Many of the fabrics in this quilt are faded to nearly white, making it difficult to get a good image; However, you can still see the overall design and imagine how lovely the quilt was at one time.

 

This quilt measures approximately 75"X75" and fits nicely on a full size bed.  It is made up of 16, 13" pieced basket blocks, even the basket handle is pieced.  The basket blocks are framed by 5.5" sashing strips.  The sashing strips are made with a 3.5" white center strip bordered by 1" blue strips, giving an overall lattice affect.  The quilt has a 3" blue border and is finished with 1/4" white binding.   The quilt is very worn revealing a thin soft cotton batting.  It is finished with a white 1/4 inch binding that is sewed to the front and then turned to the back and slip stitched.

 

 

The delightful scrappy quilt is brought together with the calming blue and white sashing and matching blue border.  The scrappy basket blocks are a wonderful mix of pastels and small prints pieced with a white background. 

 

  The piecing is accurate with corners and points matching nicely.  The stitching is very nice, tiny, even stitches averaging 10 stitches per inch.   The basket pieces have outline quilting 1/4 inch from each seam.  The border and sashing have an ellipse and diamond quilting design.   Just above the center of each basket handle there is a small quilted square.  The quilter must have thought this area of the block needed some quilting and the square matched the border motif (just a guess).   

 

The quilter apparently pulled from her extensive scrap bag for the basket blocks.  There is a variety of small prints and pastel solids.  The prints seam to be of a lighter weight cotton than the feed sack fabric widely available from 1930-1950.  The blue light weight cotton sashing/border fabric is in the best condition and probably the newest fabric.   The quilt was purchased at Em Schafstall's estate sale in 1977.  The quilt was likely an everyday quilt and not a keepsake quilt as evidenced from it's significant wear.  I estimate this quilt was made sometime around 1960.

 

Click here to download pattern (with instructions) for Em's basket quilt

Click here to read the story of Em's basket quilt.