Monday, October 17, 2011

In Memory of Ma-Ma!

Some time ago my sister Sid and I were at mom and dad's house looking for a particular quilt and ran across one of the ugliest quilt tops I've seen.  Seriously, it was hideous!  Sid insisted that I "save it."  I felt a tinge of guilt because it had been hand sewn and who else would do anything with it?  So I rolled it up and tossed it into the backseat along with a few other things--
but not the quilt I was there to pick up.

Look closely and you'll see that the fabrics are awful.  The brown fabric in one block was spliced with white thread, and the maker used it that way.  There are tucks and pleats all over the place, and much of the fabric is some sort of stretch fabric from the 70's and 80's.  I call it velour but Richard says it's fleece.

And that's how I know that my grandmother, Volcie Couvillion Lacombe is the maker!  Richard recognized some of the fabrics from his days at Garan's Mfg. when he was the head mechanic there.  

Sweet darling that he is, he would occasionally pick up some of the larger scraps and bring them home.  I'd pass them along to Ma-ma and she sewed them into quilts.  She added fabrics she picked up from just about anywhere, but none were what we today call quilting cottons.  


So, in the end, I decided to do something with it.  After a week on the longarm......TA DA!

It's a beautiful quilt, after all, 
and not just because Ma-ma was the maker.

I somehow worked out most of the issues or simply stitched them down.  I decided on stippling the quilt so that I could do just that and also stitch on top of the seams so that they would not pull apart.  Now that it's done, I really love it.  So many people in my life had a hand in this quilt: Richard provided most of the fabrics, Ma-ma cut and pieced it, Mom saved it, and now, I've finished it.

2 comments:

Memories for Life said...

What a great family treasure! And it turned out beautifully!

jenclair said...

Wow! This it great--looks beautiful and so full of family history!