Sunday, October 15, 2006

My mother...


My mother is a quilter. For many many years I resisted sewing and quilting because she was so good. I did other crafts that she didn't do - for example crochet, which skipped a generation from my grandmother. There was cross stitch and embroidery which she did but it wasn't her craft of choice. My mother does beautiful work but I actually don't have very many examples. I think I have 5 quilts in total - and one is a joint effort where I made the top and she handquilted it. I have two cheater sheet type quilts - one machine quilted in monofilament and one hand quilted. The last two are machine pieced and hand quilted. The pictures here are of the smaller of those two quilts, which she gave to my daughter on her first birthday ( although it was made a long time before that). In taking photos I realise that there is no label on it, and so the next time I see her I am taking the quilt back to her and making sure that she puts one on. However I don't know if she will remember any dates - still a little bit of history is better than nothing.
Nowadays she tends to keep things small and makes charity quilts for premature babies. They are all hand quilted - I think the one quilt I have which was machine quilted may be the only one she has done that way. ( It is one of those road fabrics which are great for little boys to play on) .


Here's the hand quilting on the pink quilt and it is followed by a close up of the candlewicking. The quilt has been washed a bit so it is starting to get that wrinkly look of older quilts. Also a lot of the fabrics were her dresses from my childhood, (I particularly remember the white one with the orange and yellow flower and pink grid ) so there is a bit of a mix and the backing is a cotton sheet. I think that it may have been completely a stash quilt.

1 comment:

Shelina said...

These are such beautiful quilts. I can understand not wanting to have the same hobby as your mother - it would almost be a competition - but on the other hand, it could be something you could share together. I'm sure you could learn a lot from her.