Our Quilting Heritage

There have been quilters since dinosaurs roamed the earth.

Saw this on Facebook this morning.  Gave me a smile, but one of the comments actually made me laugh out loud!

Have you ever thought about your quilting (or sewing) heritage?  I remember my great-grandmother making quilts.

We called her "MaMoo" (Taken about 1970 or '71)

She had a big quilt frame that was suspended from the dining room ceiling when there was a quilt to be quilted (by hand) or tied.  (Not sure where it was the rest of the time...I suspect it was something that was assembled as needed.)  I would sit under the frame and listen to my great-grandmother and her friends gossip as they sat around the frame and quilted.

She made "functional" quilts.  They were on our beds.  She made them from whatever fabric she had on hand, including (but not limited to) old work shirts.   I'm not sure where she got her fabric.  There were always boxes and boxes of fabric in her sewing room.  She did not go to the fabric store and buy it, that's for sure.  She would let me dig through the boxes and pull out pieces to play with.

She made a quilt for each of us kids.  I thought the one she made for me when I was a little girl was ugly (I'm ashamed to say now).  It was gray and brown and it looked like old work shirts. 

A fun story featuring that particular quilt, however.  It was just wide enough to fit in the back of our station wagon when the seats were down.  Looked something like this one....

My dad would put all five of us kids in the back of the station wagon, way at the back by the window, sitting on the quilt.  He'd RACE up to a stop sign and push hard on the brakes.  We'd go flying toward the back of the front seat...bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.... what fun... (you can be sure my mom wasn't around when he did this!)  Something we safety-conscious parents would never do now.  What I wouldn't give to have that quilt back.

I make quilts for my grandsons...and my nieces and nephews... and grand nieces and grand nephews ... and friends.  I hope they have as many fun memories with those quilts as I have had remembering my great-grandmother's quilts.