She would be 100 today!

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.