By Barbara Falconer Newhall
Grandchild No. One is due in February, and this time the quilt will be ready.
Faithful readers of this blog will remember the story of the 40-year wait my brother and his wife had before I finally delivered their hand-made wedding gift to them. It was a crazy quilt made of colorful, flowered calico, pieced together on an old Singer sewing machine by me back in my hippie days.
Crazy quilting, it turned out, was way crazier than I expected. On their wedding day, I gave my
brother and his bride, not a finished quilt, but some pieces awkwardly stitched together in the shape of a diseased kidney. That and a promise that I’d get the thing pulled together by the time they returned from their honeymoon.
Didn’t happen.
The half-made quilt, scruffy and misshapen, lay forgotten for the next forty years in an out-of-the-way drawer, reproaching me every time I happened across it.
Finally, a year or so ago, no longer impecunious and definitely no longer a hippie drop-out, I splurged and hired a Berkeley quilter to finish the job for me. We pared the sprawling thing
down to a quilt about the size of a baby blanket, and I presented it to my brother and his wife. Yes, they were still married. And no, they hadn’t forgotten that I owed them a quilt.
There were lots of random pieces of the quilt left over. I decided to save them — in case I ever had grandchildren.
When I found out that our first grandchild would be arriving, I headed back over to Sue Mary Fox’s studio in Berkeley with my crazy quilt scraps. Sue Mary figured I had enough material to
make four baby quilts. Why not go ahead and make up all four, she proposed. It would be so much more efficient to do them all at once. That’s what we did. The first baby quilt was presented at a baby shower earlier this month. And now I’ve got not one, not two, but three extra baby quilts, ready to go.
All I need is three more grandchildren. No pressure, kids.
Don’t miss the first two installments of my 40-year quilting saga at “The Quilt From Hell — Forty Years Later It’s Still Not Finished” and “A Crazy-Making Quilt — Finished at Last.”
I absolutely love knitting and crocheting, plus cross-stitch and other needlework and fiber arts, however, I have not jumped into the wide world of quilting yet. But it is on my list of skills to learn and I might use this quarantine time to learn this new skill!
For the record, I love your funky quilts and I think they look really cool. Love the asymmetrical interest of the pieces, the color combinations, and the vintage appeal. Have you made any more or embarked on any other handicraft art? I’ve been working on knitting a “quarantine blanket” over the last few weeks and it’s really been a great way to relieve anxiety and have fun experimenting with new stitches and techniques. I’ll let you know if I get into quilting and we can compare notes.
All I can say about quilting is — don’t do what I did and sew together a bunch of asymmetrical pieces. The finished product rippled and twisted. I’m sure there are instruction books/websites out there to tell you how to do this. I still have a couple of quilts to give to future grandchildren.
I still have some of that vintage fabric from the 1970s, fabric that didn’t quite make it into the quilts. Maybe I’ll sew up some masks or scarves and send them off to Christina and Peter. Except this blog and my book — and washing down vegetables — are taking a huge amount of time. Not sure I can fit sewing projects in.
Am sorry but I do not like your work. Why don’t you do something else like playing music ???? that is a more interesting thing to do with your life. No offense you are ok at art, but I just am not a fan of quilting
Hi Sophie. I imagine lots of people aren’t fond of my quilts. The fabric is definitely old-school; I notice that when I see other people’s quilts today. And, as you can tell from my quilting stories, I’m not much good at quilting. Music? I think you would like my attempts at music even less! I hope you enjoy my writing and my photography. Those are two areas where I tend to take myself kinda seriously.
Does Sue Mary knit? I have a couple of kids sweaters that for 1 1/2 years have rested at the “hard” part. The thing is: the kids keep growing.
I loved the piece.
Hi Trudy, Sue Mary probably can knit, but I’m pretty sure she sticks to quilting and other textile arts. I bet you can find someone in your town who will knit you through the hard parts, fora little cash. Someone at a yarn shop?