Saturday, April 19, 2014

Q ~ Quilts

The tiny hand stitched, stitching on Amish quilts always looks nice.

Contrary to popular belief, most Amish quilts are not quilted at a community quilting bee. Instead they are often single family projects where a quilt is put in the quilting frame during winter and worked on every day for several weeks until it's finished.

Every once in a while especially if the quilt is a community project, such as the families want to give the teacher a quilt as a token of their appreciation, all the mothers pitch in to help get it quilted by having a quilting bee or two.

A lot of women and older single girls often supplement income by quilting quilts for local Amish quilt shops. At fifty cents a yard you can often earn between $150 to $300 quilting a quilt. Quilts at these shops as you can guess have not been quilted at a quilting bee.


This quilt, I quilted the first winter after we were married. It took me almost a month to get it done.

40 comments:

  1. Just a month!! Would have taken me forever!! :-)

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    1. Working on it all day every day with out distractions from children or any technology made that possible.

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  2. I made my first quilt last year at 71 - a simple baby quilt. My goal is to finish one like this. Your work is exquisite! But where can one find material for 50 cents/yard???

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    1. Quilters measure the thread they use to handquilt the quilt. The quilt shop brings the pieced quilt top to the quilter, she measures off thread a yard at a time to quilt. Thus the 50 cents a yard. A simple quilt takes around three hundred yards of thread to quilt, more intricate patterns can take much more.

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    2. That sounds like only $1-2 per hour.

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    3. That's another reason why I never wanted to quilt to supplement our income. A lot of work for a little bit of money.

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  3. I started a quilt when The Squire and I got engaged. We've been married almost 40 years and it's not done yet!

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    1. I have a few quilts I pieced before we were married that are still waiting to be quilted. I don't enjoy quilting, at all. I do want to teach my daughters how to quilt so maybe in the next few years we'll tackle them.

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  4. So beautiful. I still have the quilt my grandmother made for me when I was a little girl.

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  5. I've made only three queen size quilts-all handle quilted but machine pieced. I can understand the time involved in each of these works of art.
    Your is absolutely gorgeous.
    Blessings,
    Betsy

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  6. Its beautiful Mary Ann...have you and your girls quilted together? Wishing you and yours a blessed Easter Sunday

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    1. Thank-you. No, the girls and I haven't tried quilting together. Maybe in the next few years I'll have to try teaching them that art.

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  7. What a lovely quilt. I think doing it in a month is pretty good! It would take me ages.

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    1. Thank-you! It is one of my favorite quilts. It would take me longer than that to do a quilt now with all the interruptions I would have.

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  8. Good morning Mary Ann,
    Again, just beautiful !! This is just soooo pretty !! I looked to buy one of these when in Lancaster, but, the were very expensive ....... some like 500-600 dollars !!! So, I had to pass, but, next time MAYBE !! They are truly a piece of heart ..... amazingly, talented women ... Have a happy day my friend ~Tanza~

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    1. They are really expensive, but they last for generations. The price is also why I make my own instead of buying them.

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  9. Your quilt is just beautiful! Those quilts in the Amish shops are SO expensive, and now I know why! Lovely, though.

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    1. Thank-you. I agree they're really expensive, but the quilters need to make a living too. :)

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  10. I really love the colors you chose! It's so beautiful!

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  11. What a beautiful quilt! My Grandmother hand pieced each of her grandchildren and some of her great-grandchildren a quilt top (my daughter was the last one). My Mom sent ours off to all be machine quilted. They are beautiful. I have a quilt that was made by my great grandmother and hand quilted by my great-aunt. I love to make baby quilts but it's all done by machine.

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    1. Having a quilt made by your grandmother is such a treasure.

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  12. Wow so beautiful! Can see the hard work put into this quilt, what a treasure it must be!

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    1. I'm really glad to still have this quilt! It was one of the last projects my Mom helped me figure out. The pattern was more challenging than I had realized when I chose to make it.

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  13. pretty nice blog, following :)

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  14. pretty nice blog, following :)

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  15. This is amazing! First of all ~ thank you for visiting me! I will be your newest follower!
    I make denim quilts but they are a whole different breed from the Amish works of art! I have always been fascinated by the Amish and look forward to getting to know YOU! Easter blessings to you and yours !

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    1. Thanks for following. I have never tried making a denim quilt, I bet they're very nice and warm!

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  16. Your quilt is so very, very beautiful! I want to learn how to quilt, but don't want to do it on a sewing machine, because I don't know how to use one. I do, however, know how to sew with a needle and thread lol.

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    1. A quilt made entirely by hand is a real treasure!

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  17. Your quilt is beautiful! I have made a couple of quilts but sadly I paid someone else to do the quilting and finishing of them:(

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    1. As much as I'm procrastinating when it come to quilting my quilt tops I may have to pay someone to do the quilting for me. I really, really dislike hand quilting.

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  18. Your quilt is absolutely GORGEOUS!

    http://romisdg.blogspot.jp/

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  19. One month is an amazing time to finish a quilt in. My first one took 7 months (all hand sewn) and it was nowhere near as large as yours. The hand quilting really does take lots of time. A xx

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  20. I love your quilt! Absolutely gorgeous!

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Thank you so much for taking time to comment. I love hearing your thoughts.