MAKE YOUR OWN QUILTS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 195, 7 November 1927, Page 5

MAKE YOUR OWN QUILTS

By MRS. A. HARGRAVE. It is strange that just now, when we are blamed on all sides for being restless and loving excitement, there should be such a decided revival of beautiful needlework, the most peaceful of all occupations! Yet, perhaps, not so strange, since every “disease” suggests to someone its appropriate antidote, and certainly jaded and over-stimulated nerves are soothed by the rhythm of the eternal “Sitch! Stitch! Stitch!” —when it isn’t a question of wage-earning, wrought against time. The very feeling that here is something you are creating with your fingers, and that it does not matter to anybody (but yourself) whether it is ever finished, is a sort of summer holiday of the mind. For that purpose a rather large piece of work is particularly helpful. You can turn to it again and again, as to an old and trusted friend. And so to quilts! Charm of Patchwork Our great-grandmothers sewed small scraps of silk, satin, velvet or cotton together with amazing neatness and regularity, to form the now famous patchwork quilts. All the patches had certain forms — octagonal, hexagonal, diamond, oblong or square, and tame as they sound in mere print, some of those old patterns achieved a fascinating charm. They were memory notes, too, of all the frocks of all the family and friends. In America, especially, where men have always worked absorbingly and women have always had to make the best of each other’s society, quilting parties were as much the vogue at one time as the more “high-brow” societies of to-day. The New Way Quite lately there has been a revival of the hand-worked quilt in a rm tt&ore suited to modem wa-ys—-

for though we stitch again, we want to stitch quickly! If you want to be in the fashion you must applique flower and foliage designs, cut from cretonne, on to your quilt. Some extraordinarily delightful effects are to be obtained in this way. The upright flowers of spring, crocus, narcissi, tulips for instance, make an entrancing border, and a clever worker will soon discover where she can add a few simple stitches in wool or silk to emphasise or add to the pattern. Flowers can be taken from several of the really lovely new cretonnes to intermingle in “clumps,” or wreaths, the background can be of any material; linen, wool repp, soft satin, as you please. Where the curtains and chair-covers in a bedroom are of a really effective cretonne, the best sort of bed cover is of a toning plain coloured linen decorated with this applique. If there is need of a curtain for a hanging

cupboard, let it match the quilt, not the other curtains. For anyone who loves colour, and knows how to use it, the possibilities in quilt-making are indeed far beyond the scope of this short article.