You’ve come a long way, baby!

I can remember when I first began to quilt.  I thought that I had to quilt like our grandmothers did. (Well, not my grandma..Maddie was way too modern to quilt! :-))  But you know what I mean.  I thought everything had to be done by hand and all fabric should be “recycled”.  That idea actually didn’t last long!  I came to love my sewing machine and rotary cutter and acrylic templates and quilt shop quality fabric and all that good stuff!  But what about our quilting ancestors?  How did they quilt?

At our last guild meeting, we had a presentation by Cathy Grafton.  Cathy came in period costume and in character to tell us how our great-great-greats sewed and quilted in the early 1800s.  It was a fascinating program!  I think what surprised me the most was that women of that period purchased new fabrics for quilts.  They did not use old clothing because they wore their clothing until they were basically rags.   And I thought I hung onto clothes for a long time!

She told us how precious needles and pins were at that time.  They were difficult to obtain and many times were shared.  At that rate, my husband has had a million dollars in and out of his feet over the years!  Needles and pins were treasured.  Think about how many we toss away.  I can see the look of horror on Hannah’s face!  Scissors were availabe but obviously not anything like the rotary cutters we’re so accustomed to using.  Items like that were carried with the woman in either a pocket that hung around her waist or a chatelaine that hung around her neck.

Of course, she also brought along some reproduction quilts that she made in the manner of the era.

Although it was an interesting evening, I have no desire to give up my sewing machine and all the modern notions.  We’ve come a long way, baby!

Here’s a question for you!  I was machine quilting a piece yesterday and I had a problem with a thread spool.  This spool had one of those little notches cut into the top and the thread kept getting stuck there.   I think it’s a cruel joke…they put a notch for every quilter that’s going to get thread stuck there!  I’m sure I’m not the only one this happens to.  What do you do to fix that?  It’s soooo aggravating!!!!

Darn you, Bonnie!

Darn Bonnie Hunter!

Why does she have to make such awesome scrap quilts?  And why does she have to be so darn organized?

I love my scrap boxes!

I love digging through them.  I pull out little reminders of quilts completed, waiting to be completed and those booted out of my life forever! The red, green and black quilt comes to mind…a challenge quilt that my sister and I were going to do.  Fabric looked great in the shop…not so much on the design wall.  No matter how I arranged those squares and triangles, nothing looked right.  I waited for my sister to throw in the towel.  She didn’t.  I blinked first and she happily agreed to trash the project.  So all of those squares and triangles went into the scrap box.  I still shudder when I pull one of them out remembering what almost was.  Then a little smile because I still like the darn fabric!  But, of course. I digress!

As much as I love pawing through the box when I have nothing else to do  (like when does that happen?), I hate digging through it in search of that one print/color for a scrap quilt.  What a time suck!

Enter Bonnie Hunter by way of my sister.  (I have to start ignoring her. 🙂 ) She purchased one of Bonnie’s books and bought into the whole organize your scraps theory.  I can see her now, feverishly cutting strips and squares in various sizes.  Well, maybe not feverishly–but cutting none the less.  What I can’t see is me doing the same thing.  If there’s one thing that anyone who knows me knows it’s that I do nothing-and I mean nothing-feverishly!  But my dear sister (the Enabler) convinced me to try.

OK…my turn.  On her recommendation, I purchased this book.

I discover that I love the quilts.  However, I’m pretty sure I’m not cutting up shirts to make scraps.  Here is what I would have to work with.  Obviously, my husband is neither flashy or flamboyant.

Even if I wanted to go that route (I don’t) I couldn’t.  He’d be a little upset if I did.  He’s still mad at me because I gave away his safari jacket.  Seriously, he still brings it up in the occasional argument.  Now, I have thought about cutting up his Cubs shirts…for that just right Cubbie blue triangle but I like living in this house. 🙂  Would probably be a deal breaker.

So I started slicing and dicing my scraps into usable squares and strips.  I was a human Vegomatic!  I’ll admit it will be very useful when I have enough.  (Do we ever have enough?)  But it will be a long road from this

to this.

Cuz I’d rather stitch ’em than cut ’em!  How about you?