Beginnings

My grandmother was a quiltmaker. I never saw her work on her quilts, but I have several that she made. When her daughters were young, she made each of them a Sunbonnet Sue. The pattern was popular in the 1940s and a good choice for girls. She made it in the typical style with a variety of prints for the dresses and coordinating solids for the hats and shoes. To personalize the quilts, she collected fabrics from schoolmates for each of the dresses and embroidered the friends’ names on the blocks. The appliqué blocks were set with a fairly wide sashing and of course, hand quilted.

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I also have a Dresden Plate quilt that Grandma made. Again, she worked in a scrappy style, but this quilt was made from new fabric, bought for quiltmaking. The blocks were set with a golden yellow solid for the sashing and borders and the quilt was quilted by hand.

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I was still in college when I decided I wanted to make a quilt. Grandma was no longer here to help with the task, but Aunt Gini had saved all of the scraps and cardboard templates Grandma had used. Her Dresden Plate was the pattern that appealed to me; I chose to make mine scrappy, too, and many of the fabrics I used came from Grandma’s trunk. One cardboard wedge was all I had to work with. I traced with a pencil, cut pieces with scissors and stitched them together by hand. I remember loving the process of laying pattern against pattern and joining them into something complex and beautiful.

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A few years later, when I was married and had little girls, I felt ready to try my hand at quiltmaking again. Following the inspiration from Grandma, I made two Sunbonnet Sue quilts for my two daughters. My Sues were made from family fabrics. I used more of the fabrics from Grandma’s trunk, some from Aunt Gini, summer dresses that my mother had worn, a shirt that my little brother had outgrown, and scraps from my own dressmaking. I used Grandma’s cardboard templates and did the work by hand. To personalize the quilts, I quilted each girl’s name into the sashing. 

For me, quilting has grown from an interest in my family history, to a hobby, and now a profession. I still stitch by hand, but I also use my sewing machine and a longarm quilting machine. I love all of it and frequently combine the different methods in the same quilt.
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By today’s standards, those first quilts would seem to have little value. But, I feel fortunate to have had that early, traditional beginning and I’m still drawn to antique quilts and their stories.