I Love Patchwork
I love patchwork
I love the idea
Gathering together
Worthless raggy scraps
To create stitch by stitch
Something
Beautiful
Warm
Comforting
Cosy
Originally patchworkers
Used cotton skirts, shirts and sheets
Beyond mending
That made it into the scraps bag
Sometimes flour sacks were added too
Sadly these days many dollars are invested
In special designer prints
(Expensive but gorgeous)
To create a quilt
I was a young married mum
In the mid 1970’s
I’d joined a mum’s group
Meeting in each other’s homes
The original purpose of the group was babysitting
Paid for by ‘in-house’ tokens
Hosting a get-together was ‘paid’ in tokens
Each token ‘bought’ a half hour’s babysitting
For single parents or couples doing shift work
Earning tokens in other ways meant
They enjoyed an evening out just like everyone else
Morning, noon and nights
Drinking tea, coffee, wine
Cheese and pineapple porcupines
Pancake nights
Swapping stories, books, clothes and skills
Sometimes we just swapped experiences
Laughing at the crazy things
Pregnant women and children did
One evening hubby and I organised
An evening reflective of the times
A friend at church had a son, a young doctor
Who escaped Uganda during Idi Armin’s reign of terror
We heard a first hand account of conditions there
The sad news became real from this young man’s accounts
It also heightened awareness of the need for medical aid in Africa
Our group grew, evolved
I recall when it was voted that Husbands could babysit
Or help with the voluntary ‘book keeping’
It even survived the ‘Great Token Scam’
When some black hearted souls
Forged tokens!
Scandalous!
One morning was a patchwork coffee morning
That’s where my addiction began
I was introduced to
The old English patchwork tradition
Using papers as backing
To create firm shapes
They are then placed
Right sides together
And over sewn with fine stitches
My first full quilt was a Pyramid Scrap Quilt
Quilted in the ditch – still not fully finished
No designer fabrics for me
In this quilt, nursery curtains, cot covers, aprons,
Shirts, blouses, dresses
From family and friends
All sorts of things
Cut and stitched together
To make a gaudy queen size quilt
I cannot swear to it being all 100% cotton
Patchwork Purists insist upon
Nor did I line up the weft and warp
The horizontal and vertical weaving lines of fabric
It travelled through time and across the world
And remains draped over an old church pew in our dining room
Where my children and now my grandchildren gather for family feasts
From humble beginnings – an heirloom!
Words, Pictures © Denise Stanford 2011
Pyramid Scrap Quilt by Denise Stanford
Within the Vine 