A Quilt a Day

A Quilt a Day

When I started quilting as my job, I would arrange the quilts that were brought to me in cubby holes on the back wall of the studio.  Each week I would do the last quilt I needed to get done and painstakingly move all the quilts still in cubbies to the left row of holes so I could have my order.  I need order!

This worked fine for a while.  I usually had enough cubbyholes for the quilts on hand.  One day they started lining up along the wall because there were not enough cubby holes and I could no longer realistically look at the wall of cubbies and guess how long this customer’s quilt would be waiting for its turn on the machine.  I needed a plan and I needed it NOW.

I loaded a calendar program onto my computer during my Christmas break in my second full year of quilting and I took each quilt from its cubby in the order they were going to be quilted and I estimated how long I thought it would take me to do that quilt according to what my worksheet said I was to do on it. This took me several days, but by the end of that time I had my order!  I had 5 week of quilts waiting for me to do my magic.

4 quilts in waiting

This freed me from a huge burden.  I no longer sounded stupid when someone wanted to know when I would have their quilt would be ready for pick up.  It also opened up many options for my customers.  They could now schedule a quilt DATE.  What a novel idea! 

The best part was I got rid of the guilt I felt about wanting to quilt one of my own quilts.  What is the use of having a quilting machine if I can’t quilt one for myself every now and again.

It took me another full year to realize I needed to schedule time for me to take a break once in a while.

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