Quilting

My dear Mums spent a lot of her time sewing and quilting.  I imagine she learned these skills from her own mother and from several maiden aunts that lived with her family from time to time.  I know that I have slept under the quilts that these ladies have made many times, and these quilts still reside at my Daddy's house.

When I was a teenager my mother began quilting quite often.  She made several patchwork quilts for gifts for my cousins weddings, and my sisters and I were allowed to help sew the squares of scrap fabric to male the patchwork tops.  We would then stretch the quilt top onto the quilting frames that Daddy made out in his workshop with fluffy cotton batting in between the layers, and hand stitch the quilt along all of the seam lines.  Mums made several quilts for each of us as we married.  Some were patchwork and hand quilted, and others were tied quilts of gingham or other patterned fabric.  All of these lovely quilts have been used and appreciated over the years by my family.

When I was in Jr High and High School I sewed many of my own clothes.  I didn't sew nearly as much as my mother and older sisters did, but I sewed a lot more than I do now.  It was a good way to make productive use of my time, I suppose.  And I did get clothes out of it!  What more could a teenage girl who didn’t have close neighbors want?  Anyway, I can’t remember exactly the timing, but eventually I decided to make myself a patchwork quilt from scraps from my many sewing projects.  This is something my Mother and Grandmother had done before me.  However I didn’t want just squares,  so came up with my own design or pattern.  This is a photo of the quilt.  

This is the first quilt, and so far the only patchwork quilt that I have completed.  My mother and sisters and aunts helped me to hand quilt it.  It has traveled with my family to our various homes in various states and is still often used on one of our beds in the winter time.

Do you have good memories of quilts?