Granny's Quilts

foreign I've been very fortunate in getting the patches because they know there wasn't many making quilts around and they knew I made quilts so everybody saved their patches for me [Laughter] [Applause] and when the girls were making their sewing it's the sewing class at school all those pieces that was left the scraps was just thrown out and I had one granddaughter that said do you want them and I said well if they're any good so she saved quite a bag of them and brought them for me of all kinds you see or any any pieces you've got it all works in any scraps the more colors you have the more colorful your quilt is if some people do it with the machine but I I don't like the machine [Music] a homemade quilt a good homemade quilt bloatware a blanket twice but then Alice has got a coat over there and I made the winter I was coming 16 years old in the spring I guess I was ambitious in those days [Music] I buy light weight on bleach cotton a yard wide and turned down the center mixed strips 18 inches wide and seven feet long I don't work with squares I work with the strip if you use squares you have too many seams in the foundation when you sew your quilt together well that's for the foundation to sew the pieces on you can't keep it Square unless you have a foundation you see something to tack it onto silt pieces free easily so you have to turn the edges into base before you baste it down with thicker material you don't turn it under you just baste it down flat if you turn it under it would make too thick and bulky a seam foreign you don't cut the pieces to fit you just put the pieces on the foundation and let them overlap a little unless it's too big and then you may have to cut it but you don't cut them to fit you just cut it smaller and work the patches in you might have to separate your materials keep the print patches together the silk and satin will go together and the wool pieces you can work a bit of polyester in with the wool but your capsule silken cotton or silken wool because when you wash the quilt it wouldn't it wouldn't wash the seam and it would be a mess I have washed my quilts many times and they come out perfect I've watched them a nice mild soapy water and I like to dye them on the on the line on a nice breezy day you can dry them in a dryer but it has to have the little heat on it when the pieces are basted on the foundation you go around each piece and just hem it down firm any pieces that are overlapping the foundation you trim it off you see and have them straight edges foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] you don't have to put the herringbone stitch on the soap quilts I do because it makes them look nicer and on the wool quilt so you have to have a stitch to hold them from fraying [Music] thank you [Music] I've messed the strips together when I'm ready to sew them with just a basting stitch and then I sew them down with a rolling Stitch or you can sew them on the machine if you hold it firm and straight [Music] foreign [Music] because it's warm and cozy and it holds it on the bed it won't slip off the way smoother silky material will slip off [Music] thank you the line is stitched on the frame down each side and stitched across the end and then you spread the bat on it tight and smooth and put the top on that [Music] all right [Music] I generally use a cotton or polyester bat I like polyester best you can use wool but it makes it very thick and hard to quilt though it makes a beautiful comforter if you're tired the top is pinned down on the on the lining in the back and it's a slow job for one to do alone it's much easier if there's two out of working across from each other it's almost impossible for one person to keep it Square doing it themselves because you have to keep going around and loosening up one side and then straightening it up again I generally use the fan shape pattern for quilting of course you can make any kind of pattern squares or diamond shaped or any fancy patterns you like or you can buy them if you can find a store that has tracing patterns for you to mark from but I'm no artist I can't make up fancy patterns so I just use the fan fatter you can do these quilts on the floor quilting some folks do but it's much nicer if you have the quilting frames you can have lots of people have made two by twos and a clamp screw in the corners to hold it square but then you have to rest it on the back of chairs or a table or something so that you can get quilting at it well it's just a split running Stitch when you quilt just once in a while when you take a whether you take three or four stitches on your needle and you draw it through sometimes if you think it's a bit long you take it back a little bit like a back stitch and go but ordinary you just run right along and you keep the lines as even as you can of course whatever whether it's diamonds you're quilting in or circles or what you loosen the ends a bit and roll it under until you come to the line of your last stitching and then you mark it again and start over working on both sides of the frame it takes four rolls to finish it you work first one side and then the other of course if there's two quilting one works one side and one works the other this last year I've made a quilt a month I think that's going some of course a month for 87. but then I like how sewing you see of course lately I can't see you see to do it neatly like I used to I when I'm quilting and I bring the needle up and I'm going to take the next Stitch I can't see where the thread came through you see and I'm either either just above that row or a little bit below it so it's lovely jig all right foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] most people just hem the end or turn the two edges together and sew them but I like to put a binding on it and I think it gives a more finished look to the quilt you do just a running Stitch to to sew The Binding on and then you turn it over and ham it down turn the edge in and hem it down like a proper binding I often wish I'd had a picture of this my brother and I I must have been 10 years old and he was 11 cleaning a couple of chickens for our Sunday dinner and mother and father were called away I know it was a funeral or a wedding or something so she said to me we have to put it off until Monday the chicken dinner so after they left I said to my brother we can we can clean those chickens not me and I said sure you cut the heads off and I'll scald them and I'll clean the chickens well he said you hold their head and not hold them by the feet and hold them over the chopping block I didn't want to do it but I cut the thing's head and shut my eyes and dunk up the eggs applique quilts are pieces that are all cut and you put them on the backing too and you can make this quite a story with an application it can be Red Riding Hood The Three Little Pigs or the gingerbread house or any any story that you want to make the applique pieces foreign [Music] [Music] if I'm going to do something I want the best work I can put on it even if it's only patches [Music] I guess being so hard up when we were youngsters has the advantages because you learn to do a lot of things and do without a lot of things but if the chicken if you have everything you would never learn to do them thank you [Music] I made the pattern for the Dresden plate quilt just cut it out of a piece of cardboard and cut the pieces all out from that pattern foreign but you know handmade quilt it doesn't pay to make them really now only is people that really like them because at the fair this year they had quilts that were all machine made and they were polyester bat in them and aligning and they were selling them for ten and five dollars no I don't know exact size of them they said oh they were the size of a double bed but if you can buy a quilt like that for ten dollars who'd bother making them only some old woman that has nothing else to do I guess [Music] foreign [Music]