My
Mother would be 100 today, and I thought I'd pay tribute to her by sharing some of
her patchworks. She'd never call them quilts; they were patchworks after all.
Mom never wasted anything, so naturally patchworking would be a perfect
extension of what she did, and what she believed. From scraps is the only way
she made her numerous blankets. She did her creating on an old treadle singer
sewing machine.
Dad bought her an electric singer at one point, and although
she gave it a try, she wasn't comfortable with the speed of it so stayed with her
treadle.
Scraps,
not necessarily cotton fabrics got used....
and (horrors - but not uncommon for that time) fortrel also got made
into patchworks. Cutting mats, rotary
cutters, and all the marvelous toys and tools we have
at our fingertips now
were not yet created in her time.
Cardboard
templates were cut from cereal boxes as patterns,
and everything was cut with
scissors.
However those were different times, and.... I think she did pretty well,
all things considered.
I
see quite a few patterns on her patchworks that I've seen in the blogger world.
The appliqué patchworks she made are interesting to me; I can't see clearly
enough to know how she did the appliqué. Zig zag stitch and blanket stitch just
weren't available on the treadle machine.
Somewhere
in between she discovered making potholders, and little aprons for the dish liquid
bottles, and I'm sure all 28 grandkids would have gotten sets of these.
The quality of the photos
isn't the best, but you can get the idea.
She kindly wrote the year (made) on
most of her photos so that's a great help to me.
These photos were all in photo
albums - remember those albums with the plastic film that you pressed over the
photos to keep them in place....
only to discover that they were never ever to
be removed.....😍
so they're not in the best of shape.
