We all have some quilts from the early days.
Early days of parenthood, school, adulthood,
family and home ownership.
A lot of our lives have early days.
My early quilts were hidden away but recently,
ok within the last three years, I have pulled
them out to find them a home or a display place.
My oldest quilt is my curved log cabin.
I started this quilt over 27 years ago in a class.
After spending a goodly sum of money on
fabric, I started sewing. Not long after, I put in an
emergency call for help to the teacher.
The blocks were turning out way too small.
The teacher, however, gave me the worst
advice ever. Sew all the seams a scant 1/8.
Needless to say, my scant 1/8 was very small.
Many of the seams began to pull apart
shortly after assembly.
I had it professionally quilted with a compact design.
It is part of my cozy collection. I only it for
display and light use on beds (no children jumping).
The making did teach me a lot. I can now sew a more
even seam and know how to repair
many different types of mistakes.
The next one I wanted to show off is
this darling little rose quilt.
It has a crocheted edge around six
appliqued blocks.
It was such a sweet little item, I had to
rescue it from the second hand shop. The yellow
is a very mellow butter colour and one of my favorites.
The last one for this post is a foreign made quilt.
This one was purchased when
I was a newbie quilter and sure I would never
try this pattern. It is a grandmother's fan quilt made in China.
Zellers sold them for $40.
The price paid the maker must have been
very small. I even found a chop, (this is what I
gleaned from Western novels I read as a young adult ),
a Chinese name symbol. The actual word for
a name character is a hanzi. Finding it gave
me a personal connection to the maker.
It is machine sewn and hand quilted with bias
binding around the edges echoing the fans borders.
Even though it was "commercially" produced,
I do treasure it. No, I have not yet made a fan quilt
Quilts really do take on meanings of their own.
Enjoy your quilts.
Stay safe and sew on!
