Found Treasures

I've been spending a lot of time organizing the wild mess that I showed you last post. In addition to thinning the stash I've found a couple of things I thought I'd lost.

First, I found this little paper pieced quilt. It's from one of the Fat Quarter books by M'Liss Rae Hawley. Unfortunately, I don't remember which one.
















 I'd even started to remove some of the foundation paper. I think it needs a border. Who knows I might even finish it.

 The second thing I found is a real treasure. This a cross stitch sampler made by my husband's great-grandmother when she was thirteen. It has suffered a bit from not being well taken care of.

It is amazing to me that this was stitched by a young girl one hundred forty-five years ago! I know she lived in California. From the words she stitched I know she spoke Spanish, but I don't know much more about her. It has made me want to join Ancestry.com to research family history.

I took it to the local frame shop this morning. They will mount it on some good rag board and stabilize it to keep it from deteriorating further. Many, many years ago I did custom framing. I framed lots of needlework. It was the specialty of the shop where I worked, so when I was talking to the folks at the frame shop I knew that they knew what they were doing with a piece of antique needlework. That was very comforting.

Tomorrow is my stash reduction sale. I've been passing out little notices at the quilt guild meetings, the spinners and weavers guild, and just about every shop or store that I've been in. I even gave one to the chiropractor this morning.

I'll take some pictures tomorrow and let you know how the sale goes.