Placitas Sunshine
I never knew my grandmother Estella Wilson Boyce. She was from an area near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. But around the time her sixth or seventh child was born in 1920 she was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Apparently one of the treatments at the time was to send people out west to a drier climate. At least that is what I understand. So she and her husband and all of the children except my dad who was a toddler at the time moved to a little village in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains just outside Albuquerque. She died in 1956 two years after I was born and I have to memory of her. That information just tells me at least how old the quilt is.
In the 90's my Uncle Walter gave me a quilt top which Stella had made but never quilted. I consulted a local expert and she helped me choose a back that was fitting for the time the quilt may have been made and suggested that I quilt an overall scallop pattern. I hand quilted it and sent it back to my uncle in 2001. When he passed it was returned to me.
The quilt is called Placitas Sunshine after the little village she lived in. The fabrics are solid reds, yellows, and muslin. Stella hand pieced the quilt blocks known by some as Rising Sun and others as Wheel of Fortune. The quilt has a thin cotton batting and has been hand quilted and bound in a yellow fabric closely resembling the original. It is finished at 70" x 86" so makes a nice twin-sized quilt.