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I remember a story (true story) that mom told about some cousins. Many years ago 2-3 ladies were working together and decided to make a double wedding ring quilt. They cut their cardboard templates and proceeded to trace around them with pencil. Then they started cutting out the pieces with scissors. After sewing some parts together they discovered that the sections didn't fit together! What they finally discovered was that they had used the same cardboard templates for ALL the tracing and pressing the pencil along the sides gradually wore away the sides and the last pieces traced were small than the first ones traced. I don't know what they did with those useless pieces of fabric. I doubt if they knew about crumb quilts! Moral of the story, when using cardboard templates...make several sets and don't use each set too long!!! Long live plastic templates!!!!

that was very interesting..amazing work

What a FANTASTIC film! Thank you so much for sharing this with us. I noticed that she never used pins to hold the fabric together when she sewed. Her patterns were so beautiful!

That's the way my mother quilted, always from scraps or old clothing. I am in awe of the beautiful quilts she made, her eye for color and what she had to work with is totally amazing, oh how I admire those who started us on our journeys.

That was awesome!!! Great memories of simpler quieter times for me.

I am 61 yrs young...this brought back lots of great memories of how my Grandmom and her best friend made their quilts...and all of our family are still using them...thank you ...Naomi :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

Thank you for sharing that with us! Such a treasure to see, for me anyway. That is how my grandmother's quilted many years ago. I remember the wooden quilt frame that hung in my grandmother's living room from the ceiling.

I am in awe of those who still hand cut templates and fabric with scissors. I don't have the skill or patience to do it that way. And if I did, my arthritic hands and elbow would slow me to a crawl. I am very grateful for the modern methods of quilting today. It lets me join in on a wonderful and creative hobby.

Did any of you scroll down and click on the link "Quilts in Women's Lives"? Also very interesting. Thank you for sharing a link to our heritage - and memories of our mothers and grandmothers (and also the men who took part). I'm reminded that it's not what method we use to make our quilts - it's the joy they bring to ourselves and to others and the opportunity to share a this joy.

that's the way I always did it. I resisted all the new ways until the old fingers started to get arthritis. I still use templates and scissors so I can take advantage of all the small pieces of material. Can't do that with the rotary cutters without wasting material. I do love using the rotary cutters etc. now, especially for big cutting jobs. I still hand quilt.

WOW!! That sure was an inspiring video!! :thumbup: I loved watching how she did each step the "old way" and how easy she made it look. No pins, I didn't even see her iron?? Beautiful piecing and no cursing over intersections that didn't match cuz they all seemed to go together so well.

Her template making, marking, ways of measuring and fabric tearing were really neat. Shows us what we CAN do without a lot of newfangled tools and gadgets!

The addition of her family, their activities and that too cute kitten just made it complete. Well worth the time to check it out. :thumbup:

Thanks so much for sharing,

Thanks for the link.

I remember piecing with my mom many years ago. First we drew and cut templates out of cereal boxes, then drew around them with a pencil and cut out with scissors. It wasn't a very fast method, but it got the job done all the same. I can still picture all those squares of material laid out on the kitchen floor where I got to arrange them into a pattern before she sewed them together. Then we, well mostly she I'm sure, tied the quilt with red yarn.

So interesting, thanks a lot for the link. Wonder if Kathleen Ware is still quilting and selling?

I so appreciate the abilities that went into making things in old-fashioned ways. When I think of what our ancestors did with so very little, I'm very humbled. I made my first quilt completely by hand and am still glad I learned that way. I am grateful for some of those gadgets to make things a little easier, but what skill and patience it takes to do without them!

I did exactly this very same thing with Dresden Plates. I was moving to another state and could only take what could fit in my old Dodge-mobile, (it was one of those big old boats). Anyway I could not take my treasured scrap box so I cut out several quilts worth of Dresden plates. Later, after I had moved, I started to put these together, all went well until halfway into the pile and 12 plate would no long do, up to 13, 14, 15, whew 16 needed. Now of course I did not have matching fabric to add in plates so they got cut from what I had. The last quilt had one of every size and some had segments of, well, creative widths. How ever all the quilts got made and the odd one got taken by a grandson as it was "different". Just goes to show that even an odd ball can find love. That grandson is in his twenties now and still has that nearly loved to death quilt.

that is the way my mom did it and she was a great quilter. I did it that way until I started to take classes and that is when the new things started .

Thank you! I love this 'old way' of quilting, it has some sweet perfume of calm and taking time to live.

Patricia

Oh Mike, that was wonderful. What a beaut. visit to their home. It's just amazing the work that goes into her quilts. It was so touching to see how her husb. helped her. I laughed when she turned a quilt over on her sew. mach. & there was a kitten playing.
Thanks so much for sharing this with us. I loved it.

Thanks so much for the movie link. I just finished watching it and wondered why I bought yet another ruler yesterday. I really enjoyed the film! And I really admire the skills!

Though the streaming was very intermittent, I watched the whole thing and remembered way back when I first started quilting and I did it the exact same way . . even saw an old brass hook scale hanging on the left door frame as the customer was walking into the back room, that I still have today in my kitchen . . . I used sandpaper for templates so they would not slip or old x-ray films (soaked in the tub with bleach for hours removes the dark parts and leaves behind a nice stiff transparent plastic for cutting templates). Wow, it is sooo much easier today even though I am having a difficult time understanding all the terminology . . . Thanks for sharing the site and letting me relive some incredible memories of a time long gone by.

lol! Thanks for bringing a smile to my face! Made my 1st quilt back in the old days of the 60's, drawing cutting lines with a pencil & sometimes a yard stick. Using scissors & getting a hand cramp. When rotary cutters first came out a friend had one & raved about it. I tried hers & said "nice but I'd never want it". Right-now I can't do without one.

Back in '79, $35 was worth a lot more...

Oh my, I just couldn't stop watching. This is incredible.
So much work, yet she made it look so easy.
This was worthwhile watching.
Thanks.

look on the left side of the video there is a link to the transcript.

Fun to watch. I'm glad we have all of our tools to work with. I don't think she made too much profit selling them so reasonably.

Michael, Thank you for posting this site. It reminded me of when we used to meet at our 4-H leaders house and we were being taught to sew. Everything thing was hand made. Templates, stencils and the hand made quilting racks. Everyones was slighty different to accomidate the person space to quilt. Thank you for beinging back long forgotten memories. :D

Thanks for the video. I can remember cutting with scissors. Her precision was fantastic! Wish I had that knowledge! Hopefully, we can all learn from this.

That was so awesome. She was delightful to watch. When I hand quilted I hung my frame from the ceiling too.

WOW, that is such a great video, it sure brings back a lot of child hood memories, my mom use to make her quilts the same way. Thanks so much for sharing.

I still do a majority of my cutting with scissors I forget I have a rotary cutter til I'm all but done The only gadgets I have is scissors -seam rippers and my basically new rotary and lots of straight and safety pins. Now I'm wondering if I should have more gadgets.--please tell me I'm not OLD :cry:

$35 in 1979 was a lot more than it is now.......

that was so cool. I loved the quilting frame hanging from the ceiling and the whole family involvement.

Someone had posted wondering if Kathleen Ware was still quilting. Reading more about her, it says she passed in 2001. Because my first thought was....i HAVE to see if she's still selling her quilts.

I LOVE watching videos like this, and would still love to find one of her quilts to purchase. I would love to see it up close and personal, just for the sheer learning experience.

This has, dare I say, made me want to try a SMALL project and hand quilt it. Just so I can say I've done it. :)

I watched the whole video and it brought back all the things I did when I was learning to quilt. Loved every minute of it. Thanks

Thank you for the video. Sooooo Inspiring!

What an inspiration! I remember reading an article on quilting history that spoke about the suspended frame and how some quilters would raise it out of the way when they were done quilting for the day. It just goes to show that you really don't need too much if you have the desire to do something. Thanks so much for sharing.

Practise and experience.

My mama's Singer was the model before the one in the film clip. Those old Singers sewed a straight seam. All you had to do was line the two layers of a straight edge up properly at the beginning, then hit the pedal to get a long straight seam. I don't know why but it takes a lot more effort to keep modern machines on the straight line.

The first and only quilt I've made so far was in 1978. It was a two colour trip around the world and I used five-eighths inch seams because I didn't know any better. I ripped the seams along the length of the fabric first, then used a template to cut my squares.

I was in my early twenties, had two jobs and no sewing machine. My mama would have been glad to let me use hers but with two jobs, I just didn't have time to go over and sit at a sewing machine for any length of time. Just too busy or too tired. So I sewed it all by hand, eyeballing the seams and using the template to check the size of my sewn patches if I wasn't sure.

My husband just re-discovered the lap hoop I used to hand quilt that quilt on my second job, which was a night shift job for an telephone answering company (not much to do, so we were welcome to bring in hand crafts to help stay awake).

Thank you so much for sharing this movie. It was so wonderful. I loved the furbabies and the fact that I didnt see an iron.

[quote=miholmes]Someone had posted wondering if Kathleen Ware was still quilting. Reading more about her, it says she passed in 2001. Because my first thought was....i HAVE to see if she's still selling her quilts.

Check back a few posts on this thread, I used to drive by her house all the time, it has been torn down a long time as was the house across the highway from her, I think a relative lived there. Both places were pretty raggedy by the time they were gone. I still pass by the place they were every time I go to Eugene.

Thanks for the link. Her quilts were beautiful.