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Blue_true

(31,261 posts)
Tue Feb 16, 2021, 08:34 PM Feb 2021

A suggestion.

Once when I went home for a visit from an out of state engineering job assignment, my Mom presented me with one of the old fashioned quilts, the type that weigh like 20 pounds and are made by hand. She lived in Florida and really didn’t need anything like that quilt, but she knew that I was working in a place that got cold during the Winter and maybe she saw snow storms on tv news and thought about me. It was a really nice quilt, but I had no idea of what to do with it. I dutifully took it back with me and for a number of years packed it and took it with me during my new job postings. Since there was no good place to store something that bulky and I didn’t want to leave it laying near the floor, I always found a corner in a closet where ever I was living at the time.

Long story short. On a brutally cold night, the heat in the apartment that I was living in on the assignment went out. Within a hour in the middle of the night, the place went dead frigid cold. There was not a hotel that I could go check into. I pulled all of the store bought warm blankets and used every one of them and was still freezing. Desperate, I found that bulky old quilt that my Mom had given me. I put it on top of the other blankets, immediately I the air around my body started warming up, so much so that I had to take off one of the store bought warm blankets to avoid overheating. It may be hyperbole, but to this day I am convinced that quilt saved my life that night. The nice American made warm blankets were no match for the brutal cold, that quilt that my Mom bought from a group of ladies that hand made such bed covering was more than a match.

As I read the news coming out of Texas one of my first thoughts is why people would not use blankets. Then I remember that night, even the best made modern warm blankets likely were no match for the cold that hit parts of Texas. The situation also made me realize how much of the old time crafts, like quilt making we no longer have. The big bulky “warmers” that can be bought in department store simply can’t match the thick quilts old people used to sit and make, thick and warm internal filling stitched every couple inches so that the quilt could likely be hit by a tank shell and would mostly be still there. It is sad in a way because we have lost that craft, the old ladies likely passed away years ago, but unlike much of the “old days” stuff that people like Trumpers pine about, things like quilt craft and home goods craft done by old women and men is something that is truly lost to us and is irreplaceable.

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A suggestion. (Original Post) Blue_true Feb 2021 OP
This is not a lost skill. Popcorn 51 Feb 2021 #1
Interesting you should post about that..... MyOwnPeace Feb 2021 #5
I've got an afghan blanket.... MyOwnPeace Feb 2021 #2
A hand made quilt is for comfort -- warmth plus memoirs Hermit-The-Prog Feb 2021 #3
My sister designed and made a quilt for my dad. BigmanPigman Feb 2021 #4

Popcorn 51

(84 posts)
1. This is not a lost skill.
Tue Feb 16, 2021, 08:46 PM
Feb 2021

I live in the lower mid-west in a fairly small town. I know of at least three quilting circles/clubs that meet every week.

btw -- I sleep under a quilt every night. This week it is one made by my Great Grandmother over one hundred years ago. It is the double wedding ring pattern and has a scalloped edge.

MyOwnPeace

(16,927 posts)
5. Interesting you should post about that.....
Tue Feb 16, 2021, 08:55 PM
Feb 2021

I visited friends who had moved from Pennsylvania to Nebraska and on our first visit to them we went to a presentation of the show "Quilters." WHAT a GREAT show!
You could see the 'mid-western' influence throughout the show and it was so appropriate to be seeing it in Omaha.
The irony of it all was that before they moved they had made a trip to the 'Pennsylvania Dutch" area of Pennsylvania (Lancaster) and bought their own quilt from an Amish home there.
Amazing stories in them - for sure!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quilters_(musical)

MyOwnPeace

(16,927 posts)
2. I've got an afghan blanket....
Tue Feb 16, 2021, 08:48 PM
Feb 2021

that my Aunt crocheted for me 50 years ago! It was done in the colors of my university (actually, she messed up - it should have been red and blue - she did blue & gold. I didn't have the heart to tell her and I actually like this one better!). It is my "go-to" when the temps drop and I'm gonna' watch a movie or someone in the house wants to take a nap.
Yeah, I can't tell you the last time I'd heard of ANYBODY making or getting one of these - but I'll never part with mine!
Thanks, Auntie!!!!

Hermit-The-Prog

(33,349 posts)
3. A hand made quilt is for comfort -- warmth plus memoirs
Tue Feb 16, 2021, 08:49 PM
Feb 2021

I keep all the quilts my mother made for me in safe storage. It's hard to see the stitches in some, she made them so fine. I have one that she made when I was very young. It was made from the parts of hand-me-down clothing that weren't worn out. I can recognize bits of shirts, jackets, pants that my siblings and I had. Those bits carry memories of the wearers and shared moments.

Bought, mass produced, machine stitched quilts are what I use on the bed. It takes a couple of those to do what one old quilt does. The batting is thinner, I guess.

BigmanPigman

(51,607 posts)
4. My sister designed and made a quilt for my dad.
Tue Feb 16, 2021, 08:51 PM
Feb 2021

It was lovely. I wish he had lived longer to use it more. It took about 6 months to complete but is was worth it.

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