sloper?

What puzzled me is about the girls is that they insisted on having identical quilts... fine if that's what they wanted but then I insisted each had to come up with their own label with title and all the details for the back!

My mom and maternal grandmother taught me to knit, crochet, shuttle tat and embroider (nonna tried to teach me bobbin lace without much success--I still have the bobbins her father and when she needed more, my grandfather carved for her and her early 20th century patterns so I could still try... (not)... I remember them insisting I had to learn how to do all this stuff because I would have to make my own hope-chest (remember the embroidered bed linens, monogrammed linen towels, tablecoths and napkins, etcetera, even the envelope for the nightgown?) which really made it feel like a chore at the time. In hindsight, I don't regret having been exposed to all these skills some of which are becoming a lost art. Too bad I was deathly allergic to the sewing machine back then... wish I'd let my mom teach me how to make a sloper too...

and they'll have their quilt forever.....!!

loise98 wrote:
So true Lois. My mother taught me to knit and my aunties Kitty and Terry taught me to sew and embroider. Life lessons never forgotten and now cherished memories. Renata you and your sister have created memories for your nieces that they will cherish and certainly never forget.

Renata wrote:
But you've sown the seed. And you know if you have it in you to be a quilter that is all it takes. Don't we all know!

Thanks everyone. My mom and aunties did the same for me with knitting when I was young, something I still do to this day and cherish the memory. We wanted to do the same for the next generation. Unfortunately, they live too far away to do this on a regular basis and neither of their moms sew.

Renata, thanks for sharing with us! What a lovely story!

Renata it's wonderful to see your nieces working away on their Irish chain quilts. What a great story. They are lucky girls to have two aunties with great skills and a great sewing room to-boot!

Renata, What a great well planned activity for your nieces. I am loving it. My oldest great niece could do that but her little sisters and cousins aren't quite ready. The 3 younger girls are 3, 7, & 7. We call one of the 7 year olds "spark plug" because she gets something going no matter where she is. It's fun, but it's not always good, if you get my drift. I think I need to get some of the adults in my crew up to speed so they would be able to help. They all have minimal sewing skills. To get them started it occurred to me to give them each a jelly roll and have them google jelly roll races. I wish I could host a jelly roll race party. There would be six of us so I'd have to come up with 3 more machines than I have. I'll have to give that some thought. It sure would be fun.

Now I have an idea for my niece...thanks

What a great story. They have learned a lot.
This remind me of two weeks ago when I went to a flower shop to by flowers for a friend. In there was a mother with her two boys age around 11-13. They were to pick flowers for a bouquet from them to someone and they got the message: you can choose what you like, the lady will say stop when you have used the money for it. And there they stood - helplessness was radiating from their faces. No one helped them saying you could try this or that. I was not in a position to say anything and that was really hard because they so needed just a little guidance. Fortunately the flower lady was very good at utilizing the flowers, they picked, so it ended up being an amazing bouquet and that I could comment. The boys lit up when I told them they had done a good job.
So Renata, thank you for not letting the girls down in the shop.

That sounds magical. As you say It was all their own choices and decisions from the beginnning, that truly makes it their own to be proud of. A lot of the time we need to be 'enablers' and 'introducers' to quilting or any other crafting works that we have dabbled in, but we have to be able to stand back and let them make their own choices as to what they like or want to do.

What a terrific idea Renata to actually go through all the processes of making a quilt and letting them do most of it themselves. They would have learned lot more that way than you just demonstrating. Their quilt is wonderful so another two joins the quilting world