Superstitions About Quilts 1990

Clamshell

Today I helped work on a quilt that goes to a man in Saudi Arabia — he read about our efforts to help build a library with quilts and ordered one.  My finger is so pricked and punctured that I had to bandage it. I don’t quilt as well with the bandage on the finger that works under the quilt because I need to get the point of the needle when it comes to the bottom, so I can send it in the other direction.  An old remedy for sore and aching quilting fingers is to use hot dish water, but that can only do so much.

There are so many superstitions and tales connected to quilts and quilting — if a lady pieces a Lone Star quilt, she’ll soon be left a widow.  Also, it’s bad luck to put black in a quilt.  So if one wants to get rid of her husband, she could try piecing a Lone Star and put black in it.  Four single girls can hold a quilt out flat — one at each corner and someone else puts a cat in the middle.  When the cat is bounced up and down on the quilt, he will want to jump out onto the ground.  The girl nearest where the cat jumps out will get married next.  Before a girl marries she should have 12 quilts for regular use and one for the wedding night.  Now what if the wedding is in August?  I don’t guess the quilt for the wedding night would be needed!  It’s considered an offense toward God to make a perfect quilt and there are those who will put one piece in the quilt top upside down.  Now this is one thing about which I don’t have to worry — I can’t make a perfect quilt, so I’ll never offend God this way.

Another old belief is whatever a person dreams while sleeping a new quilt for the first time will come true.

Should the reader have a quilt stored in plastic, go immediately and take it out. The quilt needs to breathe and have fresh air circulate through and around it.  The best method for storing a quilt is to put it in an old pillow case and lay it on a closet shelf.  Take the quilt out often and put it on the bed or throw it across a chair.  Fold the quilt differently each time it’s put away — many times an old quilt will be worn out at the fold. Fold the textile in thirds instead of half and sometimes roll it.

What a wonderful, relaxing and rewarding thing — quilting.  I have met so many interesting people and I’m never in a group where quilting is being discussed that I don’t learn something new.  Sometimes it is how little the so-called “authority” knows.  Try quilting, you might like it — for me it’s one of the best parts of country living.