To the left is an image of the LeDuc Auction quilt. This quilt was designed and sewn by the Hastings Spiral Piecemakers, the local quilt guild in my hometown. The LeDuc Mansion is a Civil War mansion that is being brought up to code by our state historical society then it will be turned over to the City of Hastings which will open it to the public for tours, programs, renting out for special occassions, etc. beginning in 2005.

While the state historical society is paying for the building's being brought up to code, no money is being provided to pay for displays, tours or programs so local groups are holding fundraisers. The Hastings Spiral Piecemakers decided to make a quilt to be auctioned off August 1st, 2004.

The only other surviving quilt made by the LeDuc ladies was a hexagon quilt with a wonderful variety of Civil War fabrics. And while that quilt is interesting to fabric historians, we felt we wanted an auction quilt that would really grab the glances.  The Spiral Piecemakers decided to work the hexagon design into the quilt as the background of the central medallion (hand pieced hexagons). The fabric applique of the LeDuc Mansion is done in great detail down to the screened porches and the gingerbread trim. The borders outlining the central medallion are slightly three dimensional.

A really neat feature of this quilt is the reverse applique twining vines and folded fabric flowers in the four corner triangles. Two of the LeDuc daughters operated a custom embroidery design business out of the home for over 25 years beginning in the late 1880s. The local history museum has a suitcase of their tissue paper patterns and the quilters used one of these designs and converted it to applique with folded fabric flowers. The crazy pieced border represents the resourcefulness of these women in augmenting their family's income; they regularly remade their clothing, grew much of their own food and  made do with what they had. I designed two "patterns" for paper piecing of these crazy blocks so many of the quilters could contribute to this project. The center area is hand quilted while the last two borders are machine quilted; a blending of the old with the new. It was a very rewarding process researching about the family and working with so many talented creative quilters (over 20 of the Hastings Spiral Piecemakers worked on this quilt and got it done in 9 months!) on such a worthwhile project.

I will be posting more images in the Gallery in the next few weeks as I have a photography session scheduled.  Please come back again.