Question to older quilters?
 

I have not been quilting long and never had anyone in the family
quilt so i have self taught myself
my question is?
A dear friend was talking about old quilts she can remember as a child
how they were great to lay on the ground to play on
she said she remember hearing them say how hard they were to pull the
(batting) not sure what they were using it would have been from the
50's early 60"s
does anyone have any idea what they are talking about
i would to be able to help her

They could have been referring to "carding". It is a process done on many fibers to prepare them for use from the raw form.

Here is a link that explains it. At the bottom of the first page continued on to the second.

http://www.villagequiltworks.com/ima...ttingChart.pdf


The physical act of carding is kind of like pulling. They lay the fibers on a brush that looks like a big curry brush used in animal grooming. Then another brush is pulled over the first one. It aligns the fibers and removes vegetable matter. Very common in much older quilts then the 50s and 60s though. However the process is still done today so maybe if your friend was brought up in an agricultural community it could have been carding.

Edited to add, it is my understanding carding was hard tedious work.

I started quilting in the mid 60s and have no clue what she means.

Yes. Years ago quilters did not have available what we do today and batting was not bought on a roll. It was bought in bulk hunks, cotton or wool.. Before layering it, it had o be "pulled" apart evenly and spread over the backing. As you can imagine, this was difficult and time consuming. Often quilters re-used quilts or blankets in place of batting, to save all this work. When you see old quilts with lumpy batting it was because there was not enough actual quilting, or the quilts were tied. Aren't we lucky today??

Sounds like one of two things.

1. Trying to straighten out the batting after washing the quilt.

2. The birthing process. Trying to pull the whole quilt through the little hole left after sewing the whole thing together. And trying to get the batting to lie flat after birthing so you can quilt it.

For #1, the only thing I can think of would be to use a fork that will go through the fabric so you can move the batting around.

For #2, leave a larger hole for birthing. You could use spray adhesive to hold the batting to the backing. Then it will be easier to straighten out the top. OR you could use spray adhesive the hold the whole sandwich together and then quilt it and then put binding on.

Sue

I remember my grandmother talking about doing the "carding". She would tell us how they bought or made their own batting in bulk bags and used combs like things to flatten and connect the pieces together to make a sheet of batting like felting wool I suppose.

Just so happen to have a pair of carders...My mother used them in the 40's and 50's..she took cotton that was just picked and carded them to take out the seeds...they are now on display in my sewing room...love vintage things like that...they still have bits of cotton in them......that is short wire bristles on the paddles...[ATTACH=CONFIG]405718[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]405719[/ATTACH]

For the ones not knowing what carders were...
 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]405720[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]405721[/ATTACH] These belonged to my mother...she used them in the 40's and 50's to card the cotton...(that she picked) to take out the seeds..so she could use the cotton in her quilts...Hard work...I have these on display in my sewing room...they are priceless...I remember her doing this...

This is interesting. I have some carders. I'm wondering, how did she use the cotton in her quilting?

Just FYI you can still get these from a few companies that sell spinning fiber. :) (In case anyone was interested)

I don't remember that part...I just remember sitting and watching her card the cotton...I should have ask her I guess...but she's gone now..I lost her in Feb 2004 at the age of 93...quilted all her adult life..and then I started quilting with her..in later years...I have her featherweight ...and my wonderful memories...

Common practice was to use it as batting. This is why so many older quilts had to be so closely quilted as the cotton was simply carded so migrated easily if not quilted densely. Some still use hand carded wool for batting as well.

I am not sure but am going to read the answers to find out.

I remember my Mom carding cotton to make the batting for quilts. This was to remove seeds/other matters and to smooth it out in a flat matted form of batting. this was in the 40's.

My husband's aunt showed me once how they carded the cotton. She was from Arkansas and had a lot of raw cotton growing in nearby fields. Wads of cotton bolls we placed along the long edge of one card and then they combed the cotton by pulling the 2 cards apart, handles opposite. This was done several times to make the fibers lay straight and parallel with each other. Then, they would comb the cotton off the card by pushing the 2 cards together. The fibers would roll up along the long edge and then the roll would be placed on the quilt. Once enough rolls were laying on the quilt, side by side, they would pat them all together and start quilting.

I tried it. It's not easy and I can certainly see why they quilted lines so close together. The aunt is gone now.... she was the coolest lady..... but I still have a couple of the quilts she made before WWII. I cherish them. Those ladies worked from sun up to sun down, trying to do things for their families with never a thought of themselves.

Nanna-up-north, your description of the process is wonderful! It is hard to imagine how much work it was from beginning to end of a quilt. It is easy to understand why there are so many vintage quilt tops, since sewing the tops, even if by hand, was the easist part of the process.

In addition, they ladies in the south grew and picked their own cotton for the batting.

Not sure of what you speak, the heading older quilters caught my eye. Then before I looked the next question was how old? Not sure but this age thing and quilting has me thinking. lol I think partly from my memories of photos of older women quilting, they were gray haired little old ladies, which I do not include myself in, yet.....lol Hope you get your answer I know I was no help.

My grandma used to card sheep wool, and put that in quilts! I have two that she carded the wool and used as batting and believe me they are warm. So we are talking old probably as early as the 20s and 30s .. !

It's been a while since I've seen her but I worked in a beauty salon and we had a client who used to raise llamas and alpacas. She would take them out of town to get them sheared then she kept the wool and she would card it and spin her own wool and local cotton. She made some of the most beautiful quilts.

I remember my grandmother had a pair of carders. She told me they were for pulling cotton and that your knuckles would get skinned up and she hated doing the job. Glad we have the pre-made battings available now.

I still have two wool batts, one has a cover on it and the other is still in the roll as it came from the woolen mill. This woolen mill was still open in the late 1990's. They would take my old batts that I took out of quilts that needed to be redone (need a new top, or batting had shifted) and wash the wool and recard it. Then I could take this "new" batt and make another quilt. A wool quilt is the best for warmth. The reason they are just sitting there in my closet, is because I am afraid to make a quilt out of them now, as everyone puts their quilts in the washing machine, and you can't do that with wool quilts. I had one dry cleaned a few years ago. Very expensive.

Nice story and great memories! How wonderful that you have a part of her life she enjoyed and you have taken quilting. What a tribute!

I remember watching my Grandmother card cotton and pat it ever so carefully over a piece of muslin to use in her quilts. Its one of the reasons I started quilting myself. It just fascinated me. Fortunately, I've never had to card any of my own. It was a long and painstaking task.

They used real sheeps wool and used these big brushes to clean and fluff up these chunks of wool. My Mom used to do that when I was little and she would have these piles of nice fluffy see through wool blocks. I still have one of her quilts but don't know how a person would wash that wool. I still have the brushes too. Looking back now that was a lot of work.
Fran

I remember my grandmother picking the cotton and getting it down on the floor to card it. Remembering how it was done it must have been back breaking work.

Hey! I am not that old and I remember watching quilters card the cotton. In fact, when I was in high school Home Economics classes, we had to do that for one of our projects.

My daddy grew the cotton and we sometimes saved some of it for quilt batting (before it went to the gin). Does anyone remember the gins? Yes, the quilting was much closer then, and there were sometimes "stickers" in the cotton when the carding was insufficient. Little pieces of the boll might be left and show through white fabric. Quilts were heavy when they were wet in the wash, but they lasted. I still have five or six my grandmother and her sisters made stored somewhere... the story of my life! Storage, always storage... (sigh).

This is something I have never heard of.

Remember the gins? I live next door to a cotton grader.

I will emphasize that carding is tedious work. Before I quilted, I spun, wove and knitted raw wool. By comparison, quilting is really speedy. Yes, I am glad I don't have to card my batts.

As the cotton was carded on the carders, the quilter pulled the flattened, straightened cotton fiber off and laid it onto the backing. When the next batch came off the carder, the quilter pushed that batch as close as she could get it to the first batch, and so on. When there was enough cotton spread onto the backing, then the top was laid onto the backing and the whole thing was basted, usually on quilting frames that lowered from the ceiling. The frames could be hoisted up to the ceiling until the quilt was ready to be quilted and then it was time for a quilting bee! She would send out the word and folks from miles around would come and help her quilt the quilt. With all the neighbors helping, frequently, the quilt would be finished in a day. When lumps appeared in the quilt as it was washed, it meant that the quilting was not close enough together to hold the "pats" of cotton together. Hope this helps.

I was born in 1937. My mom had to use whatever she could get for batting. Sometimes it came out of a bed mattress. It would be lumped up. The children would hand pull the lumps until we came up with a smooth batting. Not so bad, just a way of life, it was all we knew so we accepted it. Can't imagine a youth today asked to do something so mundane. Actually I look back a lot and remember the layed-back lifestyle and miss it very much. Such a wealth of knowledge we learned sitting around the feet of several ladies as they helped each other quilt. The tools they used were everyday items that were around the house, like a string and piece of chalk to mark fans and scollops.

I remember helping my Grandma smooth the batting in her quilts. I have some and treasure them especially the one with patches made from scraps of my school dresses. She made them from feed sack fabric. It was fun to go with Grandpa and choose the colors and patterns I wanted. And yes, we are lucky today. Don't think my hands could pull as well after all these years.

My post just disappeared!
We used all kinds of things for quilts. worn out clothes..older blankets that were patched and put inside.. nylons. baughten bats were not like they are now and we had to use what we could..We even cut up wool underware.. that was to worn the wear any more. overhaul patches sowen together made wonder picknic quilts to set on and put food on for 4 of July gatherings. or ball games..etc. I remember setting on the quilt in progress. stitching and tying.. wind would blow piles of snow in the cracks of the door and windows. so sitting on the blanket would help to stay a bit warmer. cat tail fluff was gathered like cotton. for stuffing..Some wonderful stories can be told of adventures.. working to just make enough to do the necessary servival things. My first pair of shoes cost .25..carding fiber for bats ..we mostly used wool from sheep..Today here in Alaska the art of spinning and carding is still done. to make threads for weaving or knitting. It really is kind of fun when you have a fun attitude. singing reading stories, while everyone works at quilt bees is not done so much anymore..I was born in 1936.. my kids were born late 50's and early 60's..Life is fun when you are blessed!

My kids use these to groom our sheep for the fair. So yes they can still be bought.

My FIL is 78 and tells me stories of his mother quilting. She combed wool for batting, then tied her quilts, then removed the ties and recombed the wool again each year, then tied them again. He seems to enjoy my quilting, no one else in the family has quilted since his mom.

But I think this would have been in the 1920s or 1930s, not the 1950s or 1960s! I remember those decades and I think quilting, unless in very rural areas, perhaps, was more advanced than that.

Oh I remember cording sheeps wool on those carders in the 40's. After shearing of sheep or someone who had sheep, my mom would get some of the wool, wash it in her gas powered wringer washing machine that my dad had put a motor on for her, sort of pull it apart by hand to dry good, and then I would have to sit and card the wool on those (I called them wire brushes) to get all the impurities out that the sheep had picked up out in the fields. It took quite a bit of carding to get those nice clean brick sized pieces of wool batting and then they were laid side by side of each other in the middle of your quilts or comfortors (what we call tied quilts). If it was quilted the quilting had to be done pretty close together. These wool quilts were seldom washed as we wash everything today. I can remember my Grandmother making muslin strips that would fold over the top of the quilt. They sewed buttons on the quilt and made buttonholes in the strip so you could button it on the quilt and then take that part off when it became soiled from your chin and neck area. My Grandmother tied most of her quilts (or comfortors) and you would have several on your bed. They were warm, but they were also heavy as well. Then you also slept on feather beds. Once you had what we called a ;warm nest as we called it, you were toasty for the night. We often wrapped old sad irons or bricks with several layers of rags or old overalls to warm the bed before you got in it as most bedrooms had no heat in them. I can still remember sleeping in a cold bedroom with the featherbed and comforters at my Grandmothers when I was in high school in the fifties. As they say, "Been there done that" and I could survive in hard times if I had to, and sadly some of the younger ones have no clue how to survive hard times (thru no fault of their own). We have it so much easier these days.

It's wonderful to hear about the old times. But you brought up another item. I wonder how many know what a sad iron is?

I have some sad irons..when I was 9..my mother heated her irons in the fireplace somehow..and I can still see her ironing my dad's white shirts...he drove a school bus..I learned how to cook cornbread and iron those shirts before I was 9...then our house burned down that year and we had to move...I don't remember using those irons after that...the reason for the fire...my mother had the lining in a frame for a quilt and she was taking cotton and putting it in on the lining.I don't know where she was getting the cotton from....my brother was down the road playing with neighbors and he split his pants..he came home to get Mom to fix them..he was 15 at the time..he ask my mom if he could help her put the cotton on the quilt..she said "No Son...you will get it too thick for me to quilt...so these frames hung from the ceiling and it was in what we called the fireplace room..there also was a bed in there..there was a chest sitting in the room..my brother turned around and picked up a kitchen match and like a kid he flicked the head of the match with his fingernail...why I don't have an idea...me and my sister was across the road playing and my baby sister was only a year old..when he flicked the match..it lit up and came off and up and came down in the cotton on the quilt..and it started to burn..the ceilings in the old house were low and my mom ran out to the pump on the back porch to get a bucket of water..and she grabbed my little sister and sit her outside of the back porch..by the time she got back into the house with the water...the fire had already spread to the kitchen which was the next room..she ran back out..grabbed my sister and my brother was running around screaming ...Mom..I didn't mean to do it. I didn't mean to do it....bless his heart he was so scared...the old house had wall paper on all the walls and ceiling too I think...there was no fire dept..back in those days out in the country..thank goodness we all were ok.. but my mom had canned hundreds of jars of food and they all blew up..and the butane tank...she had washed that day for us and my grandpa and grandma on my daddy's side and the fire went down the clothes lines and burned up all our clothes..so we were left with what ever we had on...by nightfall..neighbors and friends had came and brought furniture , clothing some money..and moved us up the road about a mile to a little 4 room house..My mom had a little china doll that she got when she was 4 years old..all she found after the fire was her head...I have that doll now..I had the body, hands and feet replaced for her several years ago..my mom was born in 1910..she passed away in 2004..so the doll is 99 years old now...this is the doll in the pic..but the sad irons that I have didn't belong to my mother...she didn't like old things much...guess times for her[ATTACH=CONFIG]406040[/ATTACH] were not so good..she liked new and pretty things...didn't mean for post to be so long...but brought back so many memories...good ones and some not so good..and thankful that I'm here today and can still remember..

I would like to thank you all for the help given with my question.
I hope I didn't offend anyone by saying older - what I really was trying
to say was those that have been around quilting longer or had family
quilting back in the day - I have only been quilting for 10 years
thanks again for all the help

Thank you, sak658 for a beautiful story! What a wonderful role model your mother must have been for you!