My First Quilt Was a Tablecloth

A big thanks goes out to Amy for organizing the Blogger's Quilt Festival - Spring 2010. To enter a quilt or to see all the quilts, click on the red text or use the button in the right-hand column.  

Photos of the blocks are posted here and here and here and here and here.

Momma's Quilt
I made my first finished quilt for my mom. Each crazy log cabin block has a family photo in the center that has something to do with food. The quilt was supposed to be used as a tablecloth -- that's why the photos around the edge all face out.

My mom used it as a decorative tablecloth on her little round table in the family room but she never used it as a "working" tablecloth because she was afraid of ruining it. Years later, when she down-sized her household, the quilt was kept on the back of her sofa, and used when she took a nap. NOTE: Click on the photos to enlarge them.

Colors, Batting, Quilting
The colors are my mom's favorites: pink, peach, coral, and magenta. I threw in other colors that played off the colors in the photos. It was a bit of a challenge to mix black-and-white with color photos. I think it works fairly well. If I had it to do over, I'd lose the mustard yellow fabric and the brown-orange fabric. The sashing is a batik. I don't recall what I used for batting, but it's something thin. I did simple stitch-in-the-ditch quilting.

Something to Talk About
Finding photos was easy. My father was a photographer and my family is into food -- big time!  One of the best parts of the quilt it that it made it easy for my mom to tell new friends all about our family's love of food. Every photo had a story behind it. I'll post the close-up photos as the week progresses -- see links above.

The Pasta Pictures
The nine central photos were taken by my younger brother when I was already away at college. That was the night my father decided he could make pasta from scratch without a recipe. He was inspired by childhood memories of his mother making noodles from scratch. She started with a bunch of flour on her bread board, made a well in the center, added a cracked egg, and mixed it with her hands. As the story goes, my mom laughed at my father until he laughed at her because he got it to work! That was the beginning of  "the pasta years" when my parents made lots of pasta.

The Label and the Back

I kept the back simple; it's a nice break from the busy front. The label is a pocket for a card that describes the photos and who is in each one. That's a picture of me in my college years, surrounded by a batch of Slovenian potica. I'll write more about the label and the story in one of my follow-up postings this week.

Matching Pillow

This 1940's photo, taken by my father, features my mom, her four sisters, and their mother. My mom was the youngest of seven; she's the one in the back. The dark solid blue is velveteen.

Re-Take

If I had it to do over, I'd just use blues, grays, browns, and all the vivid colors in the sashing. I'd drop the mustard yellow fabric and that brown fabric with the splashes of orange. What was I thinking? While wonkiness is what you are looking for in a crazy log cabin, I don't think I got the wonkiness quite right. Some pieces are too narrow; some angles are too acute, some are too square. Still, this quilt gave my mom a lot of pleasure -- and that gave me a lot of pleasure, too. Now that she's gone, I have the quilt and enjoy using it; it definitely helped keep me warm this winter!