I Love Quilts!

I love quilts.  I love the way they feel, the way they look, the warmth on a cold night snuggled under it.  I especially love the fact that the person who made the quilt put heart and soul into its construction.

I can’t recall not having a quilt to sleep under.  I grew up surrounded by quilts.  Literally!  Mom would fill the living room with her quilt frame and our 12’ x 14’ living room was wall to wall with no room to do anything else.  One of us kids would have to crawl under the quilt to get to the TV to turn it on for dad to watch the news.  The entire room would be rearranged so he could at least access his red chair to relax after work and mom could get a dining room chair in there to sit at the quilt to do her stitches.  She could quilt a queen sized quilt in 80 hours.  She would put 8 to 10 hours a day in on getting it down to a manageable size to maneuver around and get it off the frame and it then would disappear.

I did not learn to hand quilt, I did not like to tear out my stitches to try to make them smaller.  Big stitches got you thumped on the head with a thimble!  I refused to learn how to do it properly.  I was the original instant gratification gal.  In the long run it was my loss.  My mother was a master quilter and she did beautiful quilts and in her prime she could do 12 stitches to the inch.  Most of what I have of her collection runs about 10 to the inch.

When I did want to quilt, mom was gone.  I did have the honor of piecing my first quilt as she pieced her last one.  On her death bed she made me promise I would find someone who could hand quilt it, she did NOT want it machine quilted, that was NOT real quilting.

What irony.

                                                  

                                                
Friendship quilt dated 1939