Close to Nowhere - Linda Jones

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Thursday, November 1, 2007
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Close to Nowhere
By Linda Jones

Busy weekend

My quilt guild in Oxford, the Piecemakers, hosted the Mississippi Quilt Association fall gathering this past weekend in Oxford.

The guild rented the brand new activity center at Oxford United Methodist Church and it’s beautiful! It was just absolutely perfect for the quilt show/meeting.

There were approximately 150 women (well, 147 women, three men) for the two-day affair. And they came from all over the state.

One of the presenters was from Holly Springs — Maxine Thompson, who along with her husband George, rescued seven very old quilts from the Marshall County landfill last year. Maxine and George brought the quilts with them to show and Broach Winsley, the MQA president (and also a member of the Oxford Piecemakers), will be taking them to be appraised and then the quilts will be donated to the Ole Miss museum.

Another interesting presenter was a family group — a son, his mother and mother-in-law, who all quilt together. I got confused somewhere with the family relations, but I do know that the man, his wife, and two mothers, all quilt. Beautifully, I might add. His wife can’t rotary cut because of arthritis and he can’t sew, so they make a great team.

Many of the Piecemakers brought quilts to hang around the balcony — all were gorgeous, including one my granddaughter Meredith hung (a candy corn design).

One of the most fascinating was an 1890s crazy quilt made of velvets and silks. It was exquisite and quite beautiful, even though it was worn and ragged in some places.

One that caused quite a stir was one of mine — several years ago, Milton Winter passed on three of his great-grandmother’s quilts to me. One was a yo-yo quilt, done in 1930s fabric (appropriate, since that was the era it was made). The quilt is patterned in diamonds, set off with mustard yellow yo-yos and hanging on the balcony it was spectacular. When we took the quilts down, I was bombarded with ladies wanting to see it close up and examine the 1,000s (yes, 1,000s) of tiny yo-yos and how they were sewn together.

I’m sure Milton’s great-grandmother was beaming down on us in heaven — I hope she’s happy with all the love and admiration her quilts are still garnering.

And I do have to brag on my granddaughter here — at 11, she’s the youngest member of our guild and she worked as hard this weekend as did we old ladies. Maybe harder.

I bought her some quilt books as a reward for all her hard work and discovered that she has her own plans for my new sewing room — she wants her own corner — caged, so her mother (or I or her little sister) can’t touch her fabrics, books and sewing machine.

She’s a true quilter!

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