Handmade Quilts & Fabric Art for Gifts
December 23, 2008 by Mary Emma Allen
Filed under Home & Living
Handmade Gifts
My daughter just read an article reporting that more people are purchasing craft supplies and making gifts or buying them this year for Christmas. The Etsy online site has been doing a phenomenol business in some areas. This reminds me of days ago.
For I grew up in the era of handmade or homemade gifts. Sometimes this was because we and our relatives didn’t have the money to purchase many from the store or mail order catalog. Often it simply was because we liked to make something special and the recipients enjoyed these gifts.
In later years, when I had a family, we made gifts for my mom and for my mother-in-law as well as others. One Christmas, my daughter Beth stitched my mother a lap quilt. Mother always had enjoyed quilts although she hadn’t made any since she was a child.
She seemed to enjoy this gift, even though she had Alzheimer’s and resided in a nursing home. She would finger the pattern and pieces and comment, “Pretty.”
My mother-in-law asked Beth to make her a small quilt to hang on her wall. Beth used the Ohio Star pattern because Mum grew up in that state, even though she’d spent the last 60 years of her life in New Hampshire.
Do you make quilted and fabric art gifts for the people in your life? Share with us what you made this year (unless the person you’ve made it for reads Quilting and Patchwork, too!).
(Amazon image)
Last year I made quilted lap robes for my 2 sons and my stepson. I found old shirts at a thrift shop and cut them up and sewed them together in simple blocks. Then I backed them with inexpensive flannel in a masculine pattern (I didn’t use batting). They all loved them!