Sunday, September 5, 2010

Weaubleau Stars

Here is another stars quilt, one of my favorites. The colors are so bold, and again, it comes with a story. I bought this circa 1950 quilt at an antique shop in Weaubleau, Missouri in 2005. It measures 67" x 92" and is in great shape. The stars are large and strip borders fun down each long side. There are embroidered signatures in some block centers.

The block is #424.8 in the Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns by Barbara Brackman:
Boutonniere-KC Star 9/26/1931
or
Star Bouquet-Capper's Famous Features

The backing is muslin. It is both hand and machine pieced and machine quilted with an overall design. The shop owner recognized the names of the women who signed the quilt and said many were buried in small cemeteries in the area. Names on the quilt include:


Marie (or Macie) Nelson

Emma Allen

Icle Gerster

Betty Wheeler

Ellen Parks

Nettie Allen

Debra Todd

Ruby King



Here's the mystery of this quilt - one signature is half cut off! There are plenty of centers with no signature so there was room for it. I show this to quilt guilds and we speculate. Did she run off with someone else's boyfriend or husband? Was there a falling out? We can only wonder.............

5 comments:

  1. That is a very interesting story about the quilt. Guess you will never know the answer to the cut off signature.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You know..I wonder..
    Years ago, when I bought my first quilt off eBay, it had a really gross stained back. As I started to remove it, I noticed the quilt top was a lot bigger than what it appeared..the maker had wadding up the extra edges of the quilt to make it fit the backing. There was a lot of good quilt top hiding inside! :)
    I wonder if the rest of the signature is hiding inside, simply "cut off" by the seam?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Those are nice looking quilts! I'm actually a quilt aficionado myself. There was one time that I had a buying spree, I had to apply for a loan at the nearby South Dakota payday loans firm to buy quilts. Yes, that's how I love quilts, especially those ones you can find in antique and vintage shops. If ever I see a new quilt shop here in South Dakota, cash advance loan, here I come! I'll be applying for one again! Oh, don't worry. I pay for the loans on time. I just don't want to use the emergency fund for buying quilts.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I like you website, here always truth information is provided. I am manufacture of home decor products. If you want to visit my site, click here Shop Online

    ReplyDelete