From Linda: At a family picnic in 2009, my husband's cousin gave me a bag of fabric and some finished quilt blocks that they had found when they were clearing up his Aunt's estate. His cousin had taken the blocks home and had forgotten about them until she came across them when she was cleaning out her sewing room. I left them sitting in the bag for a long time until I closely examined the contents. I found 25 hand embroidered blocks that depicted the history of the United States up to the Indian Wars. The blocks included 12 American eagle blocks as well.
The blocks were stained and not square and I looked at them for several years with some trepidation. I mentioned them in passing to Lee, and she suggested that I use a product called Restoration on the blocks. They cleaned up in spectacular fashion. They looked fabulous, but there was still the size problem, and not much of a margin to work with...what to do?
In January, after much prodding by my husband's family to produce something from these blocks, I finally took on the project. Lee helped me select fabrics from Jo Morton's traditional prints with a bit of americana flavor. I was lucky enough to find the original patterns in the bag with the finished blocks so I had some idea of how the finished quilt was meant to be laid out. From then on, it was a matter of attempting to square up each block and cut the frame for each block individually, since the size isn't uniform and I didn't want to cut into any of the stitched designs. All in all, I couldn't be happier with the end result.
And now for a little background, I have no idea when these blocks were made. I am guessing that the pattern came from the Kansas City Star and that they came via mail through the newspaper. Everyone who might have known when Aunt Alberta sewed these blocks has passed, so it will remain a mystery. If anyone has a clue of the origin of the pattern, please share it with us! I still have the patterns, and they are still useable after all these years.
Special thanks to Two Thimbles and Nikki Crisp for the all the design help and the special quilting. I loved working on this project, and I hope to do another project soon from a different group of old blocks that I have lying around. Happy Quilting!
