An Old Beauty

The sun has been shining here!  And it's been warm!  Just glorious.  I think it's almost summer, finally.

Here is an old quilt that was for sale at a local quilt guild meeting a few months ago.  A group was trying to raise money with this; I believe it was going for $70!  I wish I'd had a extra $70 to give it a good home.  So instead I took some photos.

I could have taken a photo of every single block, as they were all different and scrappy.

Lots of good shirtings and indigos!

This block has been appliqued with a running stitch
 instead of a blind stitch.

And some great cheddars and chrome yellows.

These were big blocks too - probably 16 to 18 inches or so.  There are 22 vanes per block.

I boosted the brightness and the contrast in these photos in the hopes that some of these old fabrics would show up a little better.  The fabrics appear to have faded quite a bit, but the quilt wasn't very worn.  It was more like it was made with previously used fabrics.  

Also, the quilt appears to be almost whole cloth.  There is one seam in the white background fabric up the middle of the quilt, but I can't see that there were any "blocks", the plates are just appliqued on the whole cloth.  The first clue about that for me was that the plates are very close together.  

And one more thought . . . the centers of the blocks don't seem to be appliques, but rather that the plates were appliqued onto the ground both on the outside of the plate and the inside instead.  What a curious quilt!

Interesting!  I've never seen a Dresden plate made like this one before!  Does any one have any ideas on the time period for this quilt?   I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.