Thread: What is your first quilt memory?

When I was a little girl, our beds were covered with quilts during the winter. They were made from big blocks of wool and tied with crochet thread. After it became too warm in the spring for a quilt, mama would always have us lift the mattress off the bed and layer the quilts on top of the springs for storage. In the late fall when it started to turn colder, we would bring them back out to be used again. What is your first memory of a quilt?

I don't have one Quilts were not well known in South Africa when I was growing up. My first memory of a quilt is as recent as four years ago when I drooled over quilting magazines I bought when I lived in the UK, hoping that one day I would be able to make one for myself. That day came and now I am creating quilting memories for my grand children and other family members

We had a blue quilt tied with red that we were allowed to play with. We would make a club house under half the ping-pong table. This blue quilt was thick so that was always on the floor. Other blankets were clothespinned to the sides and a trouble light was strung through the brace on the leg. Had a real nice club house.

I remember the first quilt I ever saw. I was fifteen, and a student assistant in a kindergarten class. At the end of the year, the teacher was retiring because she was terminally ill. On the last day of school she brought me a gift to say good bye. When I opened it, it was a gorgeous red and white pineapple quilt! I was floored that she gave me such a gift. (All I gave her was a silly glass apple paper weight!). That night, our St. Bernard was shot with an arrow by a neighbor. My dad grabbed the quilt off of the couch, wrapped it around the dog an headed to the vet hospital. "Ben" did not survive, and I could not bear to have the quilt touch me knowing it had been covered in his blood. I gave it to the lady next door. Soon after, my dad remarried to a woman whose mother was a prodigious quilter. She is the lady who taught me to make quilts. Thank you Grandma Helen. I recently inherited all of her Christmas fabric, and am currently looking for just the right pattern.

Neither my mother or my Grandmothers quilted so the first encounter I had with a quilt was when I stopped to visit my Great Aunt Maude on my way driving across the country. She has a GFG she was hand quilting for her granddaughter. That was in the mid 70s. I began quilting in the mid 1980s.

None until about 5 years ago. Although we all sewed & made our own clothes, no one in my circle of family or friends quilted or even owned a quilt, although I knew what they were. I have more modern likes on décor and I thought they were all made out of floral sprigged calico. I went on a trip with a friend. We were visiting her relatives and they were doing batik quilts. Went to a quilt store with them and that was that!

I was 8 or 9 when I made my first quilt, green and orange blocks in a stairstep design.
Still love green and orange and purple together.
I have no idea where that idea came from.
Fast forward to 19 and a neighbor introduced me to yo-yos, she wanted me to make a pillow for her, and refreshed and reborn in the craft, I've never looked back.

Quilting and my Rob have been the only two constants in my life.