90 Years of Kentucky Handi-Work

In 1927 a young Kentucky couple welcomed a baby girl they named Verna Madden.  She would grow up to touch multiple generations with her love and to warm them with the quilts into which she poured even more of that loving spirit.  She left this world six years ago and her family is still warmed by her quilts and the memories they arouse.  Verna’s niece Peggy Madden Harmann shared the quilts and the stories with me and after seeing and hearing I wish I’d known this precious lady.

A couple of weeks ago I said I was turning the blog over to you readers and I am so honored that Peggy would share these things with me and that she’d allow me to pass them along to you.

She was a prolific quilter, sharing her work with all of her nieces and nephews.  The 3 or 4 quilts represented here a tiny fraction of the craft she learned as a young child and continued throughout her 90 years.  Early-on she both pieced and quilted by hand, however as age and arthritis took their toll on her joints, she began having her quilt-tops professionally quilted by machine.  Even then she was particular about the pattern they would be quilted in. 

I’m just in love with the cross-stitched rosebud quilt.  Someone told me years ago that you can’t put cross-stitching on a quilt.  I defied their advice at the time, but the quilt I produced was nothing like this lovely covering!

Thank you for sharing Peggy!

I wonder, do other readers have family quilts and accompanying stories to share?

Projects and Progress

Today’s post is just a quick update on the quilt-repair progress. I’m quilt a line or two about every day. Still the progress is slow going.

I’m finding the original fabric to be extremely fragile. I’m using my lap-frame and I’m accustomed to really pulling quilt backing tight to ensure there are no puckers in the fabric. I know better than to treat this old quilt the same way, yet even with careful handling I’ve ripped it a time or two.

Also, as I probably mentioned before, the knotty old batting is making for some long and crooked stitches. Thankfully my worst quilting-critic can’t see very well anymore and I’m hoping y’uns will let me by with it.

Then there are new projects presenting themselves all the time!

Last weekend a neighbor and cousin (ain’t it great to be related to everybody in the neighborhood!?!) had a yard-sale where I found two old cane-bottom chairs. Turns out, they had been her great grandmother’s (who was also my grandfather’s sister) and they came from the chair factory in Crossville! So I’m eager to do some research on that factory and share it all with you in a few weeks. I will be working on repairing these chairs, but no promises on how long that will take!

Polyester Quilt Warm and Colorful after 50 Years

Bruce sent me this picture and description of his mother’s quilt. I love that just like women of old, she was using the scraps she had to make quilts that have been keeping her family warm for decades now. Thanks so much for sharing Bruce!

This is not my favorite quilt, but it has a place. Growing up in a drafty farm house that sat on a hill overlooking Seneca Lake in western NY, staying warm during the brutal winters was a priority. Mom had a 1950s vintage Singer Featherweight sewing machine and many evenings were spent sewing these quilts that eventually graced not only every bed in our home, but numerous others in the community. Some were even hand embroidered with names and dates to be given as wedding gifts! They were made from the cheapest and most readily available material there was in the late 60s and early 70s – polyester.

Mom was no stranger to the Salvation Army store and was constantly on the lookout for the escapees of the polyester power hour. Sewn into 4 x 4” blocks and stuffed with a piece of poly batting, they were sewn shut and adorned with a single yarn tie in the middle. They were then laid out in a pattern with alternating solids and prints, sewn into strips and then into a composite whole and bound on the edge.

The quilt pictured is one of many I know of to still be in use. It may not be easy on the eye and true quilters may run for the eye bleach, but they will last nearly forever and are one of the warmest things in which you will ever wrap yourself. I carried this quilt to hunting camp last year and covered my bunk with it, staying toasty warm on single digit nights. I took a picture of it there in hunting camp and sent it to mom, who is now in her 80s. She was not surprised I was still using it, nearly 50 years later. We reminisced about the family affair of making them and her teaching me to sew on that indestructible little Singer Featherweight (my daughter now has this machine and my quilter wife has one identical).

Mom was a farmer’s wife in the truest sense and did whatever she could to take care of her family and neighbors, even sewing quilts from old clothes to keep us warm on frigid winter nights.

Anybody else have a quilt and a story? Leave a comment, connect on Facebook or email me at: Beth@BethDurham.com

Kathy's Quilts

Last week I said I was turning the blog over to you readers, and a few have sent along pictures of treasured quilts. I am just loving seeing these precious pieces.

Kathy Osborne shared pictures of her mother’s quilts and they got me to thinkin’…

She mentioned how she loved that they had just used whatever fabric they had on hand “the mismatched is the best,” she said. And I completely agree!

I’ll bet if we could talk with this quilter, we’d soon learn that these are fabrics leftover from sewing projects for her family. Maybe they were even clothes that had been worn many times and when she had to ‘retire’ a piece, she found parts that had enough life left to make a quilt square.

There are two different quilts here, one from the 1960’s and another from the ‘40s.

I want to particularly draw your attention to the back of the older quilt. Don’t you just love that little floral and rose print? Now this side was only meant to hold the pieces together and lie against the bed. Quilt backings got little attention yet they are sometimes the most interesting part.

There are two entirely different fabrics here. Now I’ve mentioned before that very wide pieces of fabric are relatively new - since the introduction of commercial looms. Of course these are certainly commercially-produced fabrics, but the backing may well have been something already on-hand, possibly for another project. Many quilters of Mrs. Griffith’s generation would’ve never thought to go buy fabric for a quilt; quilts were something made of scraps, even the backing. Still, she has tried to match the fabrics as closely as she could - using two light red florals with blue accents, rather than making an entirely patched backing which would have been even more difficult to quilt through - and that one is handquilted.

How I wish I could pepper these two ladies with questions, or even just sit around a quilt frame and work alongside them. I just know they could teach me not only about quilting but all of life!

Your Quilts

Some of my favorite Quilts

I just love hearing from my readers. I can never find the words to describe how honored I feel when someone tells me they sat up half the night because they couldn’t put down one of my books. And when I hear you saying that a blog article or series reminded you of your mother or grandmother, I feel like the greatest success on the internet!

So, as I continue working on my quilt repair, this week I want to hear from you - I’m turning the blog over to the readers!

Please send me pictures of your favorite quilts - maybe it’s one you made with your grandmother, or one of hers that you inherited. Maybe it’s a quilt you remember using at your mother’s house, or wrapping your babies in.

If you have a story to go along with the picture, that’s all the better.

You can share in lots of ways: 1. In the comments below; 2. Post it on my Facebook page; 3. Email me at: Beth@BethDurham.com.

I can’t wait to hear from you!

Reader Mary Lou McKillip shared a great quilting-bee story with me this week, so I’ll start you off with it :

I was 8 years old and our church ladies were making quilts for the children orphans home. Dad built Mother a quilting house (two rooms) a large room for quilting and a small kitchen to cook lunch for all the ladies with a large tables and chairs ,he had a large pot belly stove in the quilting room. It was on a Saturday and I was playing with my kitten Lucy under the quilt.mama didn’t Dad  had put in new stove pipe and left the old one on the porch . Mama told me to take the kitten and play on the porch . That darn cat got down in the stove pipe and got suit all over her all you could see was her eyes. I ran back inside to show the ladies and Lucy jump out my arms and landed on the new quilt She made paw prints all over that new quilt. I finally caught her and Mama sent me and her back to the Big House with dad. She told me to get a pan and bath her with dad helping me but while we were getting a pan of water she got up on Mamas white bed spread and tracked it up. (Solid white with French  knots) boy my fanny got it.