Monday 14 November 2011

Monday Memory 1

Thought I'd start a wee series. For the last few years, for my sins, I have been invited to speak at Women's Rural groups, Church Guilds and the like to "demonstrate" my quilting - I have yet to discover how this could be achieved in an hour so I usually go along with a pile of quilts and babble on about how I started etc........I always get terribly worked up about these events but usually find most groups show real interest in my work and from these evenings several ladies have started coming to my classes throught this introduction.
My talk always travels chronologically through my quilts so I thought I'd do just that, here in my blog , for anyone who is interested, and if not, then as a personal record.
I seem to have always sewn, I remember my mum making curtains and stuff like nighties and a red riding hood cloak for me, and there was always a sewing machine around........ so I made clothes thro my teens and into my twenties.
As a young mum I got into making soft toys and churned out many teddies and Care Bears (remember them?)
By the time we moved back up to Scotland in 1990 I had moved on to cross stitch and anyone who was getting married, giving birth or celebrating some event, were prime targets for my samplers. My friends and I would meet on Thursday evenings (still do) and cross stitch or do tapestry, chat about our kids and generally put the World to rights. Then in 1998 we had a new member join our sewing bee - another Sheilagh, (always wanted to spell my name that way!!). The first time she had us all to her place we saw these rather interesting wall hangings and - quilts - and that was the start of it.Sheilagh showed us a few things, I joined a local quilt group and I embarked upon my first quilt - it was 1998.

 I have shown this before on my blog - but didn't go into details........a sensible person might have started off with a cushion, not a quilt measuring 7' x 5'. I had heard of log cabin so jumped right in to do that altho I always think my logs are more like tree trunks. My daughter's room was blue and yellow so that was my colour scheme, but I need to stand up and admit that there is some.....polycotton.........in that quilt, shock, horror! The shop I work in now was around then but did a roaring trade in pc, I recall they had an empty ice-cream tub with fat quarters in so their cotton stocks were low. The nearest source of patchwork fabrics was a good couple of hours away and the internet was still in its infancy. We holidayed in France that year, I remember cos it was World Cup year and we saw lots of fans in Brazilian tops........I digress - there is blue and yellow striped fabric in the quilt that I bought over there , can't recall exactly where, but recognising and remembering fabric sources is one of the things I love about quilting...stitching memories.
I loathe polyester wadding, the bouncy stuff, so mail ordered what the shop described as "needlepunch", quite flat, but still polyester. I had no walking foot............it could so easily have been my first and last quilt.
rubbish seam matching
rubbish stitching in the ditch

I always think advice to beginners to stitch in the ditch is just awful - the disappointment of veering out of that ditch is guaranteed, not to mention the aching neck & shoulder muscles. In those days I never gave a thought to thread types, colour or needle sizes etc.......
My label shows how I still had cross stitch on my mind - I used some waste canvas to stitch out my message directly onto the quilt.................and that was my first quilt.
It lived on favourite daughter's bed until she left home and has been on our own bed these last few months, until yesterday actually, when the big guns had to come out...it's getting chilly at night now.
So, despite all its faults, it's special - and that goes for all of your first attempts and subsequent quilts - you put a little of yourself into all of them.

16 comments:

  1. Great post! Polycotton... lol Love that you're still using it :-)

    (I mean that in an aw thats great you still use your first quilt, not aw its got polycotton and you use it anyway... d'oh! you know what I mean.)

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  2. Thanks so much for sharing this, Sheila! I look forward to future episodes :)

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  3. It is wonderful and clearly has been well used and well loved which seems to me to be the best evaluation for a quilt! I will be waiting for the next episode too, thank you for sharing.

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  4. Lovely story, and a great quilt, considering it is probably a fire hazard!!

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  5. Oh I love first quilt stories! I too, jumped off the deep end on my first quilt!

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  6. Love hearing how you started quilting,the love and effort that goes in makes the quilt special, even if the seams don't quite match!

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  7. What a lovely story! Your first quilt looks so much better than mine! I'm so glad someone thought to invent stitch in the ditch feet for sewing machines! Jxo

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  8. Your first quilt looks a lot like one of my first quilts, only mine was in 1982. It's a king-size blue and brown log cabin, and one of the fabrics is poly-cotton blend too. I hand quilted that sucker, on a big quilting frame. The poly fabric has worn and pulled out of its seams in places, so the poor thing was a camping trailer quilt until my mom rescued it sometime back in the 90's. It lives on my parents' bed, patches and all.

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  9. It's a fab quilt and so good that it has been used and loved for years. That alone should show you how wonderful it is. I hate stitching in the ditch. It makes me go cross eyed in minutes and the concentrating does my head in!

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  10. Sheila you are marvelous and Archie TWD agrees!

    Great that your first quilt is still going strong!

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  11. Ha, and you laughed at me for my ambitious first quilt ;o) It looks great for a first quilt, especially one with awkward fabric :o)

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  12. its so nice to hear quilt stories: thank you. And I love the dog quilt that you made for Archie: fantastic!

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  13. I love this post - such a great idea, I can't wait for the next episode! I also agree about SITD being harder than some 'experts' say. The quilt is lovely and I love the cross stitch label!

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  14. P.S. Thank you so much for Archie's (mine!) bone quilt - he's a bit miffed that I won't let him sleep on it!

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  15. How gorgeous of you to make Archie a gift in the shape of his favourite thing. Clever you and am glad to find your blog...cute hexies Sheila.

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  16. I think this series is a great idea. I enjoyed reading about your polycotton adventure. All of us who have quilted for a long time have shared that same adventure. I remember a baby quilt I made with large applique butterflies. These were cut from polycotton fabric and were a bear to applique. I look forward to reading more about your quilting history.

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