I love it when people find new ways to share their stories! Our quilt guild has an amazing Show and Tell session almost every month. We learn so much from each other and are inspired by work with a fabric line we didn’t know about, a designer new to us, or just an individual’s “take” on an old pattern.
Carmen brought a fabulous story quilt to Show and Tell at last week’s meeting. It’s a calendar quilt for the year 1998. There is a piece of fabric for every day of the year.
Vertical rows – there are twelve, of course – contain colorful fabrics that hold memories for Carmen. She has a rich collection of conversation prints (fabrics with a recognizable prints, available since the 1800’s), having made several “I spy” quilts for her grandchildren.
Carmen chose an appropriate piece of fabric for each day and stitched it to the previous day’s selection. I asked if she had to go to the store, searching for a particular motif. She said, no, she went to her collection (arranged alphabetically from aardvark to zipper) and pulled an appropriate fabric.
When there was no commercial print available in her stash, she drew the design on fabric. The tornado is one example. (There were actually two tornado blocks – Carmen did live in Missouri, after all.)
Other times, she used a typewriter to tell that day’s story.
Sometimes she added embroidery, or wrote details in with a pen.
Just looking at the quilt and reading a few isolated blocks, I know it holds special memories for Carmen. She misses the members of her guild in Missouri. But I know she remembers fun times when she looks at the blocks representing their meetings or their road trips to go quilt shop-hopping.
She shared some stories of those ladies, like the one whose doctor told her that to treat her carpel tunnel syndrome, she should restrict her hand quilting to one hoop per day. She went out and bought a bigger hoop!
If you are a quilter, I know the wheels in your head are spinning about how YOU could make this work in your world. You should have heard the hum of ideas in our meeting room. There were lots of, “oh, look, she….” and “I have these fabrics I could use…or….”.
And, look at this! She’s been sewing for her son and daughter all their lives, quilting off and on for 40 years. In 2007 she won a blue ribbon for this quilt, made from shorts she had made for her son. I love it!
There was a pair of shorts he refused to wear. She made them from this “ant” fabric. They looked too real to him, so they were never worn.
This is the same son whose art work adorns the top of the April column of blocks.
Thank you, Carmen, for sharing your story, your technique, and your calendar quilt. And the clothesline photo is fabulous. If there is anything better than a story quilt, it’s a story quilt hanging on a clothesline. I just love clotheslines!
