Thursday, March 5, 2009

Family Quilts



This mahogany bedroom suit belonged to one of my Mother's sisters. This quilt I believe is a newer one, possibly made by my husband's mother or grandmother for his room when he was a child. Each quilt square has 48 small red and white individual triangles surrounding the blue square in the middle. Each triangle and square are hand stitched around. A lot of love when into this quilt.



This church bench belonged to my Aunt and her husband. When I was growing up it always sat outside on their carport. We used it to sit on and take off work boots after gardening or as a place to relax and cool off. We enjoy it now inside along the wall filled with grandchildren pictures. The pretty red background quilt shows up nicely against the white bench.



This quilt hangs in our den and is one of my favorites. A family friend made the quilt rack for us. I love the way I can also display family photographs on top. The picture on the left is of my parents about the time they married. My Mother always HATED that picture. The picture was made by putting two separate shots of them together. The other pictures are of mother as a young woman and two of her brothers.



I love that the quilts have such bright colors. The bedroom suit here was the one my parents bought when they began "keeping house". It's mahagony and I'm thinking was probable bought in the early 1940's.

This quilt hangs on our sunporch. It's got a great design. Mom's Snow Village houses run along the shelf at the ceiling and stay up all year long.


Here are the pillows that I made from the old quilt top. It was nice to get something that turned out so pretty out of that old stained and ripped top.


I have always loved family history. I've always admired quilting although it's not anything that I've ever tried to do myself. We do have quite a few quilts from my husband's family and use them as bed coverings and wall hangings.


Recently I found several old quilt tops that had been pieced but never made into quilts. One was in particularly bad shape. I'd love to know the history of it...I can't imagine why anyone would go to the trouble of piecing it when the material was so stained and old. The fabric that they used was so thin that they even backed it with another layer of fabric. Some parts of it were done by machine and some by hand. Maybe the quilt top is older than I think. Anyway, I decided to make throw pillows from salvageable sections of the quilt top. I got 5 throw pillows that are finished at 18 inches square using muslin as a back. There are two other smaller pillows for the girls room...they had pink in them. I also added some buttons as decoration from a jar I found full of them at my husband's mom's house. There are several smaller sections that I cut out and saved to work on another day.


I think the pillows turned out beautiful and we'll enjoy them alot.

4 comments:

Life throws you surprises! said...

they turned out very nice.

mk said...

the pillows look great. i love that you know the stories behind the quilts and the furniture.

Jan said...

I loved looking at your quilt collection. I too love history especially family history. I have quilt top my grandmother sewed by hand using scraps from our old clothes. She did this back in the late 50s and early 60s. I need to have it finished and display. It so cool as I remember the blouse or skirt or even pants it was made from. You house is so beautiful.

Connie said...

The house looks beautiful - love all the quilts.