Mama's Quilts
When mama hung her
quilts out on the line to dry, there were patchwork memories of flowers and log
cabins. She artistically created each block. There were scraps of material left
over from the flour sack material that she used to make my dresses. None of the
material was wasted. The wind whipped the quilts around and mom brought the
smell of the great outdoors in with her laundry every day. At night, my
siblings and I would snuggle up to the lavender fresh smell of our quilts. The
moon watched over us as we drifted off into sweet dreams.
Quilting is the process of sewing two or more layers of fabric together to make a thicker padded material; though many styles exist, typically it uses three layers: the top fabric or quilt top, batting or insulating material, and backing material. Rocking, straight, or running stitches are common. The whole process involves designing, piecing, appliqué, and binding. The earliest known quilted garment is depicted on a carved ivory figure of a First Dynasty pharaoh (ca. 3400 BCE). The word "quilt" comes from the Latin "culcita" (a stuffed sack). Quilting has been part of the needlework tradition in Europe from about the 5th century, but quilted objects were relatively rare there until the 12th century, when Crusaders took quilted bedding and other items home with them. The earliest extant European bed quilt is from late-14th-century Sicilia, made of linen and padded with wool; the blocks across the center are scenes from the legend of Tristan, a Cornish knight of king Arthur's Round Table famed for his romance with Iseult. (He made his first recorded appearance in the 12th century in northern France; in the 13th century the popular "Tristan en prose" appeared (the modern edition is in 13 volumes), but the most familar version is in Sir Thomas Malory's 15th-century "Le Morte D'Arthur." ) Patchwork quilting in the US dates to the 1770s, and the practice continued of mixing wool, silk, linen, and cotton in the same piece, as well worn-out blankets or older quilts for batting layer, quilted between new layers of fabric , to extend the usefulness of old material.
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