Ready

Last night when the wind came up, I looked out to a bit of moon and a few stars in the partly cloudy sky. After four days of rain, the sun is shining. We prepared a little early for the holidays, so this next week I will be baking and enjoying the days. Retirement has its advantages. After Thanksgiving, I got out a few Christmas mugs and serving dishes. Another day, I hung a wreath on the front door and looked at cookie recipes. My cards are in the mail and the few gifts (books all around and a few handmade) are wrapped. Of course there are some extras for the three boys. My two youngest grandsons helped decorate the tree. The ornaments are clustered around the bottom half of the tree and I don't even care. Each evening when I plug in the lights, I am reminded of their smiles and willing hearts.

Sunday after Thanksgiving has become Christmas Quilt weekend at their house. I am happy to write that both little boys have Christmas quilts. E. has the quilt I made for my daughter so many years ago. Last January I wrote a blog post about working on a second Christmas quilt for M. I finished his quilt top in August and delivered it to a local woman who does machine quilting. Although I forgot to photograph the back side of his quilt, I will. This artist quilted a tree in cream thread in each open space and also outlined the embroidered and pieced designs. The large red border is quilted in red thread with a holly design and the narrow green border is quilted in green with a cross-hatch design.

I gave M. his quilt and snapped a few quick photos while he pretended to sleep for "just a minute, Grammy." The two quilts have many of the same designs but also a few that are different. My Texas grandson has the pieced Christmas quilt I made for my son. I haven't begun to think about a Christmas quilt for the baby yet to be born but that will be one of my projects in the New Year. As usual, I saved the coloring book motifs I used for embroidery.

Yesterday I finished the Sail Away With Me sweater for the soon-to-be born babe. Knit in pieces, the sweater required a fair amount of seaming. The buttons on the shoulder closure came from my button box. Many of them belonged to the Grandmother who taught me to knit and sew. I can't say for sure whether these three came from her projects or are leftover from mine but they seemed just right for this little sweater. Drinking hot tea with bright wool on my lap was a good way to spend two rainy days. So we are ready and so are my daughter and son-in-law, at least for their new baby.

If I don't get back here before Christmas, my best holiday wishes to all.

Homage to Women: Unknown and Known

Sometime in the late 1970's, Mom found a Depression era Nosegay Quilt at her church rummage sale. Someone had donated it for the sale. At the time, Mom, my sister, and I had just begun to make quilts.  Even so, Mom knew the quilt was a treasure. After my youngest brother used the piece for a few years, she gave it to me. I hung it on the bannister in my living room because the old fabrics spoke to me of ingenuity and a creative "make do" spirit. I also enjoyed the pastel colors in the quilt.

Faced with hard times, women made scrap quilts to keep their families warm. Often they cut pieces from worn curtains, clothing, and bedding. They salvaged print fabrics from feed and flour sacks. Depression era quilt patterns, like Double Wedding Ring and Grandmother's Flower Garden were pieced from many small patches. Some historians think women used pastels to brighten the dark days of the depression and the dust bowl.

The woman who made this particular Nosegay quilt pieced the diamonds and inserted the small squares with precision. Although the quilt is made of scraps, the quilter chose prints and used one solid colors in each bouquet to create a design. She also alternated soft yellow and gold fabric in the nosegay cones.  Even though I took good care of her quilt, it began to fray so I folded and wrapped it for storage.

In 199? I decided to make a replica. I counted the blocks, studied the pastel prints and solids and began to choose scraps. I cut diamonds from feed sacks, old fabrics purchased at second hand shops, and pieces I had inherited from another anonymous quilter. While sewing blocks by hand, I found two doll dresses my grandmother made for me and a cotton skirt she had sewed for her mother. I thought of my "can do" grandmother as I included her fabric in my quilt. I also incorporated some of my own new reproduction fabrics. Over the next three or four years, I pieced blocks. As best I could I replicated the color arrangement of the old quilt. After sewing the quilt top together, I put it away until I had time to stretch it on my frame for hand quilting. Several years went by but the time for hand quilting never materialized. Last August, I pulled the quilt top from a drawer and took it to a local woman for machine quilting.

This older but modern quilter lives on a farm outside of town. Together, we planned the quilting design. As we talked, I knew she had a good sense of quilts and quilting design. When I picked up the quilt in September, I was very pleased with her work. She showed me how she had arranged the quilt on the white backing fabric so I would have some nice leftover pieces. I didn't have the heart to tell her I was doing much more knitting and not likely to make another large quilt.

After the holidays, I was determined to attach the binding and finish the quilt. I considered a piece of bright blue fabric from my quilting supplies but the color looked too modern. I also considered piecing pastel fabrics to make a pieced binding but that design seemed too busy. When I spread the quilt on the floor to look at it again, I noticed the leftover backing along two sides of the quilt. I decided the leftover white fabric would work well for the binding so I got to work measuring, cutting, and sewing.  

This morning when I began to write, I unwrapped the old quilt for photos and noticed the binding on three sides was cut from the same plain cream colored muslin backing the quilt. Without realizing it, I chose to bind the new quilt with leftover fabric in the same way the original quilter had finished her quilt.  Although the pieces come from different eras and were made in different ways, they share many similarities. Perhaps most important, both quilts pay homage to the ingenuity and skills of women.