Well you have some very pretty quilts to cherish now!

This quilt was knotted - very common in Wisconsin back in the day - it's all I ever saw until I moved south. I'm sure it has changed. Cloth cover of some kind and wool batting and knotted together would be called a quilt or a comforter. That area had a woolen mill at that time where you could card or re-card your batt. I would suppose the knots were easy to take out and wash the covers and then re-card. Our furnace was coal. The second floor of the house did not get much heat. My sister and I rolled up in thick 'quilts' made of two pieces of fabric with a batt tied in between. One of my earliest memories is the ladies aid from church would gather one day a week and tie quilts - they had a big table full of goodies, several quilts to tie and frames with quilts. The frames were wooden boards with holes down the middle of the board. They were suppose to be held with pegs. My mom's was held by C clamps. There was a strip of folded fabric tacked down the middle of the boards. The sides of the quilt were pinned to the strips on the boards. This part was done on the floor. Then the ends boards with some folded fabric strips were clamped under the side boards. Fabric pinned on. Then the batt would go on. Then the quilt top was pinned on all the way around. The frame was then raised and put on chairs or what ever got the height needed. The ladies aid would tie off the quilt. (If there were extra frames someone would prepare another quilt.) Then when it got out of reach I can remember going under and catching the needle and poking it back up or they would un-clamp the quilt boards, un-pin a couple pins at the top and bottom of the bottom board and roll the side boards a turn, reclamp and finish tying off the quilt. Wool yarn was best to tie with - the knots hold better than anything smooth. Once the knotting was done the outer layers were turned under and sewed to each other and the quilt was bed ready.

Not all the 'quilts' we tied were pieced some were just two pieces of fabric with a batt in the middle. I also remember crazy quilts made by Cora Clark in Sheldon Wisconsin. They were beautiful. I do not recall seeing any blocks in her quilts - it was all solid crazy pieces sewn one after another somehow. I had one of her quilts - I spent hours wondering how it was done. It just had all kinds of crazy cut pieces out of all kinds of little scraps - absolutely no rhyme or reason to it - one big quilt square. People would give Clara bags of scraps cut from the clothing they made - or used clothing - she turned them into quilts. Those quilts were tied, same as anything else. I should see if my mom can remember any thing. I'm pretty sure mom threw out the one I had years ago. All the quilts I ever saw when I was a kid were scrappy type quilts. I still like my quilts tied - warm and soft and fluffy.

This is interesting. I never saw a quilting bee or knew how the process. I did see my own grandmom quilting, but never with a group of ladies. Thanks for posting!

I wish I remembered more of the quilting bee. I think most of the time someone took ALL the kids in a different room and we played games - came out only for treats or out house visits. I'm thinking we played Spin the Bottle, Mother May I, I Spy With My Little Eye, Pass The Thimble, I'm Going On a Journey and other parlor type games with a couple teenage girls in charge. If it was nice we went outside. It mostly wasn't nice. Nice weather was for other stuff. I can also remember the old men sat in the kitchen and told stories. We didn't have much tv back then - just didn't get reception until cable... people had to gather somewhere. It was more than tying off a few quilts. It was during the day. I bet the trip to town also meant a trip to the store. We lived in town so it was no big deal to go to the store. Our town had a general store, a small grocery, and a corner store with a gas station, a post office and a co-op until it burned down, 3 churches and the school - grades 1-8. I'm thinking there was a tire shop too. Dad walked to the post office every day. Sometimes I tagged along - had to walk very fast to keep up - I still walk fast. There was no mail delivery in town. Fabric came from the Sears catalog or involved a trip to the 'city' (bigger town) and was a rare occurrence and a whole lot of fun. When we got fabric it was run through a measuring meter, then there was a thing they punched to cut a nip in the fabric and the clerk would tear it across. My mom would always check it - she would hold the fabric out to the end of her arm with one hand and up to her nose with the other... That was a yard.

OMG thats how my mom taught me to check yardage when a tape wasn't available! How cool to hear someone else say that :)

Miriam, you are pulling some real good memories. That is the way it was done in my home town also. What happen to those little machine.

I often wonder what happened to the little machines they used to measure fabric. You would think being so many of those they would turn up in antique stores or something.

I remember the measuring meters! I was always fascinated with the machine. Nice memories.

Beautiful quilt, Vintagemotif.

Wow what beautiful quilts ladies.