Today the quilt top I’m pulling from the quilt top cupboard is a Tumbling Blocks design.
The top dates to around 1910-1940’s, and contains fabrics from a pretty good time span. The fabrics were most likely taken from a scrap bag that contained scraps from sewing clothing or other quilts.?
The mourning prints were first popular in the 1860’s, but were reproduced in the 1930-40’s. These prints seem to be the newer ones?
The quilt top contains mourning prints, Cardinal reds, Turkey reds, shirting, gingham, plaid, a few florals, homespuns, a couple of large scale black and white prints, and chambray.
There are quite a few poverty patches.
When the scraps a person had weren’t large enough to cut the pattern piece from, they sewed the bits together to get a piece of fabric large enough to get the shape they needed. These were/are called poverty patches, but to me they are determination patches and it always warms my heart to see them!
One thing I find very unusual about this top is that it’s all machine pieced.
This pattern has a lot of set in seams, which can be difficult to sew. It’s more common to see a Tumbling Blocks pattern hand sewn, and some prefer to paper piece for accuracy.
The top is also interesting because the placement of the lights, mediums and darks changes position throughout the top. If these were real stacks of blocks it would be hard to tell which direction the light source was coming from?
The top measures roughly 70″x74″. A bit large for a throw..but with the addition of a border or two, it could be made bed sized. 
The top I’m pulling from the quilt top cupboard today is a Friendship Star. It dates to around 1880-1910. The blocks are set on point and the alternate blocks are a periwinkle or double blue. It contains shirting, stripes, plaids, chambray, double pinks, double blue, cardinal red, and cranberry red.
Here you can see that a double pink was used as well, along with a plaid and a dainty shirting print.
The print here with the orange background and the black figures seems to date to a bit earlier time frame? It looks like a madder dyed print?
Here you see a dark green print which is actually a green and white with black designs giving the appearance of a darker green. This seems a bit earlier too? This is paired with a shirting stripe and another example of a plaid.
Here you see a small homespun check, a shirting with a blue stripe and a cranberry red.
Here you see that a bright crimson red is also used, along with more of the red homespun.
Today the quilt top I’m pulling from the quilt top cupboard is a scrappy quilt set with a strip setting.
Here you see shirting, a nice antique green, homespun checks, indigo fabrics, crimson red, and chambray stripes.
In this second pic you see a nice example of a purple print that is printed the same as some of the double pinks. There’s a bit more homespun plaid, shirting, and a nice paisley that dates a bit earlier than the other fabrics.
Here in the third pic is another indigo print, shirting stripes, crimson red, chambray, and another poison green. The red fabric is most likely dyed with a chemical dye, called alizarin. Fabrics dyed with alizarin were a brighter red than those dyed with madder. Dying with madder was a very involved process so fabric manufacturers were happy to have a less costly and less labor intensive way of producing a nice red.
Here in the fourth close up pic you see more shirting, indigo and cadet blue. Cadet blue was vat dyed similar to indigo dye but is lighter and brighter than a true indigo. Cadet blue was not used before 1880. You also see more of the homespun here.
In this last pic you see some of the seams have let go in this section. There is no tearing. The thread appears to have broken? Then, as now there were different grades of thread. Thread also came on wooden spools which weakened over time from the acid contained in the wood. Maybe the maker used some older thread when sewing this section? It’s an easy repair..and I just need to set aside some time to do it.