Have you ever wondered what one item (besides your loved ones, of course!) that you would grab if your house was burning down? Would it be the wedding album, the family Bible, the autographed baseball? I’ve thought about this question before and how very few “things” in our lives are really irreplaceable, especially in the age of digital photographs.
In my home, it is the family heirlooms that I hold dear. I’ve got the ceramic tiles with the prints of tiny hands. I’ve got the smiling engagement picture that I lost the negative for years ago. I’ve got a tattered copy of Little Women.
QuiltCon is coming to Austin this weekend, and I’ve been inspired to take another look at one of my favorite family heirlooms, a hand-sewn quilt made by my great-grandmother around the Depression, I think. I have loved this blanket forever. I love the brightly colored scraps of calico she used, which came from old clothes. I love the green-blue background. Most of all, I love the tiny stitches, each one unique, that were made by my great-grandmother’s hand.
Until recently, I had never attempted to learn anything about the pattern. After a bit of research, I believe it might be called Dresden Plate, which would make sense to me because my great-grandmother’s family came over from Germany, so I could see her picking that pattern. But I’m not sure. I love quilts, but I’m not a quilter!
Do you have a quilt in your home? Or another family heirloom that tugs at your heartstrings every time you look at it?
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I have quilts that my great-grandmother (from Alabama) made. My mom has few as well. I have the one my great-grandma and mom made together when my mom was pregnant with me. All my girls used it. It’s in sore need of repair — I’m thinking of bringing it to an expert quilter and having her cut it down, then frame it or make it into a crib-sized blanket for my first born granddaughter. (A long, long, long time from now … LOL.)
My 9 year old just was talking about this — if there were a fire, what she’d save. I told her nothing was more important than her. And she looked at me and said “Ashley and Rebecca.” They are her two dolls. For me, it’s just the kids. I have a lot of kid stuff like you with handprints, poems, art I’ve saved for years … but nothing really is that important. (Hmm…might have to now put those handprints in our fireproof gun safe …)
Laura, what a beautiful quilt! I took up quilting three years ago. It is as addictive as writing!! But I love it.
As I look around, I’m not sure what I would grab. Fortunately, I’ve been giving my married daughter most of the heirlooms that we both hold dear. For me, it is old original photos and letters my father wrote from Panama during the war.
I would make sure the dogs got out of the house and of course my husband and I would be fine.
My family isn’t the crafty type. My grandmother knitted and we all had several of her sweaters. I have few left–tattered, stained and yellowed, but when I pull them down from the top shelf in my closet, they take me right back to my grandmother’s house, and her sitting on the couch, knitting needle waggling as she stitched and talked and laughed. Wonderful warm memories.
I’m not really crafty, but I think that’s because the creative gene skipped me. If the house was burning and I could save one item, I think it would be the painting my dad did years ago of one of my cats.
It would be a hard decision. I’d be tempted to grab a couple of original paintings and my grandmother’s lamp made out of a vase from India that my great-grandmother brought from India by ship in the 1800s. It isn’t really beautiful outside of the colors but I’ve loved it since I was a kid.
Yes, that’s a Dresden Plate pattern and it’s been very popular through the years. I have the bear paw pattern quilt my grandmother made from material left over from dresses she made for me as a toddler. Yes, it’s old enough to be an antique.
That said, I guess I’m weird–or I’ve seen too many fires. I would grab family and critters. Anything else can be replaced, rebuilt, or remembered fondly. Our house is filled with family antiques and while each has a story, special memory, or meaning, none of them would be worth a thing if I, or anyone in my family, was hurt saving them.
I have a wedding ring quilt my grandmother made for my mom and dad, old dishes brought over from Germany by my great-grandparents, my grandmother’s child-sized rocker, hand made by my great-grandfather in the late 1800′s, the hand plow she and my grandfather used when they homesteaded their land in West Texas and my grandmother’s cast iron skillet (that I use daily). My paternal grandmother’s bible (she died when my dad was 2). And then there’s the china cabinet my husband built for me on our 10th anniversary. Not antique, but very sentimental. Too many pictures to count. And I have no idea which I’d grab first.
no quilt or heirloom
I like the quilt pictured. I have two quilts. One I bought at Sears, a blue quilt. I think the brand is Arch, which I used to see on Q.V.C. The other one is from Ames (Aames?), a discount store that went out of business a while ago. It’s a Victorian style – white w/ lace.
My generation of the family isn’t terribly sentimental… must be all the moving around! It’s hard to lug heirlooms around over 3 continents & endless moves, haha. But the parents do have some things from previous generations tucked away in the flat in the motherland– the one none of us has been to in years. There was a fire in the highrise the parents lived in a few years back when I was visiting over the summer holiday and I was the only one home– grabbed the dog, passport, wallet, & keys, and got out. That’s about all I take (minus the dog, since I don’t have one) whenever we have to evacuate my building.
Quilts are awesome. I have one my Grandma made for me and the one that won grand prize at the fair. Gma passed away last year at 104. The quilts and wedding album are on the ” emergency grab” list. Now, if I could remember to put the rest of the pics on a memory stick, I can take that too. All the important docs are in the safety deposit box.
I lost our quilts when my house was damaged in a windstorm. I still have some of the other heirlooms – the china doll, the double-weave coverlet, my grandmother’s postcard collection. But what would I grab . . . only my family. They are all just things, and people come before things.
Love our black and white pics we have of me and. My parents
I’ve made a few quilts, in fact the one on my bed is one I made. I took quilting classes with my sister for a couple of years, and mostly sewed the quilts during that time. I haven’t done much since then, but I love the ones I made and hope to get back to it one day. The family heirloom I treasure is my mother’s photo album from when she was a young girl. I always enjoyed looking at the family pictures with her and told her I’d love to have it. She gave it to me a few years before she died.
I have wonderful sculptures that my father created which I have started to give as gifts to my sons. they are unique and special.
I have a blanket my grandmother made that is pretty special. My has the majority of the family quilts.
These days i’d have to rescue mom’s blown glass boat that is living in my house while mom and dad are between houses.
Once my family is out and safe, ideally I’d like to have an opportunity to save my pets as well, but lets just hope I’m never in that situation!
I have a blanket box full of shawls my mum knitted when pregnant with my sister, that we handed down to me when I gave her the first grandchild. There’s also some handsmocked dresses (and no one handsmocks things anymore!) that my Aunt made for my sister and I that were passed down to my daughter. I was always too fearful to use them out of fear they would get vomited on or ruined.
I’ve kept t-shirts from every destination I have taken the kids on holidays, and hope that in the future I will learn to quilt and make the designs of those shirts into a blanket for each of the kids when they leave home. So few people seem to have family heirlooms these days…..
It is a beautiful quilt. A skill I would love to have.
My grandpa recently passed away and I have a rosary of his and some of his favorite college football teams Christmas ornament. My kids and I both spent time talking about some of our memories of him as we put the ornaments on our tree this year. Little things like that hold a special place in my heart