Wednesday, August 22, 2012

My Mom, World's Most Versatile Quilter

This past weekend I took the kids down to Tennessee to visit my parents and go to their county fair with them. The Wilson County Fair is in Lebanon, where they live, and it's even bigger than the state fair. Ginormous. We had a ton of fun eating fair food, admiring farm animals, seeing prize winning quilts, and other general fair-iness.

The next day we were generally wiped out and hung out at the house. This somehow led to my mom pulling out a bunch of old quilts and projects from when we were kids. I remember her doing a lot of quilting growing up, but I wasn't too interested and I didn't pick it up myself until just last year. But now, knowing how much goes into a quilt, I was blown away by her stuff. I was also so tickled by how much she was just like me and most other modern quilters when she started out.


  1. She had a bunch of UFO's, even some she had long forgot about. Some were stacks of blocks and some were basted quilts, half quilted. Always more than one thing going on at once, which looked very familiar. 
  2. She basically taught herself the skills. No one else in her family was into quilting so she just figured it out. Of course, she didn't have the internet's help, just plain old books.
  3. She figured out how to be good at everything- appliqué, hand-quilting, curves, templates, all of it. Really, not much has changed about the way we do things. 


This was very exciting to find in the old cedar chest. She made this full-sized quilt for my bed when I was about 3. She said I was very into pink, but she rebelled a little by making the blocks mainly blue. The entire thing is hand quilted! She used this method they called lap quilting, which is basically just quilt-as-you-go but with hand stitching. She would use templates she made herself out of sandpaper to sketch the designs on before stitching. Amazing! And she let me take it home with me :)




This was the one I remember being on my parents' bed all growing up. I love the way she made each house block it's own color scheme and then used all the colors on the flying geese border. All hand-quilted again. I think people just didn't quilt on their home machines back then. 




This is the quilt top she just finished recently from Joel Dewberry's Heirloom collection. Despite being such an experienced quilter, she is not stuck in her ways at all. She loves all the new designer fabrics and she is gung-ho about learning how to become an awesome free-motion quilter on her machine. She even bought Angela Walters book, which was so fun to read through while I was there. She is now working on a quilt made from a jelly roll (first time using pre-cuts) and planning a very modern wall hanging (with no borders!) I love that she is always up for learning new things, even when she is already so talented and accomplished. Way to go mom. 







I also got to come home with these old hand pieced blocks that we think were made by my great-great-aunt's mother. I love the mismatched bright fabrics! I definitely need to find time to put these together someday.



So is your craft all in the family too? Or did you figure it out on your own? Makes me think about how fun it will be to teach Hendrix and Elsie someday... if they care to learn that is.












18 comments:

  1. That's really neat that your mom taught herself to quilt and is still doing it today! It's in the family for me...my mom is a crafty/sewing goddess as far as I'm concerned! She never put any pressure on me to learn to sew but was happy to lend a hand and help me learn when I got bit(bad)by the sewing bug.

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  2. I love this. Good job Mom! My mom painted when she was younger and didn't have five children. She just gave me one of my favorites, it's hanging on my wall now.

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  3. your mom is super awesome! love the quilts and i can't wait to see what you do with those blocks! ;)

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  4. So, so great! Nice job, Mrs. McTag! Moms are so amazing. Mine made us so many clothes growing up too. It's really cool that you and I (and other gals in this new wave of sewing) can now really appreciate what our moms did, you know? It's a circle of life.

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  5. Beautiful quilts. My grandmother quilted all her life, but died before she was able to teach me so I am self-taught as well. Back when I started, machine quilting was just starting to be recognized, but was still looked down upon by us traditionalists. All my quilts were even hand pieced to begin with. Then I came to terms with machine piecing and now recognize and acknowledge machine quilting as legitimate. But to be fair machine quilting back then was haphazard and looked like someone was just too lazy to "do it right". Now it really is art and many of us traditionalists have arthritis too bad to do things by hand. I still have not come to terms with 50/50 fabrics or double knit quilts...Ewwwww!! :)

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  6. Wow! Your moms quilts are amazing and the hand quilting is beautiful!! I am still in the process of learning , thankful for all the great bloggers that share so much talent:)

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  7. Great post! Your Mom's quilts look so pretty! My Grandmother was a quilter, none of her kids (i.e. my mom) got the itch to try. I have a few of her quilts around my house and really wish I could make some myself. She passed away before I could really appreciate and want her to teach me. She also did all her quilts by hand, I'm pretty sure she would roll in her grave if I started quilting with a machine. But I'm too lazy to teach myself either way.

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  8. Love this post. Your mother is so talented! My grandma quilted and crafted. I remember asking her at a very young age if she would teach me how to make a quilt when I was old enough. At that time I didn't know a quilt from a crocheted blanket, but the point is, in my seven year old mind, it was just going to be me and my Nanny making something together to treasure forever. She died when I was thirteen, and I never got the privilege of learning from her. I do however have some of her quilts which I cherish. My mom doesn't have a crafting bone in her body (though she is an out-of-this-world baker). So when I was nineteen and pregs, I decided I was going to fulfill my lifelong dream of making a quilt. I've been hooked ever since, experimenting and learning as I go having never had formal training. I love it. I really want to see what you end up doing with those blocks! :D I bet you didn't expect for me to write my own little blog post here. Sorry!

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  9. I love your Mom's quilts. I'm self-taught. When I was 8, I taught myself to sew, my mom was not happy! I'm still sewing 60 years later; I've been quilting for two years, now.

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  10. That's awesome! We don't live that far from Wilson Co. (Williamson Co.) and I admired all the quilts at our county fair last week! It inspired me to enter some clothes into the contest next year! :)
    http://sewingmamaraeanna.blogspot.com/

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  11. oh how fun! My grandma taught me to sew, but never quilted that I know of. My other grandma loved to cook & was very crafty and would always do fun projects with us. I'm thrilled that I take after both of them! Plus very pleased my own daughter is a quilter too!

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  12. I grew up half a world away from my extended family. As far as I know, none of them were quilters, but there were many (including my mom) who sewed, knitted, crocheted and embroidered.

    How fun that you and your mom get to share the love of quilting and sewing!

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  13. I learned how to sew from both of my grandmothers. My one grandmother hated doing tops, but had a large free arm quilting machine that she would use to make money doing quilting for people after she retired.
    My other grandmother did mostly work by hand, and taught me to crochet.
    I still use a quilt from my first grandmother on my bed. I know I should stop so it can be kept in good condition, but I love it so.
    Neither of them got to see me come in to my own as a quilter (I do only the basics right now) or as a sewer (thanks to you and others I have a serger and make knitwear for my daughters), but I know they would be proud. I knit, crochet, sew, quilt, and make a mean tomato jam.

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  14. I love this post!!! Encouraging me to do a post about the vintage quilts in my family... :)

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  15. Yay mom! I love the heirloom quilt... Wilson County Fair is the bestest!!!!!!

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  16. I love seeing the things your mom has made. That is awesome. I have some blocks I made with my grandmother when I was eight or nine. I've been meaning to get them out and share. They are pretty awful, but I want to make something with them, still! My grandmother used to make my sister and I clothes. She was less into quilting than garments, but I have some of her projects. She embroidered, too! <3

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  17. What an awesome post! You're Mom has some serious quilting skills, that's so cool!! No one in my family is interested in sewing at all! Like they can't even thread a needle. :) Which is why I am all about sewing with my kids and hopefully one day my grandchildren. I would love to have someone to sew with and learn from!!

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  18. My grandmother worked for a tailor for a while and sewed and crocheted. My great-aunt also sewed both garments and quilts. My M-in-Law quilts too. My mother sewed many of our clothes growing up and then sewed all of us girls' wedding dresses! When I was pregnant with my first child (a girl) I told my mom I wanted to sew her wedding dress too. She said I had to start sewing her clothes now in order to get the skills for that big project ... and that is where my part of the generational skill/obsession began.

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