Glorified Nine Patch Quilt

Mercy me, I have been so busy lately trying to get settled in after our move, that I have a backlog of quilts to share. I thought today, since I have a bit of time, I would get with it and get a few more posted. I have been having very good luck finding delightful quilts while out and about at some of the local antique shops, and even some not so local. I definitely enjoy the thrill of the hunt!
Today's quilt is from The Dalles, Oregon, from a wonderful shop called, Red Wagon Antiques. This shop is chock full of antiques made up of household furnishings, and every kind of thing imaginable.
Now I do like a good ramble through an antique shop, but that day my time was limited, so I asked the owner if they had any old quilts, and was rewarded when she assured me they did. She asked her husband to bring out several from the back room where they were stored.Two of them were just perfect for my collection.
This all brings me to the quilt for today, which is a very pretty Glorified Nine Patch. I know, I already have a small quilt of that pattern that I have shared, but this one was just too delightful to pass up, I had to buy it. I loved its colors and what the maker lacked in skill, (it is only 5 stitches to the inch), she made up for in charm. This was a quilt that was definitely made for the use of this lady's family.
I would have to date this quilt from the 1930's, possibly to the early 40's, based upon the fabrics, as the shop owner could tell me nothing about it. It is 72" x 82".

The folks at Red Wagon Antiques were very friendly, and when I told them what I do, they gave me this lovely flyer about their store. I think this is the niftiest way to advertise and so well done.

I love how the quilter made the head of the bed out of darker solid green. I thought at first it might be planned that way, but it is more likely she ran out of the lighter green. I believe this was the case because she also put the dark green down one edge. If you look closely you can just see it on the lower right hand corner.

Here we can see her lovely scalloping, tho not as fine or as perfect as some, it still is lovely. There are a few stains on the back but nothing major.

Here you can see the seam from the sacks, for this is definitely a feed sack quilt. The back is made up of four one hundred pound flour sacks.

The proof is in the stamp. When I saw that stamp I was so excited because it proved this to be a feed sack quilt. Now a lot of ladies really tried their best to bleach the feed sack stamps out. I was really glad she hadn't entirely succeeded.

I think the lady did a good job of nearly removing this one. I can just make out US in the middle, but nothing more. Maybe you will recognize it?

I do love all the bright colors. They are so much fun. I don't think she had time for any fancy layout. She just set the dark's against the lights. It makes me think this quilt was needed quickly, for all those cold winter nights. This quilt, like many of my other quilts from this period, it is made of light cotton with thin cotton batting.

As you see on the right of this picture the quilt has suffered some pretty harsh damage. This is actually the top of the quilt. Much like one of my other quilts, that has suffered the exact type of damage, I believe this one warmed the body of a bearded man. Beards were the bane of quilts and did more damage to them than just about anything, except maybe full sunlight, or pets. Some quilters took to sewing extra wide bands across the tops of their quilts to protect them from the bearded gents in the family. This one too has been rotated end to end like my other quilt, so that both ends show the same horrible wear pattern. I think if it was me, I would have shaved that fellow in his sleep!

Feed sack quilts are so fun, they really bring back a piece of our history. I believe this lady probably used both feed sacks and her own clothing. I like to think she belonged to her local church sewing group or ladies aid society, where they shared fabric swatches and quilt blocks, as she has such a variety. It may well be that she lived on a farm and spent her lonely winter months making quilts?! She may have had to gather her fabrics from family members worn out castoffs, or she collected up the different feed sacks as they bought their commodities from town?! ...sigh...we will never know,
as no one kept her story and passed it down to others.

I do love this quilt. It has such charm, and I so enjoy it when a quilter goes to the extra trouble to make her quilt interesting. I love that she scalloped the edge with an accenting dark green narrow trim, and she used the darker green to show the head of the bed. Even tho her tips don't come together closely, and her blocks are less than perfect, this very fact is what makes it so appealing to me. Her sewing skills were like that of my grandma's, it got her by, but she was no fancy stitcher. Who knows, where this quilt was made, it may have even won a ribbon at a local fair?! At least we know, by its wear, that this quilt kept someone warm for many a night and did not spend its life folded up on a shelf.