Mom had a fabric stash but she didn’t call it a stash. She had always saved material for a future
project. Mom has fabric from her sewing
days and from good garment fabrics that she took apart and saved.
Mom didn’t sew quilts until after we were grown – she was
sewing our clothes. I do remember Mom
helping her mother tie quilts.
In the 70’s with the energy crisis, she made quilts with
wool batting. I have a red, white, and
blue polyester quilt done at the time of the bicentennial and filled with wool
batting.
When my grandma died, Mom took her polyester dresses and
blended the squares into a beautiful quilt with lavenders. And I still think of Grandma.
I also have a quilt that Mom made, purchasing the fabric
specifically for a quilt. She and her
sister Lillian used the same pattern but in different colors. It is on our guest bed.
Last summer my sister, daughter, and I started looking over
the stash with Mom. We separated fabric
by content. Her friend took a large part
of the wool stash. I was gifted with
many cottons ready for quilts.
I started with 21 inch squares and 11 inch squares thinking
I would make quilt tops for Mom’s church quilt group…and the large blocks
easily make 60 by 80 quilts. As I
started the process and blending the fabrics I pulled some fabric from my stash
and decided I could make 3 quilts from the fabric for my 3 sisters. And by
adding a border they would fit a queen bed. And Mom had enough fabric for the backs of the
quilts. Now my sisters will need to
choose which one to take home with them.
This quilt started when Mom gave me one feedsack from her
mother. I used the feedsack with other 30’s fabric to make table quilts for
each of us – Mom, my 3 sisters, and me.
