Caring for Quilts

 31 December 18:00   

    Caring for Quilts   by Joyce Moseley Pierce

    Caring for Quilts

    For some years my mother formed in sales and lived out

    of a attache as she catholic the country, but that

    didn t stop her from accomplishing some of the alotof admirable

    needlepoint and adornment plan I ve anytime seen.

    When she retired, she bound abounding up the walls of

    her home and kept the bounded anatomy boutique in business.

    After she had accustomed favorites to her accouchement and

    filled every white amplitude in her home, she absitively to

    start authoritative quilts, but instead of just bed-making the

    pieces of bolt together, she cross-stitched or

    needlepointed squares that would be sewn calm by

    the boondocks s adornment expert.

    I was the almsman of one of these admirable quilts

    but because my accouchement were small, I didn t wish to

    leave it out on a bed area it ability get anointed with

    peanut adulate and jelly, or even worse, black with

    crayons or a abiding marker. Instead, I bankrupt it

    up and put it in my closet central a artificial zippered

    bag that my batt had appear in.

    Well, if Mom came to appointment the next time, she went

    looking for that quilt. I assured her that it was

    packed abroad and that annihilation could abuse it. Afterwards all,

    it was closed in plastic. Annihilation could get to it.

    Boy, was I wrong!

    I abstruse a assignment from Mom about how to abundance quilts:

    1. Don t anytime abundance them in artificial of any kind! It

    doesn t amount that your batt came in it. It s

    not the same.

    2. Don t abundance them in boiling or hot climates. If the

    temperature feels acceptable to you, then it s accept for your

    quilt. If you reside in Houston you shouldn t even own

    a quilt!

    3. Don t abundance quilts in attics or garages. It makes

    a comfortable bed for rodents and insects.

    Instead, you should:

    1. Abundance your batt in a bedding or sheet, or

    roll it assimilate a muslin-covered tube.

    2. Abode a section of bolt amid the bedding or

    sheet and your batt to assure it from the acids

    in the wood.

    3. Alert a year, if the clamminess is low and the

    air is blowing, air your batt outside, out of direct

    sunlight.

    4. Mark your agenda to refold your batt every 3-4

    months so you won t create a abiding bulge in

    it. Crumple up some acid-free tissue cardboard to help

    eliminate bend lines.

    If you feel adequate in announcement or actually

    using your quilts (and isn t that why we create them?),

    you ll wish to chase these guidelines to create your

    quilt endure best and advice absorb its beauty.

    1. Accumulate your quilts abroad from absolute light. The sun

    will create them achromatize and will age the fabric.

    2. If you apprehension any tears, adjustment them as anon as

    possible. Bethink that "a stitch in time saves nine,"

    and will advice amplify the activity of your quilt.

    3. Apple-pie up any accidents immediately. Washable quilts

    can be bankrupt with algid water. My quilt, with the

    delicate cross-stitching bolt and thread, would charge

    to be dry bankrupt by an expert.

    4. Afore you wash, analysis the bolt to see if the

    colors are traveling to run. Use a white anhydrate and cold

    water to analysis anniversary color.

    5. Do not put quilts in the dryer or adhere them over

    a clothesline. They should lay collapsed amid two bedding

    placed on the grass in the shade.

    When I was a young, affiliated woman I apparent a box

    of bolt in my grandmother s closet forth with the

    pattern for a batt that had been appear by the

    Kansas City-limits Brilliant in the 1920s. Grandma told me she

    had bought the bolt if my dad was built-in and had

    just never create the quilt. She told me if I wanted

    to create it, she would pay to accept it checky for me.

    I accustomed the challenge, and after alive anything

    about quilts (or annihilation else!), I cut and accumulated

    all of the pieces. It was beautiful, and I bethink the

    pride I acquainted in alive that I had sewn every stitch,

    but even as I laid it beyond my babe s

    twin-sized bed, I could see how attenuate and beat the

    fabric had become. I ambition now I would accept acclimated the

    pattern and bought newer, added athletic fabric, that

    would accept diffuse the activity of the quilt, but that

    was just one of activity s acquaint I had to learn.

    Going through the action of piecing that batt helped

    me to accept a abysmal acknowledgment for all of the time

    and adulation that goes into anniversary stitch. As I formed on

    it, I approved to brainstorm my grandmother as a adolescent mother

    and wondered what activity was like for her. Was motherhood

    as arduous for her as it was for me? Did she ever

    imagine that she would accept a granddaughter who would

    treasure this old bolt and the band it gave to

    both of them?

    Buying a batt is fast and adequately bargain

    because they are accumulation produced, but you can t expect

    it to accord you you the aforementioned balmy activity as if you

    run your easily over the stitches of a batt that was

    made by you or anyone you love. If your hands

    caress the bolt and stitches of the batt you accept

    painstakingly created, the memories of the accomplished are

    guaranteed to blitz into your heart. If that batt was

    made by anyone who admired you, you will feel a

    connection that seems absent to time.

    Copyright 2002 Joyce Moseley Bore

    emersonpublications.com

    Joyce is a freelance biographer and buyer of Emerson Publications.She is the architect of "All They ll Charge

    to Know," a workbook to advice families almanac claimed and banking information. She is aswell the editor of

    The Ancestors First Newsletter, an ezine for families with adolescent children.