A Packed House and Auction Finds

We have had a house full of visitors for the last week and it has been great! Jack's daughter spent last week in the area, splitting her time between here and her mom's house. She had to work via the computer, but it was nice to have her here. Of course I was busy every day last week so I didn't get to spend near enough time with her. She was able to go with Jack to a couple of the classes he was teaching and I know that he really enjoyed having her there. We are going to try to figure out some time that Linda, Sheryll and I can get together to sew. I don't know when it will happen, but I hope soon.

Also, Nikki, Zach and Quinn arrived Thursday night and left this afternoon. That was a lot of fun. There was a belated birthday party for Quinn Saturday at the park and the weather was beautiful! I took some pictures, but I haven't had a chance to edit them so I'll add some later. There was a small cake for Quinn to eat and it was funny because she didn't like it. She had to be coaxed to try it or even play with it.

On Sunday, Jack and I took some time and went to an auction in Norwalk. We got some great deals including 2 quilt racks and 2 quilts. One of the racks is wooden, but the other one is wrought iron, which matches another one that I have. I was pretty excited and they were both realy cheap. The same is true for the quilts - cheap! I was surprised because there were about 20 -25 quilts up for auction and I didn't see any that went for over $75 (even though we left before the last 8 or 9 were auctioned).

Anyway, the quilts we bought are both large twin size and hand quilted. The Dresden Plate quilt is hand appliqued, but the blocks are machine pieced. I'm not sure of the age of either quilt, but I think the blue and white one is realtively new (70's or 80's). The Dresden Plate quilt has some fabrics that I recognize from a book I have on dating fabric, but I haven't taken the time to check it out yet. It has a few condition problems, but I think they are repairable. I think I'll have the quilt appraised at the Antique Festival in July here in Milan. The Milan Historical Museum hosts a quilt show for the day and will have an appraiser there. In the mean time, I'm going to get out my book and collection of old fabric and see how accurately I can date these quilts!