Buried Treasure

 It’s been awhile since I did an antique quilt post so I am trotting out one of my favorites.  Which means, it is red and green, has great applique and is heavily quilted.  But, the exciting thing happened when I was inspecting it again before I decided to write about it.  Hidden in the tremendous variety of quilting was a signature and date!!  Unfortunately, I can only make out Margaret _______ quilt 18__.  There was a bit of pencil marks left in the date so I thought I could get a photocopy to see if that helped darken it enough to see it.  Before that, however, I took it to a sewing bee to share my excitement and one of the ladies there decided to trying smudging off that pencil mark.  Ack!!  Bye, bye date.  Well, it’s still there in the quilting so I will keep trying to make it out.

The quilt is mostly made of solid fabrics and they are in terrific shape.  I call it a Whig Rose but am no expert on block names so feel free to set me straight.

Here is a decent photo of the quilting.  There are wreaths and a lot of floral elements (stems, leaves and flowers) that mimic the applique shapes in addition to adding to them.

Here is a closer photo of the applique fabrics.  Don’t you wish a modern fabric manufacturer could somehow reproduce a red that looks like the faded Turkey red fabric from the 19th century?  Prints are much easier and I have two large pieces of reproduction fabric that looks like the pink print above.  I think I bought three yards of each of them.

This is a better photo of the floral elements in the quilting.  You can see quilted leaves, stems and flower buds here.  I like the way the feathered wreath has been turned into a curved motif that follows the curve of the stem in the border.

I also discovered something fun in my photo editing software.  If you change it to a line drawing it brings out the quilting much better.  See the bud quilted to the left of the stem and the leaf to the right?  Are you thinking what I’m thinking?  I am going to take a photo of the signature and date and see if it pops out in a line drawing.  Stay tuned!

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