Mom's Birthday and an OLD Quilt

Many of you may have seen this quilt that I made for my mom for her 80th birthday. It's a version of Eleanor Burns' Egg Money quilt.

Mom's birthday was March 24th; however, our family won't be celebrating it until the first weekend in May, when all 9 children will be able to attend. Thinking that Mom ought to have a little bit of a celebration for her actual birthday, Laura and I made the 3 hour trip to Mom's and gave her this quilt. She was just thrilled with it and we put it on her bed before we left.

I think I must have lost some pictures in the computer change, because I also had a picture of the apron I made for Mom. I had previously given her a Christmas apron, but she wanted one for everyday use and that was another gift she got for her birthday.

However, the gift-giving went both ways! Mom and I went through her old cedar chest and among other things, found this quilt that my grandmother had made. I had never seen it before, but Grandmama apparently had cut up old wool coats and used the good pieces as patches to make this quilt. She had four sons, so I guess there were plenty of old coats among them, since there's quite a variety here. I would love to know the history of this quilt, but all we can really do now is guess.

This is a close-up of one of the patches (pardon the wrinkles, but that's how it came to me!) The white "dots" in some of the blocks are these lazy-daisy stitches. And the blocks are simply raw edges butted together and then joined with this embroidery stitching. I'm not familiar with this particular stitch, but if anyone knows what it is, I would love to know.

This is the overall view of the back--not very pretty, is it?! The backing is just a heavy cotton fabric and there's no batting. There's really no need for batting since the quilt is rather heavy as it is.

Here's a close-up of one corner of the back. You can see the back of the embroidery stitches. I thought the whole thing was done by hand, but that bright blue fabric (it's not really that bright) appears to be machine-stitched to the front and then sewn by hand on the back. The other edge is just  fabric from the front turned under and stitched to the back.

This quilt was such a fun surprise and nice to have from a family history standpoint. Charles is going to take it to the cleaners today to try and remove some stains and hopefully it won't be so wrinkled when it comes back.

This week and next the April Showers Blog Hop is happening over at Madame Samm's. My day will be tomorrow when I'll be displaying the mug rugs I've made, so be sure to check back then!

Meanwhile, the day is yet young and there's plenty of time to Get More Done...Today! Have a great one!