You never know when a poultry expert is going to be of help to someone like me who owns an antique quilt.

I don’t know who made the quilt. I do know it’s from my mother’s side of the family. She inherited it from her grandfather, so the maker may be a Herrick or a Farrar.

The quilt pattern is a “pineapple” Log Cabin made of strips of muted, dark and light colors arranged around bright red squares. The perimeter of the quilt is sashed with wide bands of the same red.

The quilt is tied with what looks like shiny pale yellow Pearl cotton, but may be silk. The coverlet is not hand-quilted, but it appears to have been sewn entirely by hand.

The quilt is in excellent condition and looks as if it was never used. I keep it wrapped in a white cotton sheet and tucked away in a trunk or on a shelf away from direct light when I let it out to breathe every so often. It does not have batting between its top and bottom layers. The middle layer is made of chicken feed sacks sewn together. If I hold the quilt to the light I can read the words stenciled on the feed sacks: Grandin’s Laying Mash, 100 lbs.

Several things have helped me find out more about the quilt – The book, “Dating Fabrics: A Color Guide 1800-1960,” by Eileen Jahnke Trestain, and Robert Hawes of Hampden, a poultry expert.

Information in “Dating Fabrics” leads me to believe that at least some of the fabrics in the quilt date from 1880-1910. Many of the pieces have small figures such as horseshoes, leaf sprigs and tiny flower buds. Colors include white prints on black and vice versa, pale and medium blue prints, light grounds with multicolored prints, dark and light browns, gray-blues and tans. The book also informs me that quilts of this period were often tied instead of hand-quilted – consistent with my quilt – and that cotton prints of that era were thin, also consistent with many of the fabrics in the quilt.

Robert Hawes consulted “American Poultry History 1823-1973” and learned that in 1903, “Phillip R. Park developed the first dry mash formula ever sold as a complete poultry feed.” The operative word here, Hawes says, is “complete.” Since the feed sacks in my quilt say “laying mash,” which is a complete feed, then my quilt could not have been made before 1903. It is possible, however, that some of the fabrics in the quilt are earlier than that date, especially if those fabrics had been stashed away in a scrap bag for a few years.

Once I establish a time frame for when the quilt was made, I will check family history to determine what women of the family were living at that time. I don’t expect I’ll ever find out for sure the quilt maker, but it would be nice to have a list of possibilities.

Hawes also sleuthed on the Internet and suggested the following Web sites as sources for historical and other information about feed sacks: http://patchworkplanet.com/feedsack.htm and http://www.fabrics.net/joan301.asp. Also, http://www.womenfolk.com/quiltinghistory/feedsacks.htm, and http://threadsintyme.tripod.com/id23m.htm have information about the history of feed sacks and their uses.

Julia Hunter, textile expert at the Maine State Museum in Augusta, suggested these titles which are helpful in dating antique quilts:

. The Main Street Pocket Guide to Quilts” by Phyllis Haders.

. Down By the Old Mill Stream: Quilts in Rhode Island,” edited by Linda Welters and Maragret T. Ordonez.

. “Northern Comforts: New England’s Early Quilts 1880-1850,” by Lynne Z. Bassett and Jack Larkin.

. “Clues in the Calico: A Guide to Identifying and Dating Antique Quilts,” by Barbara Brackman.

Snippets

. A Bangor Area Sewing Guild class will teach participants to make a quilt-as-you-go table runner. The class will be held at 9:30 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 19, at the Hampden Municipal Center. The cost is $10 for guild members, $15 for others. Call 941-8815 to register and for fabric requirements.

. Spend a day with hooked rugs 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 29, at the Maine State Museum when Jessie A. Turbayne, a hooked-rug expert and author, will talk about the history of hooked rugs, sign copies of her books and appraise antique hooked rugs. Participants also accompany Turbayne to view the museum exhibit, Rugs All Marked Out, which features examples of E.S. Frost & Co.’s metal stencils and burlap patterns. Admission to the event is free. To obtain more information, call 287-9978.

. If readers have stories about wearing or making clothing from flour or feed sacks, or who own such items, I’d like to hear from you.

Ardeana Hamlin may be reached at 990-8153, or e-mail ahamlin@bangordailynews.net.