‘When you sleep under a quilt you sleep under a blanket of Love.’
My mother grew up in a large city where she lived until her marriage. She was seven when her father died.At sixteen she went to work to help her mother support the family. A sister and two of her brothers were older, she had two younger brothers who were twins.
Shortly after her twenty-first birthday she married and moved with her husband to a very small town in Southern Illinois. In this small town the ladies of the church gathered to quilt on Thursday afternoons. Usually quilts were pinned into wooden frames, which were pieces of wood with an edge of cloth tacked on. Onto this cloth the quilt was pinned: lining, cotton, then the quilt. As the quilters would quilt and could no longer reach to stitch, the clamp that held the wooden ends together were removed and the quilt would be rolled and re-clamped. This was done from both sides of the quilt. At that time, the 1930’s and 40’s, most quilts were double bed size. The cost of the quilting was figured by the amount of thread used. The used spools were put into a container and then counted when the quilt was finished. Occasionally they would have ‘all day’ quilting and the ladies would bring their lunch with them, also their younger children. The children would play in the school basement and sometimes slide on the wooden floor under the quilts. Some received a splinter from that wooden floor.
Mother was not a quilter when she arrived in this small town and she told us of being criticized about the size of her stitches, if too large she would be required to remove them. Needless to say, after awhile her stitches were perfect and even. She pieced many quilts from fabric left over from sewing her four daughter’s wardrobes. We would look at the nine patch quilt or any pattern quilt and remember whose dress that was and what style or whether it had been a favorite.
The quilting patterns were made of cardboard and some were quite elaborate. Straight lines were made by using the yardstick. I still have a few of her quilting patterns. Most of the quilts she pieced after she and dad had retired. He would cut the pattern out of cardboard and he would also help cut the fabric. When finished Mom would do hand quilt them in a small round frame which she held in her lap or sometimes she placed it on a stand. She pieced quilts and quilted until the evening before she left us.
I visited her one July evening and when I was leaving she asked if I would take the quilt she was working on and check to see if she had missed any areas and then bind the quilt. Another finished quilt…..the next morning getting ready for breakfast she was called to her final rest.
Years later I read a saying that reminds me of those days.
“We made quilts to keep us warm and beautiful because we faced so much hardship.”
