Category: Very early quilts

This one should be in a category of its own. For this, I embroidered twelve mushrooms and toadstools in cross stitch on calico squares, and for the remaining corner squares I attached four identical crocheted doilies that had belonged to my grandmother. The inside borders and binding are in red gingham, as befits a picnic mat. There was enough leftover gingham to make six good sized napkins. The mat could also be used as a tablecloth on a picnic table, although it is somewhat ‘puffy’ for this purpose. At last I understood what quilting was about, and did a good job on this one, but I was still stuck on squares. However, that is quite appropriate for a picnic mat.

The first of these is of cotton and calico, with machine-embroidered flowers on each calico square. The first border also depicts a native flower pattern. This one is in use on a spare bed.

I’m not sure, however, why I made the second one – but possibly because I wanted to showcase all the native flower embroideries I had, as I loved all of them. It is made from shiny polyester fabrics, so it looks pretty, but I guess I’m worried about its durability if put on a bed and used often. By this time, I had acquired the practice of binding – but I still didn’t attach them properly!

Again, the construction of this one was very sloppy. In fact, apart from sewing around the inside of the mauve border, there is no quilting whatsoever in the middle. That’s probably just as well, because, like the History quilt, it is very wibbly wobbly, as I noticed to my shame when ironing it for this photo. Any quilting would have introduced lots of tucks. Again, no binding, as I hadn’t yet come across that concept. Also, the fabrics were of cheap polyester – some were from lining fabrics – and there was a lot of cutting on the bias, as I recall. Still, it looks pretty, doesn’t it? The little girls like it, which is all that matters. (Well, no – it does matter. I would do a much better job these days!)

This was the very first quilt I made – back in 1986, I think. I could only barely call this a ‘quilt’, because the quilting consists only of a few lines of sewing down and across, and there’s no binding. I sewed it together with the right sides facing each other, then turned it out and hand-sewed the gap. At least the corners of the patches meet quite well, but as you can see, the quilt is a bit – er – loose. I made it from leftover scraps of fabric from dresses I’d made for my young daughters, from dolls’ dresses I’d made, leftover cotton curtain fabric, and from old camping pillowcases and other materials from the previous ten or so years. So it still holds some nostalgia for me, and I have since learned that these items are called ‘Memory quilts’. I was pleased with the result, and it has been surprisingly hardy, as well as providing extra warmth on top of a bed when needed on a very cold, Canberra night.