My Keeping Quilts

This past Friday morning I was lucky to be asked to read to a class of fourth graders at the elementary school right next to our library. It's an annual thing where adults from the community are asked to share a story as part of a "drop everything and read" campaign. This is the fifth or sixth year I've participated.

I love fourth graders--they're sweet and eager--old enough to get it but not jaded. Many of the kids recognize me from the library and I get to experience a little bit of the rock star effect. Ha ha.

The book I read is The Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco, which tells about a quilt lovingly made from scraps of clothes, and handed down through the generations. And of course I like to bring in a couple "visual aids" to share, along with the book. Here are the quilts I took along with me, and their stories:

I'm really lucky to own several quilts made by my great grandmother. She made them on a Wheeler and Wilson treadle. And she hand quilted them, always in the Baptist Fan pattern, although she was French-Canadian, and probably knew it by a different name.

Melissa Senecal Hines

My favorite is this one:

It's a mellow Log Cabin, most likely made somewhere in the 1910 to 1915 era. When I was a new-ish quilter, I used to be dubious about the pinks used in the light areas, but now I understand how they give this quilt sparkle and zip, and marvel that my great grandmother, who was working with materials on hand, knew that this quilt needed just that touch of pink.

My mother used to say that the blues were scraps from her brother's shirts. So this is how little boys dressed a century ago:

The fourth graders always ooh and ahh over this quilt, especially when I tell them that when the maker of this quilt was their age, Lincoln was president.

Melissa at about the time she married, at age 16.

I always bring a more modern quilt to share with the kids also. This is the second large quilt I made; the label says 1990. This Silver Maple pattern was in a QNM issue from the early '80s.

I had seen this unusual Log Cabin setting in another magazine, probably another QNM, and decided the leaf blocks would work nicely with the Log Cabins. It amazes me that I figured it all out--I was pretty much flying blind with my quilting back in those days. And I was hand-quilting back then. Flying blind with that too!

I still like this quilt--even with the sad array of mostly small-scale calico fabrics I was able to find back then. (I'd like to give this pattern another go, with today's fabrics...) It always reminds me of the mountains of northern Pennsylvania where I grew up, where the leaves really flame in the autumn.

So Log Cabins bridge the generations in my family. And it all made a nice presentation--the kids liked the book and loved seeing the quilts. And I got to hear about some grandmas and moms who have made quilts for the kids. Very fun. May they treasure them as much as I treasure mine.