Column #45
Sampling
Several months ago, I received an unexpected package in the mail from my cousin Kirby’s wife, Jonnie. It was a shoebox. Inside were scrap fabrics dating from the 1930s to the 1960s cut into squares and triangles. At the bottom of the box was a finished quilt block, and pinned to it with a straight pin were the block’s templates, cut from the cardboard backing of a Big Chief writing tablet.
I recognized few of the fabrics, but I definitely identified the way those templates were pinned to a sample block as being my Aunt Neva’s doing. My brother and I lived with Aunt Neva, Uncle Owen, and Kirby when we were little, and it was Aunt Neva who instilled in me a love of quilts and quilting.
When Aunt Neva found a quilt pattern she especially liked, she would make templates for the required pieces out of thin cardboard. Then she would construct a sample block. Sometimes, she would go on to make a whole quilt of that pattern, but more often she just made the sample, attached the cardboard templates to it with a straight pin after writing the pattern name on each template, and put it all in a box.
I wish now that I had thought to ask her about that while she was still alive. Did making the sample block cause her to decide she didn’t like the pattern well enough to make a whole quilt out of it? Was she waiting until she got enough of the right sort of fabrics? Were the demands of a farm wife with livestock, a teenager, and small kids to care for such that she didn’t have time to take on another quilt top? Perhaps none of those things—maybe she just liked making the samples.
I have a wonderful memory of an afternoon long ago when Aunt Neva and I got out all the samples and laid them out on her bed. We moved them around, having fun trying to see what looked good next to what. Side by side, the different patterns were a jumble of sizes and a rather eye-popping mixture of fabric colors. But taken together and viewed as a whole, they formed something that the two of us found exciting.
In hip hop music, “sampling” refers to taking a portion of one piece of recorded music and using it in a different way in another recording, thereby making an entirely new song. That’s what Aunt Neva’s sample blocks were like to me. There are times when a sample is all you need.
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Archived blogs:
Column 78: Ollie Steele Burden’s Quilt Blocks
Column 77: Quilting with AMD
Column 76: Maverick Quilts and Cowgirls
Column 75: The Modern Quilt Guild—Cyberculture Quilting Ramps Up
Column 74: The Membership Quilt—Czech Quilting in Texas
Column 73: Maximum Security Quilts
Column 72: Author: Terri Thayer
Column 71: The Christmas Quilt
Column 70: New Mexico Centennial Quilt
Column 69: Scrub Quilts
Column 68: “Think Pink” Quilt Raises Funds for Rare Cancer Research
Column 67: Righting Old Wrongs.
Column 66: 100 Years, 100 Quilts - More on the Arizona Centennial.
Column 65: Arizona Centennial Quilt Project
Column 64: Capt. John Files Tom’s Family Tree
Column 63: The Fat Quarters
Column 62: Quilt Fiction Author: Clare O’Donohue
Column 61: Louisiana Bicentennial Quilt
Column 60: The Camo Quilt Project.
Column 59: Thread Wit
Column 58: Ralli Quilts
Column 57: Preschool Quilters
Column 56: The Story Quilt
Column 55: Red and Green Quilts
Column 54: On the Trail
Column 53: Quilt Trail Gathering
Column 52: True Confessions: First Quilt
Column 51: Quilted Pages
Column 50: Doll Quilts
Column 49: More Than a Quilt Shop
Column 48: Las Colchas of the Texas-Mexico Border
Column 47: Literary Gifts
Column 46: A Different Way of Seeing
Column 45: Sampling
Column 44: Hen and Chicks
Column 43: A Star Studied Event
Column 42: Shoo
Fly Pattern
Column 41: Awareness Quilts
Column 40: Tivaevae
Column 39: UnOILed UnspOILed Coast Quilt Project
Column 38: Katrina Recovery Quilts
Column 37: Quilted Vermont
Column 36: The Labyrinth Quilt—A Meditative Endeavor
See other archived columns here
