My mom gave me this Dutch Doll quilt top (#5) on October 10, 2002, because I am the keeper in the family. Hopefully every family has one; someone who saves the family heirlooms and passes them down to the next generation. I was just starting to quilt so she also knew that I would treasure it as well as preserve it. At the time, mom was the early stages of Alzheimer’s. She was no longer able to quilt on her own but in 2003, I made a Double Irish Chain quilt for my daughter and she helped me hand quilt it. I had to mark lines for her to follow but her stitches were tiny and even; unlike mine. This was the last sewing she was able to do.
The Dutch Doll quilt was made by mom’s mother, Ada Martin (Grubb) Scarbrough. Granny was born November 14, 1889 and died the Friday before Easter, April 1960 at the age of 71; I was nine. We aren’t sure what year the quilt top was made but probably in the 1930’s. Feed sacks with colorful prints were first sold around 1925.
This is a picture (#1) of my grandmother’s family made between 1895 and 1903. They are beside a house that no longer exists but is the house I was born in. A year or two after my grandmother died, the house was tore down and my parents built a new house. Granny is the young girl on the right in the front row. Her mother Amanda, my g-grandmother, is the second lady from the left in the second row. She has an x on her dress. Granny’s sister Nora is the tall lady in the next row that and has an x above her head. Nora died in 1903 and that is one way we can date the picture. The man to the left behind Nora is my g-grandfather, William Marion Grubb, Jr. I can identify some of the other, but not all and I won’t bore you as this is about the quilt top. But first this is a picture (#4) of Granny, my brother Gary and me on the front porch of that old house. Pictures #2 and #3 are two of my favorite pictures of my grandmother. That’s my grandfather in the boat and you can barely see him in the buggy behind her on the horse.
We always called it The Dutch Doll Quilt but the pattern is more commonly known as Sunbonnet Sue. Every summer on a bright sunny day mom would get all the old quilt tops out of an old blanket chest and hang them on the clothes line to ‘air out’.
The ‘dolls’ are made from feed sacks and the white blocks are made from Domino Sugar sacks. You can still see some of the printing on the back of some of the blocks. The green fabric is not stable and has some holes and would have to be replaced if I ever decide to quilt the top. There are also some rust spots from being stored inside the blanket chest.
As I wrote in an earlier blog, I’m debating what to do with this quilt top. Currently it is spread out on my guest bed along with other quilt top’s that mom never got around to quilting. There are also other quilts that were passed down to her that I discovered in a cedar chest at her house when we had to move mom to a nursing home. This top is such a treasure and I don’t think it is receiving the attention it should. I’m thinking of taking the top apart and quilting eight of the blocks individually and framing them to hang as art in my living room. I would keep six, give one to my daughter, and one to my niece, along with the history of the blocks. I think they are both going to be keepers. The remaining 12 blocks I would use to make a small quilt to be passed along to my daughter.
Thanks for reading.
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