a corner of the border. I neglected to get a picture of one of the full setting triangles. I hope to get a chance to get more pics when the weather is better and we can lay out the quilts for photos of the entire quilt.

Here you can see some wear on the center flower of a full block. This quilt had some stains and some of the hand stitching is missing.

The Tree of Life Quilt looks to be made by the same person? The cotton batting feels the same and thread and the stitch length of the hand quilting is very similar. The quilting design is different. This quilt has a more distinct quilting design. It's also in better shape. It had some wear and stains along one of the folds and the binding was also worn. Other than that, in excellent shape.

The blocks are all hand pieced, hand quilted and the binding is attached and sewn down by hand... a completely hand made quilt.

In the alternate blocks there are quilted feather wreaths. Odd was that not all of the wreaths were in the center of the block and some were... here is a close up

There is a star in the center of each of the wreaths.

There were small pinwheels in the corners of the quilt. The original binding was pieced with both the tan and red fabrics. Again, I hope I get a chance to take full pictures of Gail's quilts. We were so excited and there were so many quilts to look at I missed getting pictures of all the details.

Next post I will show all the pictures of the Redwork quilt. Gail would love to find out more about her quilts and is busy trying to get more info from her family. Click on my first post to see a picture of each of Gail's quilts.

We are getting more rain today. Another good day for quilting :0)