What do Rose of Sharon, Jacob’s Ladder, Dove at the Window, Fox and Geese, Rail Fence, Drunkard’s Path, Wedding Ring and Grandma’s Garden Path have in common? All of these charming, sometimes witty, sometimes homely names describe quilt patterns, many of which have been handed down through generations of quilters stitching thousands of tiny, perfect stitches through layers of fabric in time-honoured designs.
Women have gathered together for hundreds of years to create beautiful and functional works such as tapestries, church vestments and bedding. In the Parry Sound area, ladies met in small social groups to create everything from knitted socks for the war effort to bedpan covers for the hospital.
In 1941, records show a Mrs. Nicolls had brought in a quilt top, “presenting it to the hospital in aid of the building fund and wished to sell tickets on it and also asked the help of the ladies to quilt it.” And so began a long tradition of quilt making for the West Parry Sound Health Centre Ladies’ Auxiliary that has stood the test of time over the last 66 years.
Today, the quilting group meets weekly to stitch together quilts. Margaret Morden, Lynn Mauser, Margaret Nash, Sieja Verglund, Peck Walsh and Shirley Gilbert work together on a colourful pattern called “Grandma’s Garden Path”, stretched on a room-sized frame. Sieja and Peck smile as they ply their needles,
“We’re just helpers,” Sieja insists, with a nod to quilt convener Margaret Nash and other members of the group who are long time quilters. “We’re still learning.”
This dedicated group of ladies stitch together quilts for a price. If you have a quilt that you’ve been unable to finish, these ladies will complete it for you! Funds raised support the West Parry Sound Health Centre. These ladies literally have their work cut out for them, as there is a waiting list of quilts to be finished. In addition, they also create their own quilts, which are auctioned off. Recently, a star-patterned quilt garnered in excess of $3,000.
When long-time quilt aficionado, Shirley Gilbert was asked what got her interested, she laughed.
“I was 15 years old and busy complaining to my mother that I was bored,” she said. “She handed me some material and put me to work. I’ve been quilting ever since!”
At her home, she pulled back layer upon layer of beautiful quilts, handstitched and bright with colour, each quilt representing hours of work – a queen-sized quilt can take up to 1,040 hours to complete. Shirley not only belongs to the West Parry Sound Health Centre Womens’ Auxiliary quilters, but several other quilting groups in the area.
“We even quilt online,” one group member confides with a laugh. Apparently, fanatical quilters can select names online and then send blocks of quilt back and forth, a completely new twist on an old craft.
Marion Ferris is all too familiar with the hold quilts have on people.
“There are an untold number of quilts hidden in closets, unfinished,” she said ruefully, “It’s one thing to put the pattern together, it’s another to actually sew all the layers together by hand. Many people just don’t have the time anymore.”
A talented seamstress herself, Marion discovered that a specialized machine would rapidly quilt together the layers of fabric without the intensive handwork.
“The machine can use dozens of different stitching patterns,” she said, demonstrating how the arm of the machine moves smoothly across the surface of the quilt. Although a machine-stitched quilt is not as intimate as the hand-stitched variety, it offers an attractive alternative to quilters who just can’t seem to get around to stitching together their handiwork.
“Quilting is really two things,” Marion says, showing me several layers of fabric. “Stitching together layers of fabric is one aspect of quilting. Creating a colourful pattern, which is then sewn together is another step in the process.”
In its simplest form, quilting has been around since the days of the early Egyptians who were known to have sandwiched straw between layers of fabric, and then sewed the layers together to form a warm, if scratchy coverlet. Quilted fabric protected knights from the chafing of their body armour in the middle ages and women quilted petticoats which were often considered too pretty to hide, so fashion often decreed that overskirts were split or hoisted up into a belt to draw attention to the fine stitchery on the petticoat underneath. Stitching could be in the form of elaborate, feathery plumes, hearts, zigzags or scallops, patterns that are still repeated across the face of quilts today.
The art of creating patterns with bits of cloth stitched to layers of fabric was not truly popular until the early nineteenth century when textiles were being created in vast quantities as a result of the industrial revolution. Patchwork quilts became a popular Victorian craft for ladies in sewing circles not too different from the quilting groups today.
Marion shows me samples of the many stitch patterns – hearts, plumes, curving scallops and sprightly rows of zig zags.
“It really is too bad when quilts are left sitting in a plastic bag waiting for the mythical day that someone will have the time to stitch it together,” she says, carefully piling the samples back onto a table.
Traditional hand quilters ruefully understand the time involved in finishing a quilt. Although they acknowledge the efficiency of the machine method, they say that handmade quilts are different.
“The stitches are softer, not so tight,” Shirley says, smoothing a hand over one of her many masterpieces. “They just look different ….”
Which goes back to the romance of it all – the hundreds upon hundreds of tiny stitches plied by hand, in and out, hour after hour, in the company of friends and neighbours or sitting quietly at home. There’s something about the process itself, the hypnotic, soothing quality of sewing, the Zen-ness of being in the moment; you, the needle and the thread and the acre of material stretched in front of you. Everyone wants a piece of that spirit, that time stitched into the quilt on their bed; and that’s also why there are so many quilts hidden in closets waiting for the time that may never come.
Quilting
Marion Ferris works on a quilt
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