Good Morning, Class of
‘64
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| Quilting Bee - Morgan Weistling |
A Crazy Quilt
Douglas Malloch
They do not make them anymore,
For quilts are cheaper at the store
Than woman's labor, though a wife
Men think the cheapest thing in life.
But now and then a quilt is spread
Upon quaint old walnut bed,
A crazy quilt of those days
That I am old enough to praise.
Some woman sewed these points and squares
Into a pattern like life's cares.
Here is a velvet that was strong,
The poplin that she wore so long,
A fragment from her daughter's dress,
Like her, a vanished loveliness;
Old patches of such things as these,
Old garments and old memories.
And what is life? A crazy quilt;
Sorrow and joy, and grace and guilt,
With here and there a square of blue
For some old happiness we knew;
And so the hand of time will take
The fragments of our lives and make,
Out of life's remnants, as they fall,
A thing of beauty, after all.
For quilts are cheaper at the store
Than woman's labor, though a wife
Men think the cheapest thing in life.
But now and then a quilt is spread
Upon quaint old walnut bed,
A crazy quilt of those days
That I am old enough to praise.
Some woman sewed these points and squares
Into a pattern like life's cares.
Here is a velvet that was strong,
The poplin that she wore so long,
A fragment from her daughter's dress,
Like her, a vanished loveliness;
Old patches of such things as these,
Old garments and old memories.
And what is life? A crazy quilt;
Sorrow and joy, and grace and guilt,
With here and there a square of blue
For some old happiness we knew;
And so the hand of time will take
The fragments of our lives and make,
Out of life's remnants, as they fall,
A thing of beauty, after all.
Quilts
Larry See
While I was growing up, I slept under works
of art. We didn’t know that then; we
simply needed them to keep warm. In winter, I slept under 4 or 5 works of art -
quilts. Our “central heat” was a wood or coal heating stove in the living room.
Very little heat made it to the upstairs bedrooms.
It was normal to wake up in
winter in those upstairs bedrooms with frost on the inside of the windows. When
we got a snow storm from the northeast, there was snow on my bed in the
morning. Getting undressed to go to bed was a bit chilly, but we warmed up
quickly under that stack of quilts. It was great sleeping.  |
| Grandma's Flower Garden |
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| Double Wedding Ring |
Her favorites were the Double Wedding Ring and the Flower Garden patterns.
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| Tree of Life |
We draped the last quilt she made, a Double Wedding Ring, on her casket for the viewing and funeral. Six years later, my sister’s family did the same for her. They draped a quilt that she had made, a Tree of Life pattern, on her casket.
A quilt has three parts, a pieced top, a
fabric backing, and an insulating layer between them called the batting. The
backing was whatever fabric was available and affordable. Cotton print feed
sacks were often used. |
| Crazy Patch |
The tops were usually painstakingly pieced
in extremely attractive, intricate, geometric patterns. Sometimes random
pieces, whatever was available with very little cutting, were used. I believe
that these were called “crazy quilts” or “crazy patch” quilts. But those were
the exceptions.
Fabric was never bought for quilt pieces.
Whatever was available was used, usually scraps left over from making clothes.
Mom made many of our clothes, often from the feed sacks. It was lots of fun to
look at a quilt and identify a favorite shirt, skirt, or dress. Color themes
were often used if sufficient fabric was available. Occasionally, a particular
type of fabric was used for all the pieces. I can remember all-wool,
all-corduroy, and all-flannel quilts. Trading quilt pieces among the ladies in
the neighborhood was common. The quilts were functional, beautiful, and often
told unique stories. 
The tops were pieced in square blocks of
uniform size. Each pattern was designed to produce these blocks. When the
blocks were sewed together, that resulted in the uniformity of size of the
completed quilts.
The batting Mom used for many years was
wool, an exceptional insulator. That made very warm quilts. Preparing the wool
was quite a job. We always kept a fleece or two for quilts when we sheared the
sheep. On a warm, sunny day, Mom washed the fleece in a wash tub on the old
washboard, at least 3 or 4 times. Dust and dirt, grease, lanolin, and other
things were in the wool. (Remember, the wool covered the entire sheep.) After
thoroughly rinsing it, the fleece was laid out on clean grass to dry. _-_Jean-Fran%C3%A7ois_Millet.jpg) |
| Carding Wool |
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| Carding Wool |
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| Quilting Lines |
After the three layers were sandwiched
together, the quilting process began. Quilting simply means sewing the three
layers together to keep the batting from moving and forming thin or thick
spots. Down coats are quilted for the same reason. Some patterns were quilted
in straight lines, about 2 inches apart in both directions, a checkerboard
pattern. The lines were marked with a yardstick and chalk. Other patterns were
quilted following pattern lines. The objective was tiny, even stitches. If the
pieced top were beautiful, the quilt was still not high quality if those tiny,
even stitches were not there. |
| Knotted/Tied |
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| Knotted/Tied |
There was a lazy, shortcut method of
quilting called knotting. Brightly colored yarn and a darning needle was used.
The yarn was pulled through from top to bottom and then back to the top about
1/4 inch away. Then it was tied in a square knot and the tag ends were cut to
about one inch. The knots were about 4 - 5 inches apart in a random pattern.
This was quick and easy to do - very functional, even attractive. But no
prestige!
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| Hoop |
Quilting frames were used to hold the
material for the quilting process. Lap frames were made of two ovals of wood
that fit inside each other, much like embroidery frames on steroids. They were
about 16 x 24 inches.
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| A Quilting Party - Enoch Wood Perry - 1876 |
Larger frames on legs that sat on the floor and were a
little longer than the width of the quilt so that an entire quilt would fit on
them were also used. These had wooden rollers about 24 inches apart, the width
of the quilt long. The ends of the quilt were attached to the two rollers with
thumb tacks. One roller was rolled up to tighten the quilt. When an area had
been quilted, a new section was rolled up, much like a scroll. At least 6
ladies could work around one of these frames so they were used for quilting
bees and informal quilting parties. Mason built Mom’s large quilting frame. The
wooden rollers were carved from chestnut fence rails. After quilting, the final
step was to bind the edges, to hem them to keep them from ravelling.
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| Friendship Quilt |
Friendship quilts were made as gifts and for
special occasions. Several different people each pieced a block, usually
embroidering their name on it. Then all the blocks were sewn together and
quilted, often a joint effort. The kids, spouses, and grandkids made a
friendship quilt for Mom several years before she died, probably the only quilt
she was ever given.
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| Friendship Quilt |
Each did a block (or one was done for each), making it a
treasured keepsake. Since I’m not very good with a needle, I painted our blocks
and a block representing Mason. I recently saw a friendship quilt in the auditorium
of a church-based college. Many churches in that denomination in West Virginia
had each done a block. Then they were sewed together making a very impressive
quilt.
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| Summertime Quilt Wash Day Folk Art Print |
Quilting is probably the most pure form of
folk art in America. Folk art today is almost exclusively decorative. I do a
little tole painting but have never done a really functional item.
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| Country Quilt Mustard House Folk Art Print |
But the
origins of folk art are based upon decorated functional items with the emphasis
on functional. Original folk art first had to be functional. A century or two
ago, when American folk art got started, there was very little color in the
homes. There was blue sky, green grass, fall foliage, and some flowers, but
that was about it for colors. That is why the colorful ginghams and calicos
were so popular. Home woven fabrics were dyed with whatever pigments they could
find. Some items were painted, often using home made milk paints, again using
whatever pigments were available.
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| Country Quilt House Apple Tree Folk Art Print |
(When paint became readily available and
affordable, those same people painted everything that didn’t move, including
some very beautiful oak, maple, and walnut woodwork and furniture. That’s
the paint that we laboriously strip - in
our color-rich world, wood grain is again popular.)
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| Jean Quilt |
Folk art brought color into people’s lives,
but much more important, it gave people an outlet for that artistic, creative
urge that is a part of every human being. Random patchwork quilts would have
been just as warm and could have been completed a lot quicker. Piecing a quilt
exclusively with the bottoms of the legs of discarded blue jeans would have
been very functional. Denim wears like iron, and that would have been quick and
easy. But no one ever did that unless worn-out jeans was absolutely the only
fabric available, and they were very, very cold.
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| Applique |
All quilts could have been
made of one simple pattern - easier and quicker. But, instead, the artist in
those ladies created some of the most fantastically intricate, beautiful
designs imaginable. |
| Apple Core |
Quilts have warmed millions of bodies for many generations.
As an example of the finer qualities, of that indomitable desire for beauty and
creativity in everyday life, quilts warm hearts as well.
Far and near I sought
Utterance in a thought
A garden blooming, just for you;
Utterance in a thought
A garden blooming, just for you;
So flowers that will not wilt
I stitched into a quilt,
My treasure-trove of memories for you.
I stitched into a quilt,
My treasure-trove of memories for you.
Josephine Day
Mickleson
How to Make an American Quilt
A tribute to the film - Music by Thomas Newman
from Aunt Jane of Kentucky
Recounts an elderly quilt-maker's memories of life in the rural south
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aunt_Jane_of_Kentucky
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aunt_Jane_of_Kentucky
Find Aunt Jane of Kentucky for free at:
read online Aunt Jane of Kentucky:
Eliza Calvert Hall
How much piecin' a quilt is like livin' a life! You can give the same kind of
pieces to two persons, and one will make a "nine-patch" and one'll
make a "wild goose chase, " and there will be two quilts made out of
the same kind of pieces, and jest as different as they can be. And that is jest
the way with livin'. The Lord sends us the pieces, but we cut them out and put
'em together pretty much to suit ourselves, and there's a heap more in the
cuttin' out and the sewin' than there is in the caliker*.
(Another collection of Aunt Jane stories was published in 1909
as The Land of Long Ago - which is available as a
free e-book for download at Google Books.)
* "caliker" - What do you think Aunt Jane is referring to when she uses the word "caliker"? Leave an answer in the comments, below. You can remain anonymous!
After
all, a woman didn't leave much behind in the world to show she'd been there.
Even the children she bore and raised got their father's name. But her quilts,
now that was something she could pass on.
Sandra Dallas
Sandra Dallas
I don't care about age
very much. I think back to the old people I knew when I was growing up, and
they always seemed larger than life.
Chinua Achebe
Does it have something to do with an apron????
ReplyDeleteIt could...think local dialect
ReplyDeleteI think it is refering to a fabric of a lot of colors Calico!!!!.(caliker)
ReplyDelete