Having Fun Quilting

Give me the old time grandma quilt, one that has mismatched seams and pieces of this and that, the one where grandma took the best part of a worn out dress and the remains of grandpa's shirt and stitched them together with love. She didn't have the fancy expensive fabrics that we see in the quilt stores, you know the ones...they cost a small fortune. Grandma had one purpose in mind and that was to keep her family warm during the cold winter months. She didn't quilt because she had a hobby to occupy her time, but rather she did it out of necessity. Nothing went to waste. Her templates were made from paper sacks and sturdy pieces of cardboard. She didn't have a rotary cutter. Each piece was cut by hand using shears (as she called them). Seams didn't always match. Sometimes she would put a patch on top of a spot that was a bit short on fabric. One of the first quilts I saw lying on her bed was one made from wore out blue jeans. There was absolutely nothing pretty about that quilt, but it was HEAVY, and it was WARM! She quilted it using crochet cotton, the kind you use to make doilies. The stitches were long, unlike her small, even stitches used on her cotton quilts. My youngest daughter has one of those denim quilts from grandma. I really should get a pic of it to post. In the mean time I will just post the machine stitched log cabin blue jeans quilt I made my daughter. My friend who quilted it said that when she worked on the quilting that she was just itching to make one herself. It was so very fun :)