Quilt Overload

Quilt Overload has nothing to do with an alphabet. I just don't have a topic right now. I was thinking Mini Coopers, but all my info would be coming from Wikipedia, so I will skip it (until I get books and books about Minis).

My great grandmother Zoe made quilts. She made quilts for everyone in the family and everyone who entered the family. When asked my father what color quilt he wanted, she famously told him he could not have blue because it showed dirt. So my father asked for University of Oklahoma colors, red and white.

I grew up with one of her yellow and pink quilts on my bed. And I got ink on it, but that is another story (yes, hairspray gets ink out). When my parents moved this last time (fourth time to a new town) my mother discovered that the pink and yellow quilt was not my birth quilt, but that Grandma had made a white and yellow flowered quilt for me. So now I have two yellow quilts.

When we cleaned out my grandmother's house, I got a pink quilt Grandma Zoe had made. And two green quilts. Green and Pink quilts I should add. With 1970s polyester blocks. One has the hot pink yarn bits, the other, sadly, just has green yarn bits.

I also remember the olive green quilt my mother had on my Marine brother's bed. It fit the room, except that some of the squares were pale pink, turquoise, and, my favorite, pink with blue strawberries (why? where does one get fabric like that?).

My mother found quilt pieces and decided to finish the quilt for my son. That was how we confirmed what we had always suspected, Grandma Zoe did not like rectangles and could not make a quilt to fit a bed at all. As in, the bottom part of the quilt was wider than the top. For years we had struggled folding these quilts, but now we know why.

I don't want to sound like I don't enjoy these quilts. Indeed, I love quilts because they are part of history--women saved clothes and flour sacks to keep their families warm. Lots of love went into these quilts. They are quirky. And even historic. I'm sure her earlier quilts speak of the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. Its cool that mine yell out 1970s.