Tiny Octagons, Miniature Scale 19th Century Paper Pieced Quilt-work turned wood horsehair brush blue trees against yellow sky

blue trees against yellow sky and green and pink rolling hills

smallest 1 5/8"

and I have to guess it was part of a stove (there is a sort of hook at bottom center of the back side that perhaps latched to the stove and this piece opened out to allow for emptying ashes

Early 20th century I believe and rendered in soft grays and browns

Tiny Octagons, Miniature Scale 19th Century Paper Pieced Quilt-work turned wood horsehair brush blue trees against yellow skyTo my eye an exquisite little thing a fragment of a larger quilt, perhaps, or perhaps its maker had had enough! The method of making here was is called English paper piecing with each shape cut from a paper template, then wrapped with fabric, yielding a perfect, sharp cornered octagon. (Much more common were hexagon quilts, typically arranged in honeycomb patterns; here, because of the octagons, and their linear arrangement, the maker interspersed