Lucille's Quilt

Hey Blog Buddies,

The quilt guild that I belong to has many talented members, and there is one lady that does quilt appraisals.  She is very knowledgeable and she will not only tell you what she thinks the real worth of your quilt is, but also what it would probably fetch at auction (usually much lower) and she can guesstimate when the quilt was made and give you other interesting insights about it.  She does not mince words; if she thinks your quilt is not very valuable, she will tell you so.

My late MIL Lucille (she of the shrewd yard sale bargaining talents) had given me a quilt years ago that had been made by one of her aunts.  She didn't really know too much about the quilt, but I was thrilled to get it because, at that point, it was the first quilt I had ever owned--and it was (and is) beautiful.

The quilt is made up of these nine-patch blocks (consisting of 5 four-patches and 4 half square triangles), along with large blocks of solid green, all set on point.  It's not only hand-quilted but also hand-pieced.  I can't even imagine doing something like this.

The petals quilted in the solid green blocks

make the quilt more valuable, I'm told.

In this area there are quite a few

tiny holes in the fabric.

My quilt appraiser ("K") guessed

that a cat might have slept on it

once upon a time.

K thought the quilt was made in the late 1920's or early 1930's because of the fabrics and colors used in it.  The back of the quilt is plain muslin.  She was surprised that the quilt is so large (this, too, is queen coverlet size) because they usually didn't make them so large in those days.  And she was impressed by the condition of the quilt.

I have never had this quilt on the bed because up until recently we had multiple dogs, and you would never know when you'd find one of them up there.  I didn't want to risk it.  Instead, it lived on a quilt rack in the bedroom for many years.  Luckily, I did not put it in my cedar chest because I found out from K that that is the worst place to store quilts and linens.  The oils and sap from the cedar get into the fabric and stain it and start eating it away, and there's nothing you can do to fix it once that happens.  So if you have quilts or other valuable linens in a cedar chest, I suggest you relocate them now.

K also pointed out that it had been on someone's bed at some point because of the way the fabric is somewhat faded and worn in certain spots, something I did not notice and would not have put 2 and 2 together if I had.

The actual appraised value of the quilt was not my motivation for having it looked at, because I have no intention of ever selling it.  But in case you're interested, K thought the value of the quilt was approximately $500, but at auction it would fetch only about $125.

So that's the story of my quilt.  It's currently on the bed and will stay there (at least for a while).  If another 4-legged creature comes to live with us, it will probably seek safer ground.

Have a groovy weekend, and thanks for visiting.