Some Family history ~ Dresden Plate Quilt

(close up on plate on the quilt)

(finished quilt, June 28, 2008)

Here is some history on the quilt pictured above. I believe the pattern is refered to as a Dresden Plate.

The following is from an email my Mom (Sharron) sent me about the quilt: Here is a brief family tree to let you know who she is referring to in the email. Teri (me), Sharron (my mom), Grama Nita (Sharron's Mom), Grandma Pankey (Grama Nita's Mom), Grandma Leonard (Grandma Pankey's Mom).....so basically Teri's maternal Great-Great-Grandmother.

Grama Nita said the quilt pieces were saved by Grandma Leonard, Grandma Pankey's mother.

As I understand it, the material pieces were saved from all sorts of material ....feed sacks....flour sacks...old dresses, etc from the 1930's or earlier by Grandma Leonard. She saved all kinds of material pieces and made quilts to sell to help pay for food and shelter for her family during the depression. An interesting bit of information about Grandma Leonard was recently told by Cousin Lucille from Oklahoma. She said that Grandma Leonard was an excellent seamtress, she even made her own wedding dress. An even more interesting tidbit of information is that Grandma Pankey who also was an excellent seamtress made Grandma Nita's wedding dress and I, Sharron, wore the same dress in my wedding in 1960. I even got to see my daughter, Teri, wear the headband that I wore, in her wedding.

Grandma Pankey learned her quilting technique from her mother and may have helped piece the Dresdan Quilt given to Grama Nita on her 88th birthday. We're not totally sure who all helped work on the quilt except we know that the majority of it was finished during World War II(except for the binding). Grandma Leonard died in 1944 and almost finished before she died. It was passed down to Aunt Stella before Grandma Pankey died and then passed on to Grandnita when Aunt Stella was cleaning out her house.

A hill country quilter, Zell Cook, who put the binding on the quilt is also a judge of antique quilts. Zell said the majority of the material used in the quilt is from the 1930's. She said you can distinguish the difference between the sack material from old dresses because the sack material is a larger weave. One fact we do know, Grama Nita selected the binding which is a reproduction of 1930's material and I had the binding put on and made the label identifying all the participants.