Wednesday, March 01, 2006

February ended with a Bang

February came to an end leaving us with a day long power outage on Monday. It was a day spent huddled in my favorite chair, flashlight in hand reading a very good book while I kept the fireplace stoked. "A Conspiracy of Fools" by Kurt Eichenwald. The story behind the Enron scandel. I thought this would be a very long read as there are over 700 pages but to my amazement I couldn't put it down. He writes very well and it read like a good mystery novel. I like Joanne's idea of using our library cards to check out books on CD.

Ebay, lively bidding and this beautiful quilt was mine. Before I read up on care of antique quilts I took it to the cleaners to have it laundered. When I picked it up the counter person told me because it appeared to be "so dirty" she had added bleach to brighten it. It's no longer in the mint condition I received it thanks to the idiot at the cleaners for having added bleach without calling me first for permission.
The only information the seller could provide was, "it's from an estate in AZ". My Mom thinks the fabrics are from the 30's, another person from the 70's when quilting became popular again.

Some closeups of some of the blocks. These are all hand appliqued and it is hand quilted. I love this quilt and can spend time just looking at all the detail. I should have had it appraised first. A lesson learned.


I've had this quilt for several years and I don't know what to do with it. The shape doesn't fit my bed. It keeps seeping and looks in need of a washing again which I don't want to do.






Sewing on the wedding quilt has been haulted for these next two weeks and I'm sure I won't have much time for posting to my blog as we are winding down John's time at home once again.

6 comments:

Tracey said...

Dona, that is a beautiful quilt! IT looks like it was made to tell a story of sorts. IT looks like it's still in very good condition...what a treasure you have!

Laurie Ann said...

Thanks for sharing the photos. Too bad that it didn't end up with the descendants of the person who made it. Lucky for you though! Maybe it was non-chlorine bleach?

Patti said...

What a fabulously beautiful quilt. I'm so sorry it had such a bad experience at the cleaners. Still looks good to me. Do you have a wall you can hang it on, or a couch you can drape it over now and then. Something out of direct light? It's a shame not to show it off, at least now and then.

Bonnie K. Hunter said...

Very fun blocks! It does look like it could be from the early 80's...would you believe I remember some of those fabrics? It's a great quilt, and over 25 years old if so....well on it's way to being a real antique! I could throttle the person who put bleach in it! (*&#$(*&(!

Bonnie

Joanne said...

Fabulous quilt, Dona. Been wondering what you've been up to! Understand about spending time with DH though! I'm working on getting over a cold, so maybe we'll both be back at the same time!

Catherine said...

Wow. What a great find. Don't worry about the bleach thing. We have all done some things to our quilts that in hind sight were not so smart but live and learn!! It is still so neat. Take a picture of each block with a digital camera and get full size color copies of each block....don't know what you would do with these but maybe it would help document the color and condition as it is now.