Mel's Heirloom Quilt Top Finished!

Months ago my cousin Melodie in Florida sent me a quilt top that had been handed down on her maternal ancestor side. It was in very worn condition. These ancestors were homesteaders in Canada. Many of the fabrics in the quilt top are pre-1900 and some I think are civil war shirtings. They are quite faded and thread bare. Originally, the top had been hand pieced and then tied with yarn. When I received it, the quilt had been deconstructed and had some pretty good sized holes where the yarn had been pulled through, and the outer most blocks were torn and tattered.
I cut off the most tattered pieces and squared up four of the blocks to make a pillow top and Appliqued a Canadian Maple leaf in the center.

The rest of the blocks I straightened up as best I could, backed then with knit iron on interfacing, and added a narrow woven plaid border(from my stash, I think it looks very much in the time period), and bound in that period brownish-red also from my stash. Then I tied it as gently and as sparsely as I could. It is filled with a medium loft poly batt, to take up some of the distortion of the blocks. I did not wash it, the top appeared to have been laundered and hence some of the abrasion to the fabrics. I will leave it up to her, if she wishes to gently launder it, when she gets it. Her idea was to be able to display the quilt on an heirloom rocker, so it will never see the use it had in its previous lifetime.

I am quite pleased with the results considering the fragile condition when it arrived in my hands. I think she will be pleased.

Now on to the rest of the hankies to be made into quilt-lets, for distribution to the grandcildren and great- grandchildren. More about those later.

Here is the first one...I am so pleased how this worked out.