Dresden Plate

This quilt has a short history: I started quilting years ago and my Mother suggested that I ask my Grandmother for her unfinished wedding ring quilt. The next time I was in Durango, Colorado I did; it was probably 1984 give or take 5 years. She dug around and found it but she also found a stack of Dresden Plates; none were appliqued down, just the plates made. She claimed that she had never seen them before. I thought that her sister; Aunt Edie-the quilter in the family, may have made them. When I showed them to Mom she had no memory of them either.

Recently Mom remembered an old woman that lived near her when she was young that she would visit almost every week. The woman was lonely and she made quilts. Mom admired her quilts and she gave her the Dresden Plates.

I appliqued the Plates to muslin while my 4th child was young...I remember working on it on a short trip we went on to look at canoes and check out a dutch oven cook-off. Later (I mean years later) I pieced it into a quilt.

• 1938? blocks are pieced by unknown quilter
• 1939? Blocks are given to my Mother
• 1984 I received blocks from my Grandmother
• 1988? appliqued to muslin
• 1997-Feb designed sashing and sewed together
• 1997 unsewed the patterned corner squares- left quilt 'holey' for a few years
• 1999-March cut and pieced into the top the muslin corner squares
• 1999-April added the borders
• 2009-??? sure hope the quilting gets done; but I'm thinking about the pattern- that's a DEEP border that will take something interesting. Any ideas?

I'm hoping that seeing the quilt will help Mom remember the piecers name.

My mother is in her 80's; the woman that pieced it was probably in her 80's. It's 2009-at least 70 years in the making. 1939-2009. Could be much older but looking at the fabrics....it looks like 30's fabrics to me.