What's So Remarkable About This Raggedy Bit?

What's So Remarkable About This Raggedy Bit?

When my cousin had a garage sale, I bought a couple of quilts.  One was a glittery fifties heavy cabin quilt that had been made out of tufted fifties upholstery fabric with the metallic thread loops.  And the other one was a dark, rough hand quilted quilt that had been made from mens twill pants and dark wool pants.  I'm guestimating that it was quite old... maybe from the 1930s or so.  It looked like this:

When I washed it, the heavy old dark thing sort of came apart in a few places, and it became apparent that inside was an even older quilt that had been used as the batting.  Carefully, I removed a few of the shells of quilting that had held the layers together.  This revealed a remarkable mystery--- an even older quilt that was SOOO old that the colors had almost faded away.  Inside, it was all hand quilted still yet, and I could make out a quilted pattern.  Squares were about nine inches, and some squares had charm strip piecing pointed inward, so four squares together looked like arrows pointing in with  > < the tails pointing out.  The fabrics were diverse.  There was a red dotted swiss that looked like it had been flocked.  There were teensy tiny blue gingham wove checks and the same in pink or what may have once been red.  The back of the inner quilt was wholecloth of  the same blue gingham.  I noticed some silk pieces.  And a kind of fabric that is textured in squares with gauze or thin cotton between thicker cotton weave.  One of the solid squares is today yellow, and it may have been either yellow or green originally.

If you are interestedin helping to establish the history of this quilt, please contact me.  I think it is very very old, like more than a hundred years old.  The only provenance is that was a heavy winter quilt in my uncle's cabin back in the 1960sand was later owned by my cousin Cathy Burns Carter, so we don't know if has been in the family for longer than that.