Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Antique Double Wedding Ring Quilt

Today I got an old quilt that I bought off ebay. The description said "some of the fabrics have deteriorated and the backing shows through." Let first say, I am very happy with my purchase but it is not what I expected.

Here is a picture of part of the quilt.


Most of the print fabrics look like this....
In other words, every piece of the "rings" are worn through. Yet as I was looking at it, I kept thinking something looked odd. Why way I not seeing batting or a thin piece of backing? Wait! I was looking at a quilted piece of material. Finally, I figured it out -- the rings were appliqued onto the large white quilt top! There is still a lot of quilt left, just very little of the applique pieces. It still looks beautiful.

This is a picture of one corner from the back. Can you see the lines of hand quilting?

Teeny, tiny hand stitches about every 1/2 inch. As you can see, many of those rows of stitching overlap. The quilt is about 68 inches by 80 inches. Thousands of tiny hand stitches! Each wedding ring has two rows of stitching inside the prints fabric and then rows of stitching outlining the rings. Here is another shot of the back. I think you can see the circles of stitching.


I should also mention it is very, very soft. Is filled with cotton batting. There is one edge that the binding is hanging off of and in bad shape.
As I was trying to examine the quilt and take pictures, THIS happened......

Queen Bailey decided since it was on "her" bed, that she could inspect it also. Silly cat!




2 comments:

Kate said...

Awww, someone put so much love into that quilt, what a neat find. Thanks for stopping by my blog, your furry helpers seem just as interested in quilting as mine!

jacquie said...

amazing! i love hand quilting...i marvel at the time and care that someone put into this piece.