Quilting Beginnings

 Some of our members have shared how they got started on their quilting journey. Perhaps one of these is similar to your beginnings.

Toni says her journey started sort of on a cheap whim.  "Early in my working career, being the full time working mother of three young children, I didn’t have a lot of spending money so when time came to honor my second sister’s 25^th wedding anniversary (yes, the two oldest sisters are quite a bit older than me) I took it upon myself to make the quilt that the family would be giving her.  I KNEW NOTHING ABOUT QUILTING!!!  However, after I found a 3 by 4 inch picture of a Dresden Plate quilt in a Chatelaine magazine, I decided that would be a lovely quilt to make. I wasn’t an avid sewer and had an old Kenmore sewing machine sitting on a sheet of plywood on the end of a pool table as my working space.   I love Math and puzzles, so I figured out the sizes and made 20 large and 15 smaller 18-petal Dresdan Plates (which I hand cut with scissors because I only learned that there were such tools as cutting boards and rotary cutters about 15 years later).  I hand appliqued them onto the background block fabric and added two borders to complete the queen sized quilt top.  A group of ladies in Boiestown (led by a neighbor lady) came to my house to quilt it in the rec room in our basement – while I was at work, teaching.  I invited them to use my kitchen for breaks and lunches etc.  I think they finished it in about a week.  In return, I made a star quilt top for them.  The neighbor lady described for me what they wanted and brought me an 8 inch, pink, fabric, 8-point star and the rest is history.  That was in 1986.  I decided then that when I retired I would like to LEARN to quilt and take it up as a hobby.  So a couple of years before I retired I was sharing this story with the parent of one of my kindergarten students who invited me to join the local quilt guild.  That sounded pretty lofty to me but she convinced me that it would be the perfect starting point.  So in the fall of 2007 I joined the Woodstock Quilt Guild and have enjoyed meeting the talented quilters who shared their experiences and every Show and Tell and new quilting learning experience since…..and the first thing I learned was how much I didn’t know in 1986!!"

Christa had a more recent start and I have no doubt her fabric stash has grown. "In 2005, I believe, Jean Jewett taught a class at Ladies' Morning Out in Mactaquac where we did a block a week.  The blocks were made using heat & bond (or something similar) appliqués.  About 10 ladies did the quilt.  We picked & purchased the background colours and for the actual pictures, we exchanged a lot of fabrics.  I just loved the handwork, not so much the sewing together.  My entire fabric stash was contained in 1/2 shoebox!  Janet Spurrell and her sister added the borders, the batting and backing and machine quilted it.  I still use the quilt - and I still love appliqué."

Heather was inspired by Eleanor Burns. "I was watch and taping every Eleanor Burns video back in 1987.  So this was my first quilt.  It is still loved today by my daughter and one of her cats.  I asked her to take a picture and try to make it look good because in actual fact, it looks pretty bad!!!  As I completed the last square I was going into labor.  I didn't want to stop because I had NO IDEA when I'd have time to work on it again.  This quilt was literally loved to death and should have been thrown away years ago. The second picture is the quilt without creative folding."

Ethel started while still a child. They had a treadle sewing machine. Her mother always quilted and particularly like hand appliqueing the Dutch Girl pattern. Quilting also was hand done. Ethel's first quilt was a Colonial Girl. She hand appliqued it. Ethel still has this quilt though it is very worn. When Ethel's children were small, she and a friend would often get together to quilt. Ethel has passed on her love of quilts to her daughters.

Debby H says she remembers always sewing - mostly clothes. She had made 2 or 3 baby quilts early on for nieces and nephews. Her first bed quilt was made in 1991. Her cousin had done Eleanor Burns' Quilt in a Day so she convinced Debby, her sister Ella, their mother, and a couple of other family members to each make a Log Cabin quilt. Debby says she tied hers.

Ella says her Log Cabin has the blocks arranged in a design called Barn Raising which she particularly likes. (I never knew the arrangements had names.) Some time over the years the photo has gotten drawn on to show a single block.

Debbi D says she was just 22 when she first learned to quilt. "We had just moved to Tabusintac on the north shore of New Brunswick. My husband was a newly ordained Minister and this was his first Church. A couple of ladies in the Church said they belonged to a quilting group that got together at the library in the village. They asked me if I quilted. I said no but that I would love to try. Our daughter was only 3 and a half, so I would take her along with me and she played while the ladies showed me how to thread the needle, make as small stitches as I could and also how to put the quilt on the frames. I have since learned that there are probably as many ways to put a quilt on as there are quilts. It was a very interesting and varied group. They encouraged me and I eventually got up the nerve to try to piece one for myself. The first quilt that I pieced for myself was a pieced butterfly ( Vi's Butterfly ) that I did for my daughter. I even got up the nerve to put prairie points on it. The magazine is the one I got the pattern from. It was October 1976. In 1976 our son was born and the ladies told me that he was welcome as well. I would take along a blanket and he would sleep underneath the quilt as we quilted.

"Another early quilt I made was a painted butterfly. Liquid embroidery was very popular in the seventies and it turned out quite well. It is not the easiest to hand quilt, the paint can sometimes be hard to quilt through. When we moved to Hampton I found out there was also a quilting group there and they also invited me to join in. That group's members were quite a bit younger than the group in Tabusintac. I got a lot braver with my piecing and I even did some quilts that I sold. After Hampton I started working outside the home and did not get much quilting done. By the time I retired we were living in the Truro,N.S. area. My husband took a part time position in Wentworth and I found out there was a very active quilting group there so I jumped in again and I haven't looked back since."

Here is Vi's butterfly.

Kathy H says she remembers her mother always sewing - making clothes. When they got old enough to make their own clothes her mother went back to quilting. As a teenager Kathy remembers giving it a try piecing some cushion covers and joking about creating a quilt block cushion collection. The Bear's Paw is hand pieced.

And in her late teens Kathy started piecing a quilt, Courthouse Steps. This was prior to rotary cutters. Each piece had a cardboard temple that was traced onto fabric, then the piece was cut out with scissors. The strips are 1 inch wide finished. 

And Linda is passing on her love of quilting. She has a new sewing machine for her granddaughter. 

"My granddaughter Jessie is six years old.  She loves to sew with grammy especially making something for her mom. This machine will stay at my house. And it really works. Together we have made a  few things. She loves it."