Quilts from the Early Years

 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!