My Aunt LuDon infront of her house in Washoe, MT
History again. My grandmother quilts. She quilts all the time. My aunt quilts. In fact she owns the cutest quilt shop in Montana. It is in Washoe. Washoe, Montana. My grandmother works for my aunt in this little quilt shop. Washoe Quilts it is called. If you are ever in Red Lodge, Montana, just go over the hill to the group of houses at the bottom and the old post office has been turned into the quilt shop. Now my mother also quilts. I beg her to make projects for me, and she does it. John's mother quilts as do her two sisters. She has made each of the kids quilts for their beds. She made the tree skirt and matching table runner for us. I love being the recipient of these quilts. I don't feel like I have to do any quilting and I receive the benefit of grabbing a quilt on a cool day and cuddling up outside under a pile of quilts with a good book.
I believe that quilts should be functional. But what does this have to do with History. First, I guess I'm surrounded by family history with quilts. Second is Colonial America. The people who settled this country didn't let anything go to waste. They couldn't very well order blankets and what not from the mother country. So anytime an article of clothing was deemed unsuitable to wear it was dismantled and made into clothing for kids.
The scraps were made into quilts or braided into rugs. Think of it, not being able to run to Walmart to buy a blanket when you need one. These women were resourceful when it came to outfitting a home. So to learn a little about the history of quilting and to appreciate the amount of time it takes, we are quilting. The kids have cut scraps of fabric into little squares. They have learned to use the sewing machine to sew the squares together and then the iron to press the seams with the seams bending towards the dark fabric.
Do not iron back and forth but press, this way you don't stretch the seam. Then sew these rectangles together and continue until a large square is formed. I then take the square, which is not so square and I square it up. We now have six squares. I'm hopping for twenty-five total. Each of these squares are a different sizes, and the patches of material within the large squares aren't even, but that's OK. We are making what is called a crazy quilt. Nothing really has to match up perfectly.
After we have all the squares, then I'm going to get some cream/white material and make equal size squares that I'll sew together. I'll buy the batting, put a backing on it and send it to my aunt to see it she can finish it up. Maybe I'll sew in the ditch but I really don't want to. Sewing in the ditch is to sew as close to a seam as possible so that the stitching isn't seen. Another easy thing is to tie it together. After layering the quilt with the top, the batting and the back then you take yarn or embroidery floss and stitch in each square and tie the ends together. John has actually made me a quilt like that. Now all this talk about a crazy quilt and scrap fabric would conjure up a really ugly quilt, but I am using fabric's of like colors, which are red, cream, creamy yellow and white. Sewing the fabric together isn't the quilting part. The quilting part comes in when all three layers are sewn together. My grandmother uses her 50+ year old singer sewing machine and then she has placed her quilt on a frame and quilted it by hand. Think about a queen size quilt with over 1,000 triangles that has each triangle outlined by hand. I find that truly amazing. John's Mom sends her quilt tops to be quilted by long-arm and the gal does a wonderful job. In fact in their quilts the gal stitched their names and put paw prints and woof-woof in stitching in their Scottish dog quilts. Very cute.
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