What is your first quilt memory?
05-25-2015, 01:23 PM
#71
Senior Member
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Alabama
Posts: 485
This is a wonderful thread!
When I was growing up, we had no quilts--just scratchy woolen blankets and feather comforters (my mother called them eiderdowns) covered with satin that slid off the bed every time you turned over. Hated them.
When I left home to go to college, a mother and daughter in the church made me a beautiful quilt, butterflies outlined with black buttonhole stitching, backed with feedsacks. I didn't have sense enough to know what a treasure it was, and I don't know what became of it. I'm still ashamed of myself.
When I was growing up, we had no quilts--just scratchy woolen blankets and feather comforters (my mother called them eiderdowns) covered with satin that slid off the bed every time you turned over. Hated them.
When I left home to go to college, a mother and daughter in the church made me a beautiful quilt, butterflies outlined with black buttonhole stitching, backed with feedsacks. I didn't have sense enough to know what a treasure it was, and I don't know what became of it. I'm still ashamed of myself.
05-26-2015, 03:17 AM
#73
Super Member
Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: Midwest
Posts: 5,051
I am in that category of "I did not know people still quilted!". Yes, I am ducking! Lol! I used to sew garments then quit ....about a 20 year hiatus fom sewing of any kind. Then, in 2002 I got married and moved to a rural area. A few years later I decided to make/replace the old curtains at a local museum we volunteer at. THE sewing bug came roaring back! I went shopping for a new sewing machine ( sticker shock, feature shock!). I knew there was a "quilt shop" in town. I walked in....I told the owner that I would buy everything from her that I needed to get started
(translate: not use a coupon) IF she would teach me how to quilt (piece). $200 in cutters, rulers, mat, etc. Later and a few lessons then off I went! I Never looked back! We are friends to this day and she introduced me to a world of like-minded sewist and quilters. I kick myself for not knowing about this world of quilters. But I am here now!
Oh, i have 3 quilts from my maternal grandma but I really have no memory of her. My fav aunt would hand quilt with the church ladies but at the time I was in my 20's and 30's and not interested! My mom did not like to sew. Sigh.....
sandy
(translate: not use a coupon) IF she would teach me how to quilt (piece). $200 in cutters, rulers, mat, etc. Later and a few lessons then off I went! I Never looked back! We are friends to this day and she introduced me to a world of like-minded sewist and quilters. I kick myself for not knowing about this world of quilters. But I am here now!
Oh, i have 3 quilts from my maternal grandma but I really have no memory of her. My fav aunt would hand quilt with the church ladies but at the time I was in my 20's and 30's and not interested! My mom did not like to sew. Sigh.....
sandy
05-26-2015, 11:49 AM
#74
Senior Member
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Bay area CA
Posts: 887
My first memory of a quilt... being drug into a quilt store in Pensacola Beach Florida and being amazed that such work was being done. I was 46. I bought a pattern (Yellow Brick Road), a bunch of plain and Kaffee Fascett fabrics and proceeded to do nothing with them for several years. Two years later my first impression was after cutting my first strips of fabric... "I screwed it up already!" Sanity prevailed and here it is 10 years later and i am still quilting. tim in san jose Post 777
05-27-2015, 07:50 AM
#76
Super Member
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Tennessee, UC area
Posts: 1,583
I know we always had quilts for cover in wintertime, but the first memory I have of one being made in our house....it was just after WWII and my granny was cutting up my uncles long ARMY overcoat--you know the green wool-heavy kind. She made it into a quilt--with a batting and tied it..(it was so heavy we woke tired already). We made do or did without!
05-28-2015, 01:54 AM
#77
Super Member
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: North Florida
Posts: 2,156
My first memory of a quilt and quilting is when my new born daughter was given a handmade quilt by a neighbor. I had sewed clothes for years but had no idea that quilts could be so beautiful (dd still has that quilt, it's 38 years old). I only started quilting 4 years ago because I thought they always had to be made by hand sewing them and I knew I would never have the patience to finish one. When I discovered that I could make a whole quilt by machine I started quilting.
05-28-2015, 05:04 AM
#78
Super Member
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Texas
Posts: 6,395
I remember two quilts and a down comforter from my childhood. One was green and yellow stars. I was so excited a few years ago to find a green fabric just like the one in that quilt. The other was pink and blue four patch. Must have had alternating plain blocks too. Don't know if they were made by my mom or my grandmother. My grandmother died when I was seven years old. My mom took her feather bed and had two comforters made from it, one for us and one for her sister.
Fast forward to my teen years and a double wedding ring quilt top that had been given to my dad long before he and mother married. We had an elderly lady in town quilt it and it was on my bed for many years. I have been collecting fabrics to make a similar quilt. The green like the star quilt is one of those. And then there are the embroidered state flower squares that my mom and her sister had started for their hope chests. I completed those and put them together with sashing as a HS home ec project - my first quilt top. That was also quilted for us by the same lady. My MIL was an avid quilter and gave us a gorgeous Grandmothers flower garden quilt as a wedding gift. That one along with the DWR and the state flowers were well used for many years and retired to a place of honor on a quilt rack before our house burned in 2000.
It was not until about 10 - 12 years ago that I actually got really interested in quilting myself. Now I'm wanting to recreate these special quilts.
Fast forward to my teen years and a double wedding ring quilt top that had been given to my dad long before he and mother married. We had an elderly lady in town quilt it and it was on my bed for many years. I have been collecting fabrics to make a similar quilt. The green like the star quilt is one of those. And then there are the embroidered state flower squares that my mom and her sister had started for their hope chests. I completed those and put them together with sashing as a HS home ec project - my first quilt top. That was also quilted for us by the same lady. My MIL was an avid quilter and gave us a gorgeous Grandmothers flower garden quilt as a wedding gift. That one along with the DWR and the state flowers were well used for many years and retired to a place of honor on a quilt rack before our house burned in 2000.
It was not until about 10 - 12 years ago that I actually got really interested in quilting myself. Now I'm wanting to recreate these special quilts.
10-09-2020, 01:01 AM
#80
Super Member
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Central Willamette Valley, Oregon, USA
Posts: 7,695
Originally Posted by madamekelly
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.
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