Old-fashioned Quilting

Quilt top

In rural areas, like where I grew up, most textile skills were saved until the weather turned cold, the garden was finished for the year, and there wasn't as many outside and food preserving chores. Quilting was one of these. Women save scraps from clothing they made, and pulled them out when the wind whistled, the temperatures dipped, or snow covered the ground.

At first women pieced the scraps together by hand, but the petal sewing machine made the work go much faster, and the smaller stitches were often stronger. When the top was finished, they'd set up the quilting frame and attach the three layers (the pieced or appliqued top; the batting or stuffing; and the bottom, usually in a solid color).

Appliqued quilt quilted around the designs

The quilting process involved stitching the three layers together. This was normally done in one of two ways. Either stitches were made about a quarter of an inch from the edge of most of the designs (usually triangles or squares if pieced), or a decorative stitching pattern was drawn and followed on the top. A favorite quilting pattern was to take a piece of chalk, attach it to a string, and use it to make meeting circular shapes from the corner.

The quilt was stitched or quilted to the point it could no longer be reached, and then the portion that had been stitched was rolled up on the frame to allow a new area to be quilted. I used to quilt a lot, and this is how I did mine - the old fashioned way. 

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