Quilters' UFO's

As if I don't have enough UFO's of my own, I was quite happy to inherit someone else's!

Yesterday, a friend gifted me with a bag full of quilt blocks. She had bought these at an estate sale or auction 10 years ago.
They were done by a woman in the next town, who was going into a nursing home.

The colors are, for the most part, a little drab- but, almost all the blocks are hand pieced!!!

I could never do this - nor would I have the patience!!!

I am most in love with the 45 star blocks! The muslin is stained in some places. On one here and there, the center point might be a bit off, but they look pretty perfect to me!! All that work - and never finished!!!

My question is- do I clean the blocks before I put them together? What would be the best way to do that, AND, would this fabric hold up to being a bed quilt? My thought is it would be best as a decorative bed cover in a guest room, or hung on a wall. Machine quilting would hold it together, but am not sure the fabric would withstand much washing.

The fabrics look like a combination of feed sacks and old shirting and dress materials. Exact date or origin unknown.

Any thoughts from you quilt experts out there?

These were hand pieced, and it looks like she started to put the blocks together in two rows. Of course, there is no more matching fabric to continue the rows. 40 blocks in all

                                                        These stars are my favorite!!!

45 hand pieced blocks- unbelievable!!!

Some of the squares are not perfectly square, with points very close to the edge, some staining/age spots - but, overall - impressive!!!

Hand stitched - every one!!!

These odd pieces look like she was practicing paper piecing (?) by machine. All stitched on to a fabric back.

I just put this on the floor in a random pattern

Dark blue is the backing fabric

reverse side

these all seem to go together- but what to turn them into is my question?

The stars are a little rough, but pressing them might make them look better - all this hand pieced too!!! Amazing!

back view

I guess I better get busy and start putting some of these together! I have some other old feed sack blocks that may even match these. I will have to pull them all out and see what I can create - maybe (?) even in time for my  Mountain Meadows Quilters Retreat      with Pat Sloan on August 25th!!! Wishful thinking.......LOL


And, here I am, "artfully" posing for an upcoming newspaper article on the quilters workshop. This was not the best shot, (a bit fuzzy) so probably won't make the cut - but we took a few!  The requested pose was of me quilting, and not looking at the camera! Pretending (sshhh!) to work on one of my vintage Dresden plate thrift store finds.....