Quilting

I don’t think that quilting is the most interesting subject for many readers, but it was an integral part of both my grandmothers lives, Anna Nichols Beck and Rebecca Rugg Miner. My Grandmother Anna’s quilts were utilitarian. Usually the quilt sizes she made were for twin beds and of dark colors of thick warm materials of wool, tweed, and occasionally there were patches of corduroy. She attached the quilt top to a flannel backing with knots of yarn. The finished product was so heavy, I’m not sure that a person would have been able to get out from under a larger than her twin size quilt once a person was covered up with it.

Grandma Becky almost always had a quilt set up on her quilting frame in her television room. When we visited she would often hand us a needle and thread to the stitch straight line patterns she had lightly drawn on the material. She did the fancy scroll and other designs herself. Much of the cotton material was from clothing that had outlived its usefulness. Some pieces were from clothing that no longer fit, were no longer in fashion, or from parts of worn clothing that were still usable. Grandma Becky made squares of many different designs. She would sew the patches into squares on her old Singer treadle sewing machine. Once the quilt top design was complete, she would pin it in layers to the batting and the muslin backing before attaching it to the wooden quilt frame’s rollers. As the quilt was hand-stitched, it would be stretched taut as each unfinished section was revealed. Gram was a busy person, making a quilt as wedding gifts for each of her thirty grandchildren.

My Mother-in-law Retha Johnson Morrison made quilts from double-knit fabric. That nylon material wore like iron. If the backing of flannel wore out, the yarn knots could be snipped and a new backing could be applied. Her first attempts were baby quilts of pastel colors attached to large bath towels by soft yarns. Gradually the quilt sizes increased and her husband Bud built a quilting frame for her. He made it large enough to hold a king sized flannel sheet as backing. I often helped her knot the quilts at the corners where the different fabrics met. Much of the material was from discarded clothing that was no longer wearable or in fashion. Many pieces of cloth had stories attached to them, recalling their past lives.

Last year I had a friend sew three quilt tops that I inherited. They’d never had backing applied; each one hand sewn by my great grandmothers. I passed them on to my children as Christmas gifts.