Old Quilts Never Die, They Just....

....get turned into pillows!

                    

   When my mother passed away in 2008, and my father decided to move to a retirement village, it was time for us to pack up the house on Westland Rd that my parents had lived in since 1952.  It wasn't a totally sad event because my brother was buying the house.  But we still needed to clean, pack and purge because for some reason my brother did not want 56 years worth of "stuff" in his house.  I guess I can't blame him.   

      My father showed me the Aunt Tillie quilt that had been on the bed.  It had been used for many years, laundered numerous times and had seen better days. 

     "Can this be mended?" he asked.  

     "I'll see what I can do," was my only promise. 

     I didn't have much hope for the old treasure.  The quilt was one of the appliqued designs that Aunt Til had made with the leftover apron fabrics.  And like all of Aunt Tillie's quilts, it was done completely by hand.  It was really pretty, but the edges of the pieces were frayed and the thread was breaking from age. 

     The quilt sat in my sewing room for a couple of years.  Every once in awhile I would unfold it, look at it, and think.  But no solution ever came to me.  

     Then one evening, as I was browsing through some old quilting magazines, the idea came to me; PILLOWS.....one for every member of the family for Christmas!  I sure do wish the thought had come to me long before November 23rd.  I had my work cut out for me: ten pillows in one month.    

      So with Dad's permission I washed the old treasure one more time and started carefully taking the quilt apart.  I got down to the original 36 blocks.  I selected the ten best blocks and squared them up.   

  

       Next step was to rummage through my stash and select fabrics for the borders and piping that complimented each flower. Since coordinating fabrics has always been difficult for me to do, making these 10 pillows gave me great practice with this skill.   I was surprised at how quickly the pillows went together.  I was done with a few days to spare.  

     Did you ever give a gift to someone for Christmas that you loved so much that the excitement of the giving made the whole holiday for you?   That was how it was with my pillows.  I gave everyone their wrapped bag.  When the gifts were unwrapped, and with tears welling up in my eyes, I explained the story behind the pillows and how they came to be.  I looked over at my sister. She had a big smile on her face and tears in her eyes too.  It was then that I was sure.  I had done the right thing with the old quilt. 

      PS:  I still have the other 26 blocks.  Some are pretty sad looking.  But I just can't bring myself to getting rid of them.  I'll think of something.  

Grandma Was Up to Monkey Business

      If you walked into the ladies' house in the afternoon you'd probably find bottles of YooHoo Chocolate drink in the frig waiting for any guests who might just pop in.  You'd also find Aunt Tillie upstairs, sewing and Grandma downstairs, sewing.  Of course they would stop what they were doing to sit and visit.  I hated to interrupt their work.

     Grandma did all kinds of sewing; both with the machine and by hand.  She made quilts with a pattern that she called "Round the Mountain".  The entire quilt was  constructed of squares about three inches in size.  You started with one square in the middle and worked around and around until the quilt was big enough for the bed.  Today I look at the two "Round the Mountain" quilts I'm fortunate enough to own and I marvel at the workmanship and am dumbfounded when I think of the hours it must have taken.

                                          Here is the center of the quilt.

               Each trip around the mountain was done with a different fabric.

And amazingly that the quilt was constructed with all set-in seams.  This means the point of one square had to be set into the V of the previous row.  It is a time-consuming process and one that is avoided at all costs today.  They were not straight strips of  squares like you would find in today's quilt patterns.  

         But I digress!!  I was talking about Monkeys.  

      What Grandma was really known for was her sock monkeys.  She made sock monkeys long before they were fashionable and seen in stores.  In fact, the only place I ever remember seeing sock monkeys when I was a kid was at Grandma's house.  She had monkeys everywhere and in every color.  

          These two monkeys belonged to me and my sister, Nancy.  We passed them on to our nieces, Kathleen and Ally when we became their Godmothers.    

      It wasn't long before the whole family was involved in some way with the monkey business.  Since neither Grandma nor Aunt Til drove a car, my mother and aunt were responsible for buying the heavy-duty work socks that formed the body of the monkeys.  The only place Mom could find the work socks was in the Montgomery Ward catalog.  Maybe that's why we all called the store Monkey Wards. She bought them by the the dozens.  

     Once the bodies were constructed they had to be stuffed.  Remember, the ladies were very frugal.  Grandma was not about to go out and buy stuffing.  So it was the job of every female in the family to save their old, runny stockings and pantyhose for Grandma to stuff the monkeys with.  We called the hosiery "monkey guts".  Everybody kept a bag of monkey guts going: my cousins, my aunt, my mother, my sisters. And all those runny old stockings were stuffed into the monkeys.  

      I remember the first time we saw commercially made monkeys in the stores.  We called Grandma on the phone!!!  "Grandma, we saw store-made monkeys.  But don't worry, they aren't as good as yours."  And they weren't.

      Grandma's Monkey Business has long since closed down.  But monkeys have lived on in our family in oh so many ways.  In 1982, when Grandma turned 90 years old I made her a monkey birthday cake.

        And the popularity of monkeys continues today.  My granddaughter, Katherine, loves the story of the five monkeys jumping on the bed.  I couldn't give her a Grandma Monkey.  So I did the next best thing.  I made her a monkey quilt with a matching pillow case.  Wouldn't Grandma be surprised to see that today you can buy monkey fabric!!

The Life of Aunt Tillie's Quilts

     I've scoured the family and these are the quilts, made by Great Aunt Tillie, that still exist today.  As you can see some have survived better than others.  But all are loved and cherished.  If there are others out there I hope they surface. Hint Hint:  just a picture will do!  I don't expect anyone to part with an Aunt Tillie Quilt that they own.

  The Butterfly Quilt.  This appliqued quilt is on my bed and has been repaired several times.  When it absolutely must be laundered  I say a little prayer and hold my breath that all the butterflies will emerge as beautifully as they went in.

This pieced quilt is on my guest bed and I call it The Hexagon Wheel.   I don't know if the block has another, more formal name. Maybe I should research that.  It has held up very nicely.

This quilt was given to Aunt Tillie's granddaughter, my second cousin, Donna Lee.  She in turn passed it on to her son, my second-cousin-once-removed, Jason.

I could tell from the emails I exchanged with Jason that he appreciates the value and history of the quilt.  It has found a good home and seems to have held up well over the years. I don't remember seeing a block pattern like this in any of the books I've read.  I guess more research is needed. I will call it The Sun Burst.

           The Flower Quilt is a popular appliqued quilt in the family. Aunt Tillie made several of them.  This one belongs to my sister, Jean. My Mom and Dad had one too (but that's another story for another day).  Like the Butterfly Quilt, this one has not held up well at all.  It can't be used anymore. The best place for this quilt is under glass in a quilt case.

       When I look at which quilts have lasted and which have not, I notice that the pieced quilts have survived, but the appliqued quilts have not.  Aunt Tillie made ALL her quilts COMPLETELY by hand.  There isn't a machine stitch on them.  But alas, she did not turn the edges of the appliqued pieces.  So over the years the fabric has frayed and pulled away from the delicate, evenly spaced blanket-stitched edges.  That's OK, I love them all just the same.

From Aprons to Quilts

     When I look at the old quilts on my bed I see aprons.  To understand how you go from aprons to quilts you have to understand "the ladies" and the times they lived in.  Grandma and Aunt Tillie grew up in the same generation with just five years difference in their ages.  Grandma was born in 1892 and Aunt Til is 1897.  Today the media attaches names to each generation; the Baby Boomers, Generation X.  If I were going to name Grandma and Aunt Tillie's generation I would call them the Make-do Generation.  When World War I broke out the ladies were teenagers.  They joined many others of their age who made bandages for the troops, saved scrapes of metal for the military and sacrificed at home for the cause in every way they could.  They had to make-do with what they had.  Then, when they were young brides, the depression came about.  Again they had to make-do with what they had as they raised their young families.  And as if that wasn't enough, then followed World War II.  Once again the ladies were called upon to make-do as they watched their sons go off to another war and again sacrificed for the cause at home.   I marvel at the quiet stamina of the women of that generation.  I often wonder if I would have fared as well as Grandma and Aunt Til and all the women of the Make-do Generation.
      And for the cause of supporting the church, Aunt Til made and sold aprons.  I don't know where the pattern came from, but it was clever, and oh so practical.  The aprons had a pocket on one side and a handy little towel on the other side.  You could tell how loved and worn the aprons were by the condition of the towels.
                     

Years of cooking and baking are woven into these last remaining treasures that I am fortunate enough to own.
      And it naturally followed that years of apron making created a fabric stash that any quilter today would die for. And because the Make-do Generation never threw anything away, scraps of leftover apron fabric gave birth to the "Aunt Tillie Quilts". Treasures that each member of the family would own.  To this day I look at my quilts from Aunt Til and I see aprons.