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Quilt making eventually became an expensive hobby (I gasp at current fabric prices, as well as at the myriad options). It became cheaper to buy clothes than to sew them ourselves, and quilts from China sold for much less than we could make them. Everything changed when the USA opened trade with China. When Jinny Beyer came on the scene, we started cutting up our Indian bedspreads and thinking of quilts as Art. The most easily attained was Ruby McKim’s “101 Patchwork Patterns” from Dover Press. We loved polyester batting, since the old cotton batting lumped and clumped with every washing. We would never have imagined throwing away “flippy corners.” We found $1 a yard fabric at Ben Franklin and Rich’s if we wanted traditional calico, we had to search in places such as the Vermont Country Store. We used cardboard templates to mark around the curves left from sleeve cutouts. And much of that fabric consisted of blends, since it was a boon to be freed from the hours of ironing that cotton required. We used the remnants left from our usual sewing (remember when sewing our own clothes was less expensive than buying them?): dresses, blouses, pajamas, shorts, pedal pushers, kitchen curtains - all of these were fair game. However, the root of our quiltmaking was still thrift. Some of the old timers from whom we learned these skills were often bemused, wondering why we would want to trade the ease of laundering acrylic and polyester blends with the hand washing and ironing required of wool and cotton. We shared craft fair space with novice blacksmiths, spinners, weavers, leather workers, candle makers. Back then, we were discovering a “lost” art in fact, all traditional crafts had a resurgence in the quest for living a simpler, back-to-the-land life. Thanks for the lovely story, and thanks for being so giving with your knowledge and creativity.įor those of us “of a certain age” who began quilting in the 60s and 70s, today’s quilting world can be a strange place. Memories, like you said, and a reminder of how much I've learned since - a lot of it right here on your blog! Almost every print in it came from some sewing project that my mom can identify, many of them scraps from clothes that were made for her when she was growing up. I'll never be able to wash it because that purple marker will bleed everywhere! But, like your sweet Log Cabin, I won't get rid of it, not after the 30-35 years it'll have taken to finish.
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I've started and stopped the project often over the years, but now have it nearly done except a few long seams to join large sections. I was tracing my cereal-box template with a purple Flair marker, and Grandma didn't stop me! My grandma was a quilter, but was very stingy with her knowledge, so I made many mistakes, including using some fabrics from the family bags of dressmaking scraps that are of very questionable content and quality. I started my first quilt, a hand-pieced Grandmother's Flower Garden, just a year or two after you finished your Log Cabin. I was in elementary school when you made that quilt. What a lovely story and a lovely quilt - thank you for sharing with us.