I know it used to be almost taboo to "machine" quilt a top, but I believe those days are gone. There are some very good machine quilters and some lovely patterns. It's your quilt top anyway, do what works for you!

Oh yes keep going it's going to be beautiful

Melissa, it is wonderful! Come on--you can do it--let's see it finished!

Very beautiful. It looks like a wide border. Good luck getting it done.

Lovely! Glad you shared it.

I do wish I could say I have started it but I haven't. I'm working hard to FINALLY finish hand quilting a queen/king sized Tennesse Waltz. I'm about to reach the borders! I've promised myself not to let another project come between me and this quilt's completion (holding my own feet to the fire). I'm enclosing a not very good cell phone picture of a portion of the Tenessee Waltz project.

Melissa, from Kansas City, KS

Thanks for getting us back on track! Yes, Melissa, I am wondering how you are coming along with that quilt top.

How's it going Melissa, have you made a start?

Same here. I don't have any of the clothing. Hand me downs would have been given to cousins. Although there might be a scrape of the fabric with some of my mother's sewing stuff. I am thinking I might have that doll packed away somewhere.

None of those clothes in my collection, we wore them out, outgrew them and gave them to someone smaller or cut them up to make something else. Everythiing was used at our house except the squeal of the pig when he was butchered or the squack of the chicken. And we never threw something away that might have another use. That is why I am still accused of being a "pack rat" and that was long before I knew anything about a "stash".
Ann the traveling quilter

Lois, Ann
Those are great stories. Love hearing stories, memories like that.
I take it you don't have any of those special clothes in your ownership.
Thanks for sharing!!

I, too, had most of my clothes made from feedsacks. Especially before I went to school. After that the clothes were still hand made but more often with store purchased fabrics. One of my earliest memories, In the early forties (oops, I just gave away my age) I was three or maybe just four and had a bad cold or the flu so my Grandmother (with whom I was living at the time) did not want to take me to town. So she let Grandpa go to the feed store alone. She asked him to buy ten sacks of feed and get four of two patterns and two of a third pattern. Well, by the time he got to the feedstore - after a few other stops and shooting the breeze with the other men in town - he had forgotten what Grandma wanted so he came home with ten sacks of feed and ten different fabrics on them. Needless to say he was in the "doghouse" big time because it took two sacks for a skirt and four for a long sleeve dress for my Grandmother. I got a lot of new blouses and skirts then but Grandpa never went to the feed store alone again!!!!! I remember those days fondly but like the quilt shops and fabric stores of today much better. Ann - the traveling quilter, now in Wisconsin

Lorchen wrote:
Lorchen, When I was a little girl my mother made all my summer sun suits, she called them, out of feed sacks. Although I don't remember other clothes I can picture the prints in many of those pieces of clothing. I also remember the texture of the cloth. It was coarser than store bought fabric. I must have been 4 yrs old. My brothers raised chickens, hence the feedsacks from chicken feed. I also had rag doll made from a pattern printed on a feedsack. I remember seeing it before and after. I remember it looking alot like today's cheater cloth before it was constructed. Your comment jogged a memory. I guess I had a fascination for all things fabric evn when I was a very young child.

Melissa, I have a few (no, not giving numbers - blushing) unquilted tops, and an WIP collection that could keep a whole quilt group busy for years. If in 50 years time somebody finds any of my unfinished quilts, they are very welcome to finish them in whatever way they see fit; and then use and enjoy the finished piece.

I would only make an exception if the unquilted top has provenance, like you can proof that it was pieced by President Garfield's wife, or lovingly hand-sewn by Marilyn Monroe (with pictures of her working on it whilst getting ready to sing for JFK). Then I'd donate the piece to an appropriate museum.

Please, keep taking pictures as you turn that top into a real quilt, and share them with us. I find this whole feedsack concept fascinating. As a German living in the Uk, I had never heard about that before I started quilting.