April 22nd, 2024

Normally today I would be writing the Photo Safari report from last week, and at some point, it will be written.  It was a great hike and I look forward to telling you about it.  But today I wanted  to write about quilts. Mix things up a bit.

Historically quilting of some sort has been going on for a long time.  A really long time.  Historians suspect that it goes back to dates like 3400 BCE.  Wow!  They don't know specific dates of course but that's the estimate.  Close enough for me.

They do know that quilting was brought to Europe by the Crusaders in the 12th century.  One of the oldest examples of quilting exists in the museum in Russia that has been dated, by the experts who do such things, to somewhere between 100 BCE and and  200 CE.  The quilted scrap was found in a Mongolian Cave!

In America, quilting was a very common practice in the 17th Century and forward. Interestingly (to me anyway) Colonial Quilts were not made of scraps or used clothing. Nor were they used as bed coverings.  Instead they were art pieces, used to decorate their homes!  It wasn't until the 19th century that scrap quilts used as bedcovers became commonplace.  That was a surprise to me!

Why am I talking about quilts?  Well certainly not because I make them.  Lord knows that my sewing skills are rudimentary at best and scandalously horrible at worst.  As many of you are aware, I struggle to replace a missing button.  Quilting is Way out of my wheelhouse.  

I do love them though and I always have.  They look cozy and homey and comfy. They are colourful and soft and beautiful, functional pieces of art!  Which is why Tim and I chose a (very thin) comforter that appears to be a quilt for our bed.  We've had it for a long time, nearly 30 years in fact.  And it still works.  Occasionally I think about replacing it but I haven't found anything I liked quite as much and so it remains.

Joy, on the other hand, makes beautiful quilts.   And she makes the process look as simple as breathing. It's not of course, she just makes it appears that way.   Our grandmother (our Nana) also made quilts.  Why I did not inherit that gene I do not know but our mother didn't either.  My genetic pre-disposition goes more toward cookies than quilts.

Luckily for me, my sister  loves me and I know this (well I already knew this) because she has now made three  (Three!) quilts for me.  Wow!

The first one is a patchwork quilt which I am a huge fan of.  I am familiar with the provenance  of almost every scrap of fabric used.  Either I was told where it came from or I was actually with Joy when she bought it.  I cannot make a quilt to save my life, but I love helping to choose the fabric so Joy often brings me along as a second set of eyes.   I love the randomness, the variety of colours and patterns and the occasional surprises along the way.  When I first received it I spent quite some time just getting to know it, marveling over each fabric, rejoicing in the sparkly bits and loving the stitched in surprises.  

Also luckily for me, Joy believes in using quilts, not just packing them away for safe keeping.  This first quilt was pressed into service as a chair cover once the kittyboys came to live with us.  They are particularly fond of one of our barrel chairs and rather than constantly chase them out of the chair we decided to cover it instead.  It works ;)

Here is the quilt as a chair cover:

And here it is, in all it's glory, tossed over the kitchen table so you can really see how beautiful and intricate it is:

The one day out of the blue, Joy surprised me with another quilt.  The pattern for this one is a jigsaw puzzle. I have no doubt that she just about went crossed-eyed putting this one together but it was worth every single eyedrop needed. I adore it!   The jigsaw quilt was used a lot two years ago when I spent a lot of time in and out of various surgeries and recovering and pretty much lived on the sofa for awhile. 

This quilt cuddled me and kept me safe and warm while I healed.  Now that the weather is getting warmer, it spend most  of it's it's time on a shelf in the Console Table below the Television.  No worries, there are glass doors so it can still be seen and admired.

But this is how it looks spread out on the kitchen table. Fabulous!   You can really see the jigsaw pattern.  And I especially love the backing on this one.  Who, besides Joy, would have thought to use this fabric?  It's perfect!!!

The third quilt is quite new to me.  Joy brought it over last week.  I actually knew this one was coming.  Joy wanted to make a Christmas Quilt for me but not a traditional Christmas Quilt.  She struggled to find a pattern. Not that she generally sticks to patterns, but often uses them as inspirations or jumping off points for her own designs.  Sometimes one pattern can be adapted into something else entirely.    But this time 'round, nothing came even close, so she had to design this one entirely on her own. And oh my gosh, the results are stunning!  

Sadly, I couldn't figure out how to get a photo of the entire quilt. It was Massive!  And  Magnificent!  What you don't see in this photo is that the white background has tiny white snowflakes and sparkles. All of the white fabric is sparkley! I adore sparkle :)   Each tree is completely different from any of the other trees.  The trunks are different fabrics as well.  Sometimes the trees over lap each other a bit, exactly as happens in nature.  They even overlap the border a little here and there which I especially love!    It's a forest of fabric trees!

The quilting is done in swirls that represent the wind and the rain and the snow that falls in the forest.  When you think of all the hikes that Joy and I have done in forests I think this perfectly represents not just our love of nature but also the time we spend together.  And Christmas, it could be Christmas too, why not?  Christmas Trees grow in the forest...!!  AND  at least one fabric is Christmassy.

There is one delightful whimsical surprise on this quilt too.  Way down above the border on one end is this:

How cute is that???  

I am well aware that quilts, much like aprons and punctuation are considered old fashioned and very out of current style.  Do you want to guess how much that matters to me?  If you guessed Not At All, you would be 100% correct!  

I wear an apron every time I cook, I use punctuation constantly, always and correctly and I adore Quilts!