First Flight

In the late 1800's cigarette companies would offer what they called "premiums" in their cigarette packs. Most of the time they were small cards--baseball cards, flag of the countries cards, solider cards, bird cards, dog cards---you get the idea. But, some times they gave away what is called "silks". The silks usually measures 2 x 3 inches and had a picture in the center of the silk fabric. The butterfly on First Flight was taken from a collection of silks I bought at a tag sale. They come from Tokio Cigarettes in the 1890's.


I clipped the butterfly from the middle of the silk, hand stitched it to the quilt top and then carefully (if not done carefully the butterfly will disappear) pulled threads to get the raw edge effect. The one thing I have noticed about these butterflies---they look real.






The backing is a soft cotton with the batting only under the darker center silk blend. On top I used a weave with hand quilting, beads and of course the butterfly. The prairie points are also raw edge and stitched between the backing and quilt top. This little AAQI quilt is completely hand stitched and measures 7 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches. Happy Monday and Happy Quilting!