Quilt

Mom quilted.  She won awards for quilting.  Her fancy quilts included embroidery, fancy shapes (and by fancy I mean shapes other than squares and rectangles) and her fabrics were specifically purchased to make quilts.

Both my grandmothers quilted.  I doubt that either of them ever considered entering them in contests. I remember Grandma Campbell always had a big quilt frame up in her living room.  When people would come to visit, they'd sit around the frame and quilt while they talked.  I remember as a very little girl, sitting under the frame with all the legs, watching the needles come and go.  Grandma's quilts were made of scraps left over from the dresses she made for herself, and odd bits of fabric.  She would have thought it foolish to buy fabric to make a quilt.

Grandma made all of her granddaughters quilts that were bound when they were married.  It seems a bit sexist now, but it's what she did and it was lovely.  Mine is a "Double Wedding Band" design made of soft colors (Grandma's favorites for her dresses) and white.  Looking closely, I can see how many different people did the quilting.  Everyone's quilt stitch is a bit different.

A quilt like the ones she made involved cutting bits of fabric into small shapes, often her pieces were 2" or less.  Then she'd stitch the various colored cotton bits together into a design, making the top of the quilt.  As you might imagine, this takes a bit of doing, and more than a little knowledge of geometry. But that's just the quilt top.

Grandma would then make a sandwich of quilt top, then fluffy cotton batting, then the backing.  The backing was usually a solid piece of cotton, like a sheet.  However, if she didn't have a piece big enough, a few pieces were often stitched together to make the back.  The resulting sandwich was basted together to keep it in place and then through some matter of folding and clipping, the quilt would go onto the frame, which held the quilt-to-be in place, while the actual quilting took place.

The quilting involves tiny stitches, all over the quilt, sewing all three parts together.  The stitching follows a design that is marked on the quilt top with light blue chalk.  The quilting could be in zig zags, loopy vines, spirals, leaves, flowers, hearts. . . . really any design, but a good quilt would have a uniform pattern of design that was easily discernible from the back, if not the top of the quilt. Hundreds of thousands of stitches went into making one of her quilts.

The layering makes for a very warm covering, and the fine stitching makes for a life-long work of practical art.  I doubt that Grandma Campbell considered herself an artist, but oh, she was.

I love my mother's fancy quilts.  Of course, all her children, her eight grand children, and her great-grandchildren have quilts she made for them.  When the last great, R Wade S. came along four months ago, she had the blocks made for the top of the quilt before she became unable to finish it.  So I finished it for her.

I'd tied many simple patchwork quilts, but I'd never actually quilted one, so the quality probably leaves a bit to be desired, but at least little R Wade can say he has a quilt from his GG.   The blocks she made for his quilt were called a "nine patch," I think.  They were made from little bits of fabric she had left from other projects.  My favorite kind!

Here's the thing about quilts. You take little bits of fabric that one might think were good for nothing, even cut up an old shirt or dress that is no longer worn, and you plan, and you cut, and you stitch them into something new.  Something warm and comforting.   You actually stitch together bits of memories.  Each piece alone means nothing, but together. . . . ah, well, they're something else.

There's much about using what one has, about not wasting, about creating something beautiful from not much, and about taking the time to think of the future owner with every one of hundreds of thousands of stitches.  THAT's what quilting is to me.

So now, I have taken on the position of Family Quilter.  By my mother and grandmothers' standards I'm getting a bit of a late start.  I think my grandmothers would chuckle a bit at a felted saxophone or the use of Rock and Roll onesies to make the top.  But over all, I think they're happy with the whole thing.  I know I am.

 This is just the top for Bump's Rock and Roll Onsies Quilt

 One of Mom's quilts on her bed in her new digs.

 The "Old Lady" quilt top I made for my college roommate for her 60th birthday.

 Detail from Bell's "Hauserphants" quilt

 This is one Grandma Campbell made.  How precise!

This is surely a masterpiece made by dear friends, Dorothy and Pud's aunt or great aunt, I believe.  You can't even imagine the detail.  Each bit is actually crocheted to the next.  

The one I'm working on now, on my small frame.  
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