Tuesday, June 12, 2012

A Sentimental Quilt

Sometimes it just smacks you in the face that you are a sentimental quilter. My friend Beth showed me her raggedy baby quilt and I offered to bind it. If she has kept it with her for 50+ years now, it deserves a little love.

I thought I'd show it to you before I return it. Beth said the ladies in her parent's church made these quilts and presented them to newborns. I love the idea - scrap blocks of squares. The scrap blocks have 48 squares, each measuring about 1 1/4" square. I wonder if the women made the square blocks at home - I notice the sizes of the small squares can vary. The entire squares blocks do measure 9" x 9". They alternate with solid blocks - there are 12 scrappy blocks and 13 solid blocks. The total quilt measures 45" x 45". Bella the cat offered to pose so you could get an idea of the quilt's size.

It was clearly bleached a few times - some of the fabrics are quite worn. The quilting is interesting - a sturdy chain stitch that wiggles - in one direction only.

Beth was born in Marshfield, MO, in 1960 - her parents were members of the Marshfield Christian Church. Beth has distinct memories of women at the church sitting around a large quilting frame in the church basement -- "actually one of just a few distinct memories I have of living in Marshfield. We moved to Kansas City just as I turned 6."

8 comments:

  1. What a sweet quilt, and that chain stitch done by hand, wow!

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  2. These are the BEST kinds of quilts, I believe! That's also a nice idea for making a group project. The squares could easily be trimmed - would work with crazy-quilt blocks too. Thanks for sharing this lovely quilt!

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  3. I have never seen the chain stitch as a quilting stitch. Very cool!

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  4. so darling! chain stitch is the only embroidery stitch i actually enjoy doing. Some of the older Singers have an attachment that makes a chain stitch. Does this one look hand done or machine?

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  5. What a wonderful quilt, and it's great that it's still with the original owner.

    If that chain stitching isn't by machine, I'm in awe of whoever did it so evenly. And tiny. The more I look at it and think, 1 1/4" squares, and about 24 chains in each square (yes, I counted one line in a square), I'm leaning to machine chain stitch. Not only did some older Singers have chain stitch parts (I had one for a while), but there are old machines (often treadles) that do nothing but chain stitch. Either way, it's a lovely little quilt!

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  6. It definitely looks machine stitched to me. Thanks for sharing that information about the older Singers, it truly fits with this quilt.

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