Today I am grateful for my warp board. It is a tool used to measure out the warp for my loom. My husband made it for me many years ago when I got my first loom. It can measure a warp up to 10 yards, and that is as long as I ever can stand to put on. He was working on his Masters degree and needed something to do to relax. He was going to the Navel Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA. (You don't have to be in the Navy to go there, but you do have to be military and be selected. You can't just decide to go there. It is run with military precision. You work all day every day and the competition is intense. If you don't do well, it goes on your military record and that is used to determine promotions.) He and a friend both had wives who were weavers and needed warp boards, so they decided to make some in the wood shop, just for fun. They both had very happy wives.
Now back to the story of the silk quilt. My mother received all the materials for the quilt. She is an accomplished seamstress. She made clothes for me and my sisters while we were growing up. She even made jeans for my brothers so they could have special stitching on the pockets. If she could do all those things, surely she could piece some quilt blocks, or so I thought.
I made quilts partly because all the sewing was straight lines - easy. But there were some tricks to getting all the lines to match and the corners to be square. My mother had made quilts before, but they were mostly applique or whole cloth quilts, not pieced. I felt that her sewing skills were so much more advanced than mine, if I could do it , surely she could. I was wrong.
My mother viewed the quilt I had designed a a huge puzzle that she didn't know how to do. I felt that I had given her plenty of directions. She decided to invite a friend to help her, another woman with tremendous sewing skills, but little piecing experience. Her friend happened to be my mother-in-law. They did not understand the design. They didn't know how to sew the blocks together. They struggled to cut out the pieces. They had trouble deciding what color to use where. The design had 2 versions of each block, so they decided that they would each make one of each block. They worked together to divide out the colors. They helped each other figure out how the blocks went together. They did not consult any quilting how-to books for tips and hints, even though they were sitting on their book shelves.
Finally, after several years work, the top was sewn. My sister, who made her living making wedding dresses at the time, got a big piece of white silk for the back. After all that work, nothing else would do. Then the fun, for them, began. The quilt was put into the frame and they worked together to quilt it. All the puckers were quilted out and it became a thing of great beauty. The binding was attached and it was finished. Now, what would they do with it?
Now back to the story of the silk quilt. My mother received all the materials for the quilt. She is an accomplished seamstress. She made clothes for me and my sisters while we were growing up. She even made jeans for my brothers so they could have special stitching on the pockets. If she could do all those things, surely she could piece some quilt blocks, or so I thought.
I made quilts partly because all the sewing was straight lines - easy. But there were some tricks to getting all the lines to match and the corners to be square. My mother had made quilts before, but they were mostly applique or whole cloth quilts, not pieced. I felt that her sewing skills were so much more advanced than mine, if I could do it , surely she could. I was wrong.
My mother viewed the quilt I had designed a a huge puzzle that she didn't know how to do. I felt that I had given her plenty of directions. She decided to invite a friend to help her, another woman with tremendous sewing skills, but little piecing experience. Her friend happened to be my mother-in-law. They did not understand the design. They didn't know how to sew the blocks together. They struggled to cut out the pieces. They had trouble deciding what color to use where. The design had 2 versions of each block, so they decided that they would each make one of each block. They worked together to divide out the colors. They helped each other figure out how the blocks went together. They did not consult any quilting how-to books for tips and hints, even though they were sitting on their book shelves.
Finally, after several years work, the top was sewn. My sister, who made her living making wedding dresses at the time, got a big piece of white silk for the back. After all that work, nothing else would do. Then the fun, for them, began. The quilt was put into the frame and they worked together to quilt it. All the puckers were quilted out and it became a thing of great beauty. The binding was attached and it was finished. Now, what would they do with it?
From Fawn's husband: Dan & I sure enjoyed making the warp boards. It really did help us to relax. It turned out that we worked together so well, we even did a joint thesis--not something that happened very often at that school.
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