Ultimate Orphans.....

..a quilt called "Fragments" by it's maker. Here is the orphan blocks quilt I mentioned last evening. I found it in an older 1980's book called "First, Nine and Always" by Millie Leathers. This quilt was pieced by the grandmother of one of her friends, so she knows quite alot about it. It amazes me how many blocks are used in this quilt. You can tell that many have been modified by the addition of a strip to make them 'fit in' better. It must have been some scrap bag that offered up all of this to be used. The quilt is 70" X 78". The blocks of this quilt were pieced before 1900 by Martha Jane Stansifer. Upon her death in 1903, she left the blocks and her scrap bag to Alice Stansifer Brinegar, her daughter. In the next few years, Alice pieced together and quilted this legacy of her mother's life and of her own.This quilt will present a challenge and be a source of encouragement and inspiration for those of us who save every scrap of old fabric.If the fragments of our lives were little bits of fabric, sewn together at the edges, the picture might look a lot like this quilt. In the book no pattern is given for this one, quite obviously it would be impossibe I think. I've stuck in the last smaller picture of the book page for validation that it is from a book.
book I found on the library sale table for twenty cents. Most of the patterns are for old quilts, and the 'Nine' part of the title refers to 9 patches.
None of my orphan quilts are this large or this complicated. Maybe some day..*VBS* Once you become aware of these little hidden treasures, like string quilts, you'll be surprised at how many there really are out there.
P.S. If anyone is interested, I did see two of Elly S.'s (of Baltimore Beauties fame) books at Hamilton Book day before yesterday. I know they are rarely available plus Hamilton is a discount bookstore. I was looking for the Gerald E. Roy book, which seems to be unavailable almost everywhere.