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   Martha
Winn
My
first experience with quilts came when visiting my grandparents next
door. My great-grandmother and her sisters
used to
quilt together, using my father’s old pajamas, aprons, tablecloths,
dresses and
other bits and pieces from their lives. While I wasn’t born early enough to
witness them quilting,
I used to go
over and beg my grandfather to see their quilts. He had at least 20 of
them,
but I always remembered one in particular: a quilt made only with
medallions
that reminded me of lace. When I was a
teenager, my grandfather sold those quilts to get money to buy a
car.
I was heartbroken that I would never see
them or touch them again. Then, a
couple of years ago, my sister was unpacking boxes after a move and
told me she
had an old quilt that she thought I might like, since I was a quilter
now. It was that same medallion quilt! She had asked my
grandfather for it when she
learned he was going to sell them. ©
2005 Winnsome Quilts |
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  While I started learning how to quilt using some traditional patterns, I quickly realized that the kinds of quilts my great-grandmother and great-great aunts made were not my style or my forte. Even my very first quilts used African fabric that I had from my trip to Ghana, but I also began to mess with the shapes and content as much as was possible, using the basic sewing machine I had found at a yard sale, and often laying the pieces out on the floor or bed in my daughter’s bedroom. I
am still a low-tech quilter, and far from being a professional, I steal
an hour
here and there, between dropping kids off, picking them up, reading
stories,
playing catch, etc., but expressing myself through quilts is one of my
big
loves and I hope, one day, to be able to devote a lot more time to it.
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