Ann Hermes to the Rescue!

As I have mentioned before, no one ever thinks miniature quilts require much fabric.  Well, suitable large pieces of antique fabrics for backings can get a little difficult to find.  Finding antique quilt blocks is not so difficult, but when you get into the 24" square pieces of fabric, prepare for trouble.  My latest miniature star quilt was causing major problems.  I not only wanted 1880's fabric, but specifically a shirting print with "that PA blue" color figure, as it is a miniature version of the antique quilt you have seen. I called Mary Koval. Nope, she was currently out of any appropriate fabrics.  Gerald Roy sent me another envelope of antique fabrics, but no blue figured shirtings.  By coincidence, Ann Hermes, who is famous for her doll quilts made with antique fabrics had stopped by my blog on the very day that I contacted her by email.  I had checked her Etsy shop, hoping that a piece would somehow magically be listed for sale.  Nope.  Hmmm.  Contacted Ann and said, "do you happen to have......."  She did!  And here is the tricky part - she would sell me a piece.  Yippee - back in business.  In a further strange coincidence involving myself and Ann, she mentioned in her email that she had a star quilt like mine and she would send me pics.  Plus, she gave me permission to post them.  Here they are:

Although the photo of my quilt in a previous post wasn't all that good,  I am amazed at the similarities of our quilts.  They are almost twins.  Ann's has a yellow backing and binding and mine has the aforementioned shirting for backing and the top is simply turned to the back, folded under and sewn down for a finish.  I think all the star fabrics are the same in both quilts and the order of their appearance is exactly the same.  This cannot be a coincidence.  Could someone have possibly been putting out kits in the 1880's?  I wouldn't think so.  Possibly they were made by the same family members.  If anyone out there has another quilt like these, please let me know.  Ahh, yet another quilting mystery.

Till next time...............

Sheila