As I was digging through pictures today, I found one of a quilt that I had hand stitched for a girlfriend of mine who's husband was in the same squadron as mine in Sacramento. I have to say in all honesty I do not remember making this quilt. but the notations are on the back of the picture telling mme when and how I made it and who for. I do remember Beth and can picture her face easily, but this quilt, yeah not so much. I guess brain damage is a strange thing of blanks and catalysts to kick start memories. At any rate. This looks like I knew what I was doing back then! At any rate, Beth was a new friend and neighbor of ours on base, in base housing. She was due to deliver in November 1976 around Thanksgiving, so her shower was in October. It seemed like most of us newlywed women were getting in the same condition! I knew I was pregnant as well, but the test hadn't come back positive yet. But I knew something was up because I wasn't allergic to siamese cats now! Instead of a dog from the pet store, we brought home 3 sibling kittens and I wasn't having a problem with them so something was up to be sure! There were so many of our group who were pregnant we teased about it being in the water and don't drink it lol. (Yes I was pregnant and delivered a baby girl in June of 1977, as just a side note and the cats had to go because once my water broke, they were toxic to me. I felt bad becuase I loved Capt. Hook, Mikko and Chopin).
Sorry I digressed, Anyway this quilt was for Beth Bonnellacording to what I wrote on the back of this picture. She lived across the street from us and this baby was her first one. I wanted to make something ultra soft and yet warm for when they traveled to their relatives who lived in really cold climates. It is made of flannel fabrics and this time I wanted to just make it all by hand and not use the sewing machine at all. I had been working on it for a couple months and decided to hand piece it entirely instead of doing any machine quilting on it. Since I wanted to make it super fluffy, I didn't want to quilt it, but instead tied it with all 6 strands of embroidery floss. It had taken me a a solid month of working on it every day in between my officer's wife duties and fun road rallies, but I really liked how it turned out.
After this quilt, I think most of the rest of mine have all been machine pieced and quilted or tied. I had learned much over the years about hand pieicing so this one went together well and didn't look anything like the one I had made as a child, thank goodness! In finding this old picture, I realize now that there is one quilt I can find no pictures of and that is one I had made back while in high school for my boyfriend back then. I guess both are gone and on to other things, so not having a picture is ok, I know what both looked like!
I think this flannel quilt for Beth was about 3 x 4 feet in size. Once she saw this, she wanted to learn how to make another one, so she and I worked on another one quickly before she delivered. She also learned to make baby clothes and we had fun, until graduation when all of our husbands were scattered to various bases around the US or Europe. I had also been pregnant and when I delivered my baby girl, Beth had made a quilt for me! I still have it, though it was so well loved it is in happy tatters!
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