This week I had the honor and privilege to finish a quilt that my husband's grandmother Rosa Schadt started many years ago. About a year ago I had a post on here that I hoped to finish this UFO (unfinished object), and so it is finally done! It was a total joy to work with this quilt top. I don't know for sure exactly when Rosa began this quilt, but after a lot of research into fabrics and pictures online, I am convinced that this quilt top was made during the early 1940's. She used a great many scraps of Depression Era fabrics and I have viewed photos of these same fabrics on web sites describing fabrics from that era. Because there are newer pieces used also, I am guessing that she made this quilt around 1942.
I got the quilt top given to me by Harold's sister a couple years ago. The quilt top was unfinished along one edge - perhaps Rosa gave up on it? Or ran out of fabric? Or became ill? Or got busy with something else? We will never know. All I do know is that she was quite the avid quilter and made many, many quilt tops. At any rate, the quilt top was quite dingy with years of storage dirt and yellowed and stained with moisture stains in several areas. A neighbor gave me a special quilt wash that was supposed to be good for vintage quilts. I soaked and washed the quilt top by hand in a laundry tub, very carefully. Years of dirt came off, and none of the fabrics bled, and the quilt top just brightened up so nicely! Even the moisture stains lightened up so much, they were hardly visible.
As I worked with the quilt I tried to think about where some of the fabric pieces came from. Were they from dresses? Feedsacks? Pieces from her scrap stash? Some of the fabrics are so pretty I wished I had dresses made from them! Today's fabrics just don't have the same charm, patina, or patterns. All of the fabrics were well worn, so my guess is that they were from cut up clothing, curtains, aprons, etc. If only fabric could talk! How I would love to know the history of each piece!
Since one side was unfinished, I had to dig in my own scrap stash to find something compatible. I do have some vintage fabrics and feed sacks, so I chose some pieces from them. I also included a piece from an apron from my own grandmother Kulnis's apron! And wonder of wonders, I even had an exact match for the teal green squares used in between the octagon pieces. The original quilt was sewn partly by hand and partly by machine. Harold said she had an old treadle machine. Just sewing those few pieces by hand gave me an idea of the massive amount of work that went into this pattern (not sure what this pattern is called?). How many hours Rosa must have labored to make this quilt! If she could see the quilt today, I am sure she would be pleased.
I had to make a decision whether to hand quilt this quilt, or tie it. I know that if I had tried to hand quilt it, this project would probably never get finished in my lifetime. Besides, most of the homemakers of that time were very thrifty and didn't have a lot of money (and neither did Rosa). Thread was expensive and if they had money for thread, they certainly would not waste it to hand quilt something. Instead, thread would be used for sewing new clothing. The vast majority of quilts of that era were tied with scraps of crochet threads or yarns, salvaged from other projects. And so I decided this quilt would probably have been tied by Rosa anyway.
Working on this quilt was like working on a piece of history. The quilt is a collage of old time fabrics, each one unique. I never got a chance to meet Rosa Schadt from Severy Kansas (originally from Germany), but her legacy lives on...........
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| You can see that almost a whole row was missing and needed to be added to with somewhat matching fabrics. | | |
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| Some of the pieces she had were even pieced to make a full piece (see the pink, brown and green) |
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| Here is one of the pieces I added. It was from MY grandmother's apron. |
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| Some of the colorful vintage fabrics. |
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| I laid out the quilt across two tables to pin and layer it. |
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| Crochet thread ties were placed at each teal colored square. |
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| The finished quilt, which measures 53 x 83. It was probably originally made for a twin size bed. |
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| Another view. |
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