Still a Young-Un!

Perhaps, since a quilt made by your great grandmother hangs on your bedroom wall, you might be interested in knowing how it came into being the beautiful finished product.  Although quilting and sewing the tiny pieces went on all year long, the actual quilting at our house was done only in the warm weather.

 

The parlor, the dreaded “ice box”, was open in the warm weather—the sliding double pocket doors were wide and the spacious room, full of horsehair furniture made additional room to our living room.  I call it the “ice box” because in winter it was not heated and if my sister and I got into an argument, we knew exactly where we would end up—the “ice box”.  My mother would tell us not to come out until we had a smile on our faces!  Believe me, between the icy room and the itchy horsehair sofa, it did not take very long to manufacture beautiful toothy smiles!  But I am getting away from the subject I wanted to tell you about—quilting the quilt.

 

First came the stretchers.  They were long poles with small sharp pins all the entire length of the poles.  The backing for the quilt would be put on the pins, then the cotton batting from J. C. Penney’s carefully was smoothed out.  Next, the finished top in a beautiful pattern all of cotton pieces carefully hand-sewn and pressed.  We could pick out our dresses, blouses and aprons.  In fact, sometimes when we couldn’t fall asleep, and we had one of Mother’s quilts on the bed, we would do just that, pick out our dresses.  Sometimes the quilting just followed the pattern of the design of the pieces, sometimes the pattern was put on with carbon paper, a fancy swirly, feathery design.  All of this was carefully smoothed out ready to be quilted.

 

Mother would have a luncheon and usually the ladies would bring a dish for the luncheon also.  Lemonade with lots of ice because that was the day the iceman came and left a big square for the icebox on the back porch.  We had to remember to put the sign “ice” in the window next to the road.  The ladies from Mother’s Church Circle came and ate and chatted and finally settled down to work.  I think every chair in the house would be lined up on either side of the quilt.  Each brought white thread, a couple of needles and a comfortable thimble.  A thimble was necessary because you must push through quite a bit of material and only tiny stitches were acceptable. So they would work several hours and would roll the quilt as they finished a few inches at a time so they didn’t have to lean over so far.  Of course, all of the local news and gossip was well-discussed.

 

I could not tell you how long it took your great grandmother, Mabel Gardner Bowen, to finish the handsewing—just making the top of the quilt, but it took several sessions to hand quilt it.  I am sure that you will enjoy that quilt for a long time.  And remember that it was quilted in the “ice box” parlor of a big, white house on Prather Avenue in Maryville, Missouri somewhere around 1937.