Kara's not really but almost antique quilt

A few years ago, my landlady helped to clear out the home of an elderly friend who had died. Ora knows I enjoy all things quilty, and when she ran across a 3 1/2 x 3 1/2 by 6" box of fabric squares, she brought it home to me.

The Robert Frank Needlework Supply Company kits were state-of-the-art for their time, as the pieces were die-cut, guaranteed to all be the same size. All of the cutting was done for you; all you needed to do was to sew the pieces together and voila! a quilt. Their biggest seller was the Lone Star kit: the Lone Star quilt is made up of hundreds of forty-five degree diamonds that must be precisely cut and sewn, or the setting squares for the background will not fit. Note the eleven cents postage on the box.

Mrs. Nottes ordered the New Trip Around the World kit in the pink and blue colorway (also available in red/orange/tangerine/yellow; brown/orange/tangerine/yellow; and green/orchid/rose/pink). For whatever reason, the quilt was never put together.

Enter Diane. You have no idea the delight - the sense of connection with previous generations of quilters - this gave me. Ora's daughter was graduating from high school soon, and this was the perfect quilt to send with her to cold Minnesota for college.

It took hours and hours to piece together those little squares, all the while following the black-and-white piecing diagram included in the box. A few squares, particularly of the white fabric, were yellowed at the edges and not suitable for use.

The quilt is pieced from the center rows outward, in two huge triangles which are then joined together along the center seam. By the time I reached the final, long center rows on each triangle I was heartily tired of sewing squares together. Somehow, in the joy of cleaning up after sewing the center seam together, I managed to toss out the last two blue squares from the box...which were needed to complete the final, opposite corners of the quilt.

Hmm. I had already discovered fabric in my stash for the binding that was exactly the same shade as those squares. To cut additional squares from that fabric, or leave the opposing corners one row short of "finished", a bit like my mind felt at that point?

It doesn't show on this picture, but I did leave the corners cut off. It adds a bit of whimsy to a very traditional quilt, and looks as if it was planned that way. The backing is a Quilt for the Cure fabric that was also hanging around in my stash - pale lilac background with sprigs of tiny pink flowers - about as perfect as you could get for this quilt. It is machine quilted in the ditch along all the seam lines.

The actual quilt was completed in spring 2007; the fabric kit, however, dates from at least the 1970's - I remember seeing ads for the quilt kits when I was young. We'll call this the not-quite-antique quilt.