Thanksgiving and Memories

Oops! I must have gotten busy over the last few weeks because I just discovered this Thanksgiving weekend post. Here it is, hopefully better late than never.


It's not unusual for people to become nostalgic at holiday time; cementing tradition is part of the  plan.

So is reviving memories, and quilting certainly lends itself to that, what with making quilts for special occasions, using certain patterns to invoke feelings and messages, giving quilts as gifts to commemorate milestones...

And here on this Thanksgiving weekend I've come across just such a heart string. I found the  "label" I wrote for the third quilt I ever made. I didn't know back then (1991) that sewing an annotated history of the quilt onto the quilt was good to do. I merely wrote a note and handed it and the wall hanging off to my mom, who had the foresight to encase my bad handwriting in plastic. Thanks, Mom.

"Unlimited Mileage

This piece, my third, was done for my mother's 60th birthday -- 8/15/91. It commemorates our April '91 trip to Paducah, KY, for the American Quilter's Society annual conference.

The Mariner's Compass block is for all the "unlimited mileage" we put on the car. The deep turquoise is for the bridges over the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. The gold fabric is for the ceiling of the lobby bar at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis. The red fabric is for the Catherine the Great exhibit. The long row border is for the long, flat Missouri roads."

Well, now.

No one told me back then that making a Mariner's Compass (in the era before paper piecing) wasn't something a novice should do. I'm happy it doesn't bow that much in the center (grin). But more than any other quilt I've made, that one is special.

I'm sure every quilter has a super special quilt, even when it's impossible to choose among the "children." Feel free to share your favorites with us on Facebook or here on the Publishing blog.

Considering Quilting Trends

I'm occasionally asked to write something for a special project at AQS and this is always a delightful task. I did, after all, begin my career as a writer before becoming an editor.

The 2011 Kentucky Visitor's Guide will have a very short piece by me in it about Kentucky's quilt heritage. This topic has been admirably covered by others, including Jonathan Holstein and Shelly Zegart, and I make no claim to improving ground they have so capably made flourish; I'm just reporting.

What I do want to say, though, is that researching that super short article has reminded me once again of how accomplished 19th and 20th century quilters were. With very few tools, bad lighting, not a lot of time and questionable fabric and thread, they created quilts that would stun us today, even if made with the very latest in everything quilting.

Take a look at Kentucky Quilts 1800-1900  (Pantheon Books, 1982) to see what I mean. Whether your taste is what you see or not, you must be impressed with the creativity, artistry and workmanship in those quilts. In the 21st century, we have embarked on a campaign to make quilting as quick, easy, fun and painless as possible. I can't say if this is good or bad, and I don't mean to. I just think it's astonishing, when we take the time to look back, at what our foremothers made happen with needle and thread, unsupported by an almost 4 billion dollar industry.

We should give thanks every day that we have so much creative and artistic support, from fabric manufacturers to thread makers to tool creators to teachers and, yes, publishers like AQS. The list is becoming endless, and that, in itself, is cause for celebration. Quilters have never had it so good.

Take some time to really examine the much older quilts we are lucky to have available to us, whether in books, in exhibits or in person. My hope is that you will have an epiphany similar to mine.