Quilting - Or as I like to call it - Quiet time away from everyone

 

I just got this one this past week, very reasonably from The Cherry Chic where others I have were gifts or just great finds.

A favorite is a whole cloth styled boys blanket covered in airplanes. (If you look really closely you can see how angry Jason is, while simultaneously sleeping)

Gee's Bend - Made from Old Work Clothes

There are a lot of these past skills that in this economic climate can not only be handy, but could yield warmth, profit, or just livability for your family.  Some of the best quilts were made without quilting frames (structures which keep the designs taught while hand stitching) and made out of retired clothing for a second life (FREE FABRIC, since you've already purchased it).

Gee's Bend

I have had quilts around my family and everyone agrees they are sometimes gorgeous, and always a lot of work - but it seems no one was making them anymore.   Why was that?  If so many people knew of folks who make quilts but then they pass away and then what?  In twenty years time would we be a nation known for our quilts, and Jazz and become one of all things past and longing.  When the younger generation is older what will they make when they don't have to?  Text messages?  The new grannies will have hands withered and curled from swiffering and texting. Not to send you away too quickly, but this is a nice, very short listen. 

The best quilts there are seem to have been born from those groups of hidden people, and those people are as diverse as the quilts themselves.  Long coveted are Amish wares.  With good reason they are a closed culture (respectfully of course - meaning you are born into it, but it is difficult to get inside of as an outsider) and closed cultures are the only ones that can keep traditions strong.  They maintain the values and knowledge of elders and generations past.

Amish made

Amish made

Have you ever winnowed wheat?  Me either.  Woven a basket?  I've done that... but I'm not skilled or diverse in my over under construction.  These are things people knew and shared.  Days filled with just living and loving.  Quilts carrying a lot of that living and loving and sharing with them which is so much of the attraction to them.  It seems most American families have or had someone in them that loved to quilt.  It may have been written off as a hobby not thinking too much about why they did it, when they started or who had taught them.  It was born out of necessity and now is seen as a frivolous activity.  When you can purchase any color and any pattern of any kind of fabric specifically cut for ONLY quilting then it seems it has be reduced by our being spoiled.  But the quilts were an Amish woman's only means of artistic expression, and a major source of income for Southern Black families during the civil rights movement when Black Americans were losing their jobs based on tumult and prejudice.  Born out of old work clothes, dress scraps and patience some very beautiful forms of subtle resistance, shelter, utility, income, safety, and communication.

I think it goes without saying that we are a spoiled nation and since the last major economic shift have been more in the Have category than the Have Not.  So to remain a Have and to stay far from the Have Not, some basic skills may be necessary.  Cooking, you are here - so you're obviously all over that.  Let's see what else you may need?  I made a list of what I feared most and would wish to prevent and what to protect.  I then thought how best I could be prepared for those things.  Not in any rash the sky is falling way, but more like a Boy Scout.  One of those was that I feared not being able to obtain basic things my family may need.  Food, clothing, linens.  So I have chickens, ducks on their way, been canning like mad, I made certain Jason has nearly 20 pairs of jeans,  I'm making myself a quilt a little to get comfortable with a needle (handquilting - just in case of no power).   I found that preparing for these maybe less than likely fears yielded really positive results.  Not just a bounty of tomatoes in my cabinet, but a real sense of accomplishment.  I could know that should the supply chain breakdown either through people freaking out, the broken system breaking further, or whatever shenanigans, I'd have something warm to wear and for every can of tomatoes a week's worth of food and if no power (fridge) a couple day's worth.  People did this.  They prepared for more life, they lived more life and were happier. Studies have proven we get more miserable with more things and more money and better jobs, and that experiences make us happiest.  A dinner in with friends or a trip makes us happier than buying a pair of heels or a car. 

So then the only answer is to do something for you that you can't believe you accomplished.  Of course you got that job, you worked at it, you went to school for it, you had to pay the rent.  So what do you NOT HAVE to do, that you really have to do?  For you it may not be quilting.


This is one I am working on.  It is just the beginning, but the making it is fun... so we'll see.

This is just the beginning of my pine burr quilt, and not sure when that will be done, but it will be fun to just keep plugging away at it.  The real deal pine burr quilts are nearly three dimensional being made of 1,000 -7,000 little triangles.  They often are made of small squares of the burred circles and then joined together after several squares are made then backed with cloth little to no need for batting (the inner layer) as the mass of fabric makes these quilts very heavy.  Some are made of one solid concentric circle of burrs that goes right to the edges of the quilt.  Making it nearly like a carpet in heft.  It is Alabama's state quilt.  (Do other states have state quilts?)

Here are a few great things to check out if this interests you:

Amish quilts The Revere Collection

Amish and a few Mennonite Quilts

Quilts of Gees Bend
the official site - they have since signed some sort of deal with Pottery Barn to have replicas made, although I feel really bittersweet about this since I enjoy the quilters of Gees Bend doing well - but I don't enjoy the thought of the Chinese slaves that now have to make the quilts. I say buy the real deal, make your own or scout out an old timey quilt! 

Gee's Bend samples images

The Quilts Of Gee's Bend: Masterpieces From a Lost Place book 


Gee's Bend: The architecture of The Quilt book

The Code Quilt by Nora Renick Rinehart and Nellie Kurz  What the specific meanings of quilt patterns were during the underground railroad and the hankie code used by the queer community.  Very interesting read.

International Quilt Study Center   A different quilt each month list is fun to go through.

Beautiful photos A lovely time capsule.  The whole site has great photos, this one just happens to be Quilts.

Storytime  So beautiful to listen to, something soothing about hearing other's stories.