Little Egypt Heritage Articles Stories of Southern Illinois © Bill Oliver 2 April 2006 Vol 5 Issue: #13 ISBN: pending Osiyo, Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen of Little Egypt, This year I am ready for spring. There was a picture in my local newspaper this week of a young lad sitting in the boughs of a cherry tree. The caption was “Cherry Blossom Time On The Potomac”. Well, in a very broad sense it was “on the Potomac” river, though actually it was around the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C. The Cherry Tree he was sitting in was one of the 3,000 cherry trees given to Washington by Tokyo. And, as you might guess, the tree was in full bloom. The sight of these trees in bloom excites the blood. I know because I graduated from a high school just across the Potomac River from the Tidal Basin and I’ve walked around the Tidal Basin during the annual National Cherry Blossom Festival. Two Sundays ago I was in Southern Illinois where Grandma Oliver and my Dad had their roots. There the daffodils and the forsythia bushes were in full bloom. Pictures were taken of this sign of spring so that I could view spring when I returned to northwest Ohio. Spring has not quite arrived here yet. The air has a spring smell and feel though, and the nights are not going down to freezing or below any longer. Thus, it is time to bring up the spring clothes and take down the winter ones. This includes putting away the “comforters” from the beds. When we bring the comforters out or put them away, I’m reminded of the quilts Grandma Oliver made during my lifetime. She wanted to make them for each of her great grandchildren. However, there were too many of them to reach that goal. There were well over thirty of them before she passed over. Toward the end of her life Grandma Oliver would run her fingers over the stitching of a quilt and give it a rating with comments. “See how this quilt puffs up? That’s cause of the tight stitching. They used to say that my stitching was the tightest!” “See these, them’s embroidery. There’s all kinds of them.” You could tell that she wanted to be “quilting”. Her arthritic fingers just wouldn’t cooperate. I’m sure that we all have a very romantic view of “the” quilting bee and/or “party”. We’ve heard tell of neighbors all being invited to a quilting. The women would quilt all day, perhaps taking turns around the frame while others cooked up the grand meal that would be served to the menfolk that evening. Then it was a time for singing, dancing and courting among the young people. Sounds much like “harvest day” when neighbors gathered together to bring in the harvest. Most quilting was done not at parties but by one or two “quilting” to accomplish practical goals. Grandma Oliver used to say that she and her friends would get together to piece together a quilt and the host did furnish the noon day meal; however, this mainly got these friends together to enjoy the company as well as to get something “done”. However, due to varying skills, if Grandma was making something special anyone who helped her had to match her skills of stitching. In my memory that was usually her daughter. It might be stretching my memory a a bit; however, in place of the modern “bridal shower”, quilting bees were social events where even the less skilled were welcome. Finishing a bride’s set of quilts before the wedding must have been a grand time with much frolicking. One can envision that out on the plains where there was much isolation, the goal, I’m sure, was to help overcome the loneliness that was felt. Quilting sessions in these circumstances were a regular part of the life of women. In Grandma Oliver’s youth, frames were not purchased from the mail order houses. They were constructed from four sturdy lengths of wood. Two strips long enough to hold at least the width of a quilt would be fitted with heavy cloth attached along the length. The ends of the quilt would be basted or pinned to this cloth. The other two pieces of wood could be of varying length and would hold the first two apart so that the ends of the quilt could be rolled tightly leaving a nice firm area for the quilters to do their stitching. As one section of the quilt was completed the quilt could be rolled exposing a new section to be quilted. As a historian, I can’t find any “hard” evidence that what we call “quilting parties” existed before the middle eighteen hundreds. Also, it seems more of a “frontier” activity to include the “family” thus making it more of a community gathering. One such innovation was the “round robin” where one person creates the center block and then passes this on to another for them to add what they feel is appropriate, then to a third, and so on. This suggests that “friendship” quilts would be of this style but less symmetrical. Speaking of “style”, groups are far reaching. These get-togethers have not gone by the way-side. Quilters gather to practice and share their craft. They gather together in the 21st century via computer to explore and share their interests and designs. And, thanks to online communities, quilters are continuing to find ways to connect with each other in today's busy world. Women in the United States used the bees not only to make quilts, but also to socialize and catch up on the news of the day. The popularity of these gatherings peaked in the 19th century and interest in the craft slowly faded. Recently, with such things as the American Folk Arts and Crafts shows during the bicentennial, interest in quilting has a resurgence. As states, with nearly every other segment of society, today's quilting has embraced technology. The Internet is now populated with hundreds of online discussion groups where people help each other with quilting challenges, post pictures of their latest projects and share life's ups and downs. These conversations take place 24/7 [24 hours a day, 7 days a week] and span the globe. Grandma Oliver before she passed gave our daughter, Sarah, many of her “blocks” in hopes that she might use them. Sarah did pick up the desire to do quilts. She used the sewing machine to produce the tight stitching that Grandma did by hand. After our daughter passed away two years ago, one of her Aunts made a quilted wall hanging and presented it to us to bring back the wonderful memories of all the sewing Sarah accomplished. e-la-Di-e-das-Di ha-wi nv-wa-do-hi-ya nv-wa-to-hi-ya-da. (May you walk in peace and harmony) and Wado, Bill -=- PostScript: * [http://www.thesouthern.com/articles/2006/03/23/local/columnists/gelman/10005846.txt] Other sites worth visiting: http://www.deannedurrett.com/codetalkers.html PostScript: = = = = http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/SOIL http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/ILMASSAC http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ne/state/BillsArticles/LittleEgypt/intro.html