more quilt memories

A group of about eight of us each made a Christmas Village Tree Skirt in October of 1995. This quilt pattern was paper pieced, where you sew your fabric onto a paper foundation which has the pattern printed on it. Each of the trees, houses and the church were a separate paper piece. My father passed away in September of 1995 at the age of 65. He loved wearing plaid shirts so I used pieces of them in this quilt. At first I wasn't sure if I wanted to quilt so soon after, but it actually helped with the grieving and the healing.

A close up detail of the church square, including a little metal bell. Though this was supposed to be a tree skirt, it was so much work, none of cut the slit in it to make it go around the tree!

This is a photo of my mom and dad in about 1953. Today would have been his 82nd birthday. He was a really fun dad and I still miss him. Happy birthday Dad.

Someone brought a book full of Amish quilts to one of our quilting events. I had never seen an Amish quilt before and was immediately fascinated by them. Being a graphic designer I was drawn to the simple, bold colours and patterns. The Amish use only solid colour fabrics, patterns are considered worldly. They use lefover fabrics from their clothing. If they run out of a certain colour hue a lighter or darker piece of fabric is used in its place, using up whatever they had on hand. Often there is a patch that is different or an intentional mistake, a reminder that only God is perfect.

For our fourth quilting weekend, in 1996, we made an Amish Nine-Patch. I knew when I was making mine that it would hang on the covered front porch of our "new" house, so I chose the colours to match the paint of the house. We moved from our 1925 bungalow, across the backlane, to our larger 1916 home the summer of 1997 and it was so much fun to hang it up. I had always wanted to have a quilt hanging on the outside of the house.