A New Year
Happy, Quilty, New Year! May little aliens appear and help you get those UFO’s finished, then travel back to wherever they came from. May your stash diminish and your quilts multiply. However, if you are like me, your stash grows faster than you can sew that fabric into quilts.
Yesterday I was going through my scraps and stash trying to find fabric for a project that the quilt group I belong to has going. I would pull out pieces of fabric, saying to myself “you don’t need this, it is just an odd piece”. Then I would find another piece of fabric that coordinated with the first piece, and back into my stash it would go. There’s a quilt there, I would think. I can’t deny those fabrics the chance to be joined and live happily ever after now– can I? I did force myself to pick out a half dozen pieces and take them with me. I was so proud–it is difficult for me to part with any of my stash. Sometimes I have a hard time using a particular piece in my own quilts, thinking I will need it even more for another quilt down the road. I know there is a better soul mate out there for that piece! I wonder if there’s a term for such behavior. Oh, yes, I guess it’s called being a fabriholic. And if you do a Google search you will find there are plenty fabriholics out there. I typed in fabriholic and got 28,600 results in .35 seconds! Wow.
So as I was digging through the totes I came across some fabric that I inherited from my mother. Now my mother inherited fabric from probably a half a dozen other sewers/quilters. Mixed in with that very old fabric were 2 quilt tops. I reverently picked up each of them, and carefully studied them, trying to figure out who had pieced them. One of them I am pretty sure I know the maker. The pieces had been hand pieced, then resewn with a sewing machine. That little piece had probably been pieced by my great aunt Catherine. She would piece quilts, then give them to my mother to tie for her. Mom would sew the seams with the machine, as aunt Catherine as we called her, was very elderly and could no longer do the quality of work she had once done. There are seams on the top that were zig-zagged in addition to being sewn in the seam line. The seam allowance was very small so I’m guessing that mom zig zagged over it to make sure it stayed together. Mom was like that. If she did it, it was done well.
The 2nd top was larger. That top is very neat, lays perfectly flat with no pleats or tucks. It has held it’s press for probably 40 years. It has “mom” written all over it. Mom was also fabric wrinkles’ #1 enemy. She pressed almost everything. As I turned it over and examined the back, however, I wasn’t so sure. All of the seam allowances weren’t the same. Mom’s precision wasn’t there. Of course that was a different era of quilting. These fabrics are old. I wish I were better at dating fabric. But I’m pretty sure this was done before my mother started working outside the household in the late ’60’s. If it was a top done by one of the neighbor ladies it would be older than that. Also my mother, as far as I know, always made quilts with wonderful pieced block designs, or embroidery that would be accented by her beautiful hand quilting.
And as I pondered these tops and their makers, the tears began to flow. I realized how much I missed every one of the women that may have constructed these tops. I miss their goodness. I miss their company. I miss their conversation, their homemade goodies, their comfort and warming welcomes. I miss how they made me feel–safe and loved. I wish I could give each and every one of them a big hug, and tell them how much they meant to me. But alas, they are gone, most of them gone for many years.
So now I am left to ponder the quilt tops they left behind. Some people say that antique quilt tops lose their value when they are finished with new fabrics, and quilted by machine. I am thinking they lose their value when they are no longer loved. I know my children will not want them. My daughter, being the practical, no-nonsense, no clutter (like her grandmother) person that she is, will probably throw them in the trash. So perhaps I will finish them, maybe with a soft flannel backing to make them soft and more lovable. Maybe then they won’t be thrown away, maybe they will be given to the Salvation Army or St. Vincent De Paul Society, or a homeless person so that someone will use them for the warmth they were meant to provide. And just maybe someone else will love them.
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