D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
April
2008
Voice of a Ranchwoman
Page: 2I've sewed a lot of things in my life. I wasn't an expert at it, but I did sew. When Jerry and I got married, I had that treadle sewing machine, and then we had children and I loved to make little shirts and things for those little kids out of flour sacks.
When you sew and you make things, you always have scraps left over. So quilting, really, all starts with scraps. You sew and you have these scraps left over. I don't know if that ever ends and you use up all the scraps.
Quilting is about using up the scraps, not about going out and buying new material. This fits into the philosophy the [Mormon Church has of "use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without." That's why I don't fit in with a lot of the quilters nowadays, because they go out and buy all this expensive fabric that matches just so. They're beautiful quilts — I am not disputing that in the least. But they're also very expensive. Me, I'm just saying, "What do I have here? How can I use this up?"
There's a lot of math in a quilt. You've got to figure out how big the squares are going to be, and if you're going to have strips in-between you've got to figure that out. You've got to figure out how the squares fit around the center. And I'm not that good at math. Anyway, with my kids' quilts, I didn't have any quilt stands. I didn't have any quilt frames. So I go, "How can I do this?"
I found out you can do a whole big quilt with a hoop.
So I bought me a hoop that's about two feet in diameter. What I'd do is I'd lay my quilt out on the floor with the bottom, the batting and then the top. I'd always get the loose weave sheet, the least amount of thread count, because your needle will go through it easier; you get a really high-quality sheet and you can hardly get a needle through it. Then I'd pin it all together. I didn't baste it, I'd pin it. And then I'd put it in a big sack and I'd work on it just one part at a time. You have to start in the middle and work out.
I'd take that sack with me and I've quilted from here to Utah so many times, going to see our kids, and wherever we went. We didn't travel that much, so most of it was done here right by the fireplace. But if we ever got on the road I got a lot of quilting done. Jerry would drive and I'd quilt.
Nobody taught me how to do quilts. My Mom didn't quilt. Nobody showed me how to do a quilt, but my great-grandmother Alma Jacobs Parker inspired me, because I adore her quilt.
If you're going to have a celebration, you make a quilt for it. They mark time, they commemorate, and you've got to remember that event. I wanted my kids to remember their weddings, so I made them their wedding quilts. When they were younger, they'd gone on tour with their music to Maritime Canada and they'd gone to France, to perform with the Ricks Folk Dancers — they were the band. So what I did was — they had clothes that they wore, certain clothes — I took those clothes, and made strips, and then I did a map showing where they went on that tour, and embroidered all that on there. I also did a map of where our boys served their missions, in Argentina, Ecuador, Dominican Republic and Ireland. It was just so fun to put into a quilt an experience they'd had, and of course their missions were such special, spiritual experiences.
Then Granny and I got this great idea to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Community Hall at White Signal. We go, "Let's make a quilt!" I had already seen a quilt at the museum, that the Cow Belles did, and it was a brand quilt. I was lucky enough to have this old grandpa, Grandpa Jonnie McDonald, who knew all the old brands at White Signal. He drew the brands for me, and Granny and I went out into the community and if they had a brand, I asked them to do their own brand on a square of material I gave them. So all the community members, not all of them, but the ones who were still here, did their own quilt brand. We had quite a few people in the community who helped do those, and so we made a quilt, a beautiful quilt. It was white, and it had red-and-white-checked gingham in-between the squares. I made the middle: "White Signal Community 1931-1981." I embroidered it. And I've found out since that embroidery work wears really fast off a quilt. I sewed the top together, and we had a lady do the quilting. We hired the quilting done. We had a drawing, and Uncle Harry and Aunt Pauline McCauley won that quilt, and I don't know where it is now.
Not too long after that, Grandma and Grandpa celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. And I go, "Let's make Grandma and Grandpa one of those quilts." So Annalee, Jerry's sister, Aunt Bertha and I undertook that project, to embroider all those squares. And then I embroidered the center, which was quite a project, too. It was much more complicated, the quilt we made, because it had to do with all the facets of their lives. I had to portray, every 10 years, what happened in their lives. I used the Ace Reid cartoons. I'd look at the Ace Reid cartoons and go, "Here's this old cow. I can kind of draw that old skinny cow." I think the good Lord helped me, because I'm not that great an artist. And I embroidered the White Signal Schoolhouse, where Grandpa and Granny went to school together as children. It took us two years to get that quilt done. Then I sewed it all together, and then we hired that quilted. Ella Gatlin quilted that one.
When I was with Primary, the children's organization of our church, I happened to be the president when they celebrated its 100th anniversary. Well, we had to do a quilt for that! So we did one, and we had all the children — there were over 100 children in Primary — each draw a picture with fabric crayons, and we ironed it onto that fabric. Then we put it together with the Primary colors, which are red, yellow and blue. I had a very dear friend, Nancy Strange, who was one of those very particular people who does everything perfect, and she did the center. And it's gorgeous.
The Gerry Billings family bid on that at our celebration, and they bought it. Granny and Grandpa were bidding against them for the quilt, because they wanted to buy it for me, and the bid just went too high, and they said, "We're not going to pay that much!" So the Billingses got that quilt. Anyway, on my birthday, a few years after later, Darlene Billings gave it to me. I cry when I remember her doing that.
I tell myself it's not that the quilt means anything. It's a worldly possession and worldly things aren't where it's all at. It's spiritual things. It's us improving our lives and coming closer to Christ, those are the things that are important in our lives. But when someone gives you a quilt, they're giving you their heart. Because they've spent their time on it, or someone spent their time, on it.
There's lots of time goes into these quilts that are quilted like that. First of all you start out just using up your scraps. Then you go, "I need a gift for somebody. What can I make 'em?" But guess what? The surprise of the whole thing is that you've given them your heart, in the time that you've spent making it.
I just finished the 27th little baby quilt for the little babies in our family, the 27th grandchild, though four of those have been grand-nephews.
When we got ready to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the ranch, our nephew Duane says, "We need a quilt." Not another quilt! So when my daughter Michele came down here, I sewed on the treadle sewing machine and she sewed on my electric sewing machine. We had some fabric Granny had bought. Granny bought fabric but she didn't sew — she wasn't much of a seamstress, but she mended like crazy. That gal was a mender. But anyway, she'd bought this fabric, and we started tearing it up.