McHenry Historical Crazy Quilt Block #20

Another block for the Mchenry Historical Crazy Quilt - this is the Samantha Button house built in 1854 and located on Waukegan St. Again I couldn't find a historical photo so I grabbed a screenshot from Google earth and oldened it in Photoshop.

Samantha Button was the daughter of William McCollom one of the very earliest settlers to McHenry Illinois. She was born in 1830 and came to Mchenry with her family in 1834. The only building in town was a log cabin located on the present site of The Riverside Hotel.

Her family continued west and made their home on the west bank of the lake named for them, McCullom Lake.

Samantha died in 1934 at 103 years old. Until her death, she was the oldest living mother of a civil war soldier. Her son died of typhoid during the war and is buried in Woodlawn cemetary here in McHenry.

This quilt will be a record of the historical buildings in McHenry. I'm still in Gagetown (the Main Street area) so theres a ways to go yet!

This quilt is pieced and embroidered entirely by hand. All lace is vintage or antique. The only embellishments are some vintage Mother Of Pearl buttons used to make the spider bodies. Spiders and spiderwebs are a traditional motif on antique crazy quilts. The Victorians believed that spiders were good luck so there is a spider on every block of my quilt.

I will be using this quilt to benefit the McHenry Area Historical Society. Preserving Mchenry's history is very important to me.

Next block - I'll be taking a little buggy ride (LOL) over to Centerville (Green St.) and doing the Owen Bros. Mill. Built in 1840. And I do have a real photo of it!!

Here's a photo of all the blocks together so far:

There's at least another 20 blocks to go so this quilt will be quite large!!
 

McHenry Historical Crazy Quilt Block 6 - Hanley's Woods

I've been stitching on my McHenry Historical Crazy Quilt and finished up Block #6.  This Hanley's Woods:

If you don't live in McHenry, this probably won't mean anything to you but Hanley's Woods was owned by Alexander Hamilton Hanley and is located over by where my parents live.  Today it's known as the Whispering Oaks subdivision and Water's Edge.

The man on the left hand side of the photo is most likely one of Alexander's sons.  Probably George Hanley.

As I've mentioned before, Alexander Hanley is my old McHenry settler of choice!  LOL!!!  Honestly, I don't know why but if you're interested, here's a picture of him:

Special thanks goes out to Patrick Wirtz, our McHenry Historian for sharing the photo of the woods with me.  I had never seen that photo before.

Here are a few close up photos of the stitching:

I always embellish my lace.  Since this quilt is traditional in style, I've overstitched all the lace pieces instead of using beads and sequins like I usually do.

 These are just little satin stitched flowers, just scattered here and there.  Like they would be in the woods!

The little heart is filled in entirely with French knots.  I love doing French knots.  My grandmother taught me how to do them and every time I do, I think of her.

A simple little cross stitch pine tree, like one would find in the woods!