Laura Ingalls Wilder - Quilted Memories

This is the first time I've participated in one of these blog world games, but I just couldn't resist. Miss Sandy over at Quill Cottage is having an "I remember Laura" blog-a-thon, in honour of the author of "Little House in the Big Woods", Laura Ingalls Wilder.

I loved Laura Ingalls Wilder books from a very young age. I think we first read Little House in the Big Woods in school, maybe grade 5 or 6? And as usual when I loved a book, I searched out all others by the same author. Her writing is beautiful, and her story of a family living simply in as they travelled further and further west was inspiring. In fact, I think I might just start re-reading them.

This weeks theme for the blog-a-thon is Quilted Memories. Quilts have always been a big part of my life. My sister and I both have memories of choosing out material, and arranging squares (or triangles, that one drove my mum mad, but I loved it.) Now my mother makes the most beautiful crazy patchwork quilts, I'll have to get a photo of one some time. Personally, I haven't done much quilting (except for the velvet ones I've posted about before, which are very simple quilts really), except for this one.

The history of this quilt goes back 14 years, to the year I was eighteen. I appliqued the 9 squares in this quilt, by hand, and sewed them together interspersed with pink floral squares. Each square was embellished with ribbons, ribbon roses, lace, and embroidery. It took ages to sew them all.

I think you can probably guess what the common theme of the quilt was? An impressionable 18 yo, I was obsessed with love and romance, and showed this by appliqueing hearts in one form or another on every square.

This was the very first square I did, and since I hadn't decided on the hearts theme, I embroidered some on later.

This is my favourite square. The original bird was a peach silk, that has long since worn away, leaving only the outline and embroidered roses. The blue colour is painted on.

I took this quilt with me when I moved out of home, and it adorned my bed for many years, until it started to grow tattered and worn (you can see in many of the pictures how worn the origional squares are), and I was well and truly over the hearts stage. In a big clean out, I was going to throw it out, but my mum, who was visiting at the time, asked for it. A few weeks later, she gave it back to me like this! She had taken apart the original quilt and saved my carefully constructed squares. She'd mended what was able to be mended, painted the spaces where applique's had worn away and pieced it back together in colours that fitted my decorating scheme at the time.

She added new appliques of dolphins (my obsession at the time), butterflies, teddies, and even this castle which she traced and painted.

This little girl she said reminded her of me as a girl, waving at the bird. (Although I don't have blond hair.)

It is still worn, but it is holding together. It doesnt normally live on our bed like this, normally it is folded at the end until bedtime, when I unfold it, and put it down the side of my bed for me to cuddle up to. It's the perfect weight and size for this, so it had better not wear out any time soon. It would be very hard to replace.