On the eBay pictures, the quilt didn't look quite as ratty as it really was in person. The box came and I opened it quickly in anticipation of my 'clean Florida vintage quilt.' True, it was clean. The seller was proud of the fact that she'd washed it prior to putting it up for sale.
The quilt's condition proved that washing a vintage quilt in today's washing machines might be a mistake. It certainly was in this case. The cotton batting was gathered in small hard lumps throughout the quilt. If it hadn't been machine-quilted in straight lines all over the piece, the quilt would have come apart completely in the wash.
The string/Log Cabin blocks are sewn in sweet pastel prints from the 1930's. Each was outlined with either soft orange strips or dark navy strips. The navy-outlined blocks were the lucky ones as the orange-outlined strips were beginning to wear through everywhere. At last count, there's 42 repairs to be made on this quilt.
The wide yellow border on this quilt makes the composition cheerful and gets it to bed size--in this case 64" wide by 84" long. The lines of machine quilting go right across this border and the batting clumps are evident.
I'm thinking this might be an intergenerational quilt. The navy and orange strips around the blocks, the wide yellow border and even the thin floral flannel used as backing scream 1950's. And it's confidently machine-quilted. But the pastel prints are 30s and 40s--maybe Mom's work?
Maybe someone found or inherited the vintage blocks? And then decided that they'd complete the quilt with a modern up-do. But vintage/modern don't always co-exist well as the uneven wear shows in this quilt.
It's still welcome in the collection-repairs or not. I'll just keep it safe for now.
But it's a clean quilt--as the eBay seller stressed several times. Very clean.
