Wednesday 20 December 2017

A woolly Christmas story

If you love fabric like I do, 
you already know this story,
or one like it.
It starts like this: Someone gave me a box of fabric.
In my case, it was a friend of a friend of a friend's mother
who was moving to a smaller home
and didn't need years of stockpiled fabric.

I took some vintage cotton prints, each carefully folded and marked with the yardage,
as well as an Eaton's department store box marked
"Wool patches for blanket or quilt:"
Fast forward a year of not doing anything with it
until the time came earlier this month to open it.
I found a newspaper from 1962 on the top of the box,
and neatly stacked piles of wool patches
as well as off cuts from men's wool pants.
This woman was a saver, 
and she had carefully collected wool for several years.
The newspaper on the bottom of the box was from June 1957.
Even after 60 years in a box, none of the fabric
had moth holes in it.

My longtime blog readers know I can't resist someone else's scraps
and this box of possibilities held beautiful Harris tweeds and double faced wool 
and many checks and twills.

Meanwhile, I was also asked to provide the children's story at my church during Advent,
which in this case works out to three Sundays because one was taken by the children's pageant.
The script called for a woodworker to talk about the process of  building fine furniture,
but since the woodworkers of the church had declined,
someone decided maybe a quilter or sewer could modify the script.
Cue the box of possibilites!

So within a week of showing the children the carefully packaged box,
I had a quilt top!
I squared all the pieces to 8 inches wide,
and only cut up the dark navy and black pieces
to use as contrast between the mostly browns and camels and greys.

Here you can see a closeup of some of the lovely textures and weaves.

So on the second Sunday of Advent, I brought a mostly finished top
and asked the littles to help me sew the final seam.
They drove my 1956 Singer Featherweight 222K
while I steered.
They were so engrossed with the job that we kept sewing
during the choir song following the story.

This week my job is to baste and quilt it
in time for Sunday's story.


I decided not to include the double-faced wool samples,
since they were much thicker than the rest of the fashion fabrics,
and I rolled them through the die cutter
to make these double heart ornaments.
The red ones are made from felted boiled wool passed on by a friend.

Each of my little sewing friends got a heart ornament for their Christmas tree
and my quilt guild took the rest,
so this box of possibilities is already part of many homes right now.

I think there's lots of lessons in this box:
1. I remembered how much I like working with wool because of its texture and hand
2. Someone else's cast offs can become your treasures
3. Children are fascinated by sewing machines, and it is not hard to get them engaged,
especially if you let them touch the machinery
4. Lots of people can enjoy what's inside a long-hoarded box of wool patches
5. Improv piecing looks great with wool
6. and there's no time like now to get to that long planned project.

I'm linking up with The Needle and Thread Network


11 comments:

Elaine M said...

Wonderful story, thank you for sharing.

em's scrapbag said...

What a great story. Glad everyone got a little love from all your wool.

Shelina (formerly known as Shasta) said...

What a great project that has brought warmth to so many. Love the quilt with all the different textures and colors of fabric.

Quiltdivajulie said...

Fabulous post and a timeless story. Kudos to you for taking on the box of possibilities and doing something wonderful with it. Merry Christmas to you and yours.

Louise said...

I love the improv design you've used to piece these bits of wool with an interesting past! The strong, dark horizontal lines really make it sing. Neat!

patty a. said...

How wonderful! The quilt is stunning! The kids look fascinated with the process; what a great experience for them. I just made a wool quilt for my brother. He tours with rock bands and the buses get cold so he wanted a heavy wool quilt for his bunk. I posted all about the quilt on my blog. Every time he calls me he tells me how much he and his wife like that quilt. I like the way you pieced yours together. Mine was just a basket weave/rail fence block. I debated on what to do with my leftover pieces of men's wool suiting samples and I almost tossed them. After seeing your quilt I may have to make another one and borrow inspiration from yours! I have some hot pink and red wool yardage; those could add some real spark to all the dark suiting sample pieces I have! What are you going to use for backing?

Mego said...

THANK YOU for sharing. This is the best story!

Vivian said...

A wonderful Christmas and Quilt-mas story! Quilting WILL unite the world one day.

Heidi said...

love this post and what you did with the box :-)
Merry Christmas to you and your family

Glenda said...

What a wonderful story to wake up to on Boxing day. I'm so in love with that quilt top, wonderful lay out the dark strips sure shows off those lovely wool fabrics. then to top it off those wonderful heart tree ornaments love them. Thanks for such a great start to the day Cheers Glenda

grammajudyb said...

I love this story! Thanks.

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