Doves in the Window

After lunch a Springcreek Barbeque on Sunday, we decided to take a trip down the road to the Mansfield Antique Mall. To our surprise, the Mall was having an open house with huge discounts in every booth. Woo Hoo! I’m always looking for sewing collectibles like pin cushions, graphic needle books, and such. I also have a collection of vintage/antique quilts but wasn’t really in the market for anything right now. After all, it’s Christmas time. Who has money available to purchase anything except gifts for family?

However, this beauty caught my eye. Click on the photo to see a bigger picture.

This wonderful Doves in the Window quilt was hanging in a booth with a sale tag on it PLUS an additional 30% off of that price. Hubby helped me inspect it (he has a keener eye for detail than I do) and since it was in fairly good condition, we couldn’t pass it up. Best of all, the beaks at the center all matched well, no cut off noses!

The fabrics look to be dated anywhere between the 1930’s to 50’s. The cotton batting is about 3/16” of an inch thick and the white binding is 1/4” wide on top and on back, very skinny. Although not the best handquilting I've seen, it's acceptable to me.

My favorite sets of birds are the red novelty print ones.

Although almost all the bird groupings were done in completely matching fabrics, there were a couple that the quilter had to “make-do.”

She must have run out of the medium lilac and had to use a darker one for a couple of wings and one set of tails. Additionally, the backing fabric appears to be cream-colored feed sack fabric pieced into two across and two down to fit the quilt.

It has a little edge wear and only a couple of small stains that are not readily noticeable or distracting to its overall beauty.

So merry Christmas to me and Hubby. Thank goodness he loves old quilts almost as much as I do!