1854 McLean Album Quilt

$50.00

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My friend, Harriett, owns an old worn out, tattered beauty, signed E. McLean 1854.  The McLean relative, that sold Harriett the quilt, told her the family lived in Western Pennsylvania during the mid 1850's. With some research, we believe the maker's name is Elizabeth. From the first time I saw Elizabeth's quilt, it just "tugged at my heartstrings", begging to be brought to life again. Her quilt is beautifully stitched. The appliqué is very fine, sewn with white thread, just a wisp of cotton batting and close, tiny quilting stitches. Within the 13 central blocks are 3 designs: 5 "President's Wreath, 4 "Cockscomb" and 4 of the swirling grape blocks. I wanted more variety than that, so began a most difficult challenge....to design 8 blocks in Elizabeth's "style". So that anyone looking at my quilt would never know which are "Austin blocks" and which are "McLean blocks". Her borders have 5 motifs along each side, where I chose to spread mine out, a bit, using only 4. I wanted a directional border along the top, so by taking bits and pieces from the other borders, that is my design, also. I am grateful to my friend, Denise, for her masterful 19th century penmanship and to my friend, Patricia, for her beautiful machine quilting. With the collaboration of all of us; Elizabeth, Denise, Patricia and I, we won a Grand Champion award at the Western Washington Fair in 2005, in the Professional/Master division. I have been entering our state fair for 25 years and this is my first 100% scorecard from a judge, with one comment, "exquisite"! This may be hard to beat! Jeannie Austin Graham, Washington

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