| I remember my Grandmother Bilbrey always had a quilting frame in the
living room. What is a quilting frame? Picture four boards
about 1 x 4 inches each in the form of a rectangle. At each corner
connecting the boards is a clamp. Thus the boards can be shortened
or made narrower by loosening the clamps and sliding the boards to the
size you want it then re-clamping. The longer boards on the sides
were about three feet longer than a double bed. The boards on the
ends were about four feet wider than a double bed. You could adjust
the frames to any size from larger than a double bed to any shorter side
you wanted. The frames had holes every inch or so along the sides
and ends.
The corners of the frame had ropes connected to pulleys in the ceiling.
When the frame was not in use it would be raised to the ceiling.
When it was in use it could be lowered to a level at which you could sit
in a chair and work.
Almost everyone I knew growing up made their own quilts. I do
not remember seeing a blanket until I was a teenager. How do you
make a quilt?
I grew up with a saying “use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”
When clothing became worn or a hole appeared it was often patched.
Nothing was thrown out. When it was not patched it was put in a rag
drawer or quilting box. These pieces of cloth in the quilting box
were removed from time to time and the wife would take them and cut them
into pieces. These pieces would be sewn together by hand until they
were of the size you wanted for a quilt. Later on, if the farmer
or household had some money they might buy a sewing machine. More
on sewing machines later. This became the top of the quilt.
Depending on how you sewed these pieces together would depend on the design
of the quilt. Some designs were called “Double Wedding Ring,” “English
Garden,” “Dresden Plate,” “Dutch Doll,” plaids or stripes.
Once the top was finished, a large piece of cloth (sometimes made up
of pieces sewn together was connected to the bottom of a quilting frame
by using thread through the holes in the quilting frame. Sometimes
this was called a tick. Cotton is then placed on top of the tick.
Cotton grown in the field is coarse and has seed in it. To make
the cotton softer and to remove the seed it would be corded. A cotton
corder is a piece of wood about 8 inches x 12 inches. It has bronze
or steel fine prongs or needles about 3 or 4 inches long on it very, very
close together. To cord cotton you need two of them. They are
hand operated. Cotton is placed between the corders and they are
moved back and forth until the seeds are removed and the cotton somewhat
smooth. This is a very slow and tiring process. When we were
little we got to “help” by cording. We thought we were grown up.
This corded cotton is placed on the ticking. This is called batting.
Once the batting is in place the quilt top is placed on it. Then
comes the task of sewing the squares or circles or whatever through the
batting to the ticking. This is done by hand. People had quilting
parties. Neighbors would come in and help sew.
Once everything was sewn the quilt was removed from the frame.
Then all four edges were hemmed. Thread was on wooden spools.
As you can imagine a lot of empty spools were around. Later I will
write more about these empty spools.
Another use of the rags was to make hook rugs. A crochet hook
was used to sort of pleat the pieces of rag together into whatever size
or shape you wanted. |
