Handmade Quilts Bring Back Flood of Memories

Judy Davidson unfolded the slightly frayed, hand-stitched quilt made by her grandmother half a century ago, bringing back a flood of memories of growing up during the Depression in Bakersfield.

“It was the brightest thing we had in the house,” said Davidson, who received the handmade, multicolored crazy quilt at her birth 50 years ago and used it for 40 years before finally putting it away for safekeeping.

“It’s made with scraps from men’s ties and dresses grandma begged, borrowed and appropriated from all her friends. It went with me everywhere,” said Davidson, now a Simi Valley resident.

Davidson was one of several hundred people who took treasured quilts Saturday from trunks, attics, beds and closets to St. James Presbyterian Church in Tarzana to show to members of a nonprofit group called California Heritage Quilt Project.

Holding 30 ‘Quilt Days’

Group members are holding 30 “Quilt Days” like the one at the Tarzana church in cities all over California in an effort to locate and document quilts made in or brought to California before 1945. The effort is funded with donations from museums, foundations, guilds, quilt makers and other interested individuals.

Project officials hope that quilts of great beauty or historic value uncovered during the statewide search will eventually be featured in a series of museum exhibitions and in a book on the quilts and their makers, said Mary Hjalmarson, vice president of the California Heritage Quilt Project and coordinator of Saturday’s event.

California is one of about 25 states conducting similar quilt projects.

One purpose of the shows is to heighten public awareness of quilts as unique pieces of art and history, Hjalmarson said. Although quilts are now becoming valued--so much so that some sell for thousands of dollars--many people do not realize their significance, she said.

“We have found quilts in the most awful places. In one family, the daughter was using the quilt to cover the seat in her car and this beautiful quilt was fading in the sun. Many times, people have used them for mattress pads or thrown them in the garage to cover things up. A lot of times, they don’t realize the time and creativity that went into them.”

An easy-to-make quilt requires 100 to 200 hours of work, said Donna Horvatos, a member of the San Fernando Valley Quilt Assn., who was helping to document quilts Saturday.

Members of the San Fernando Valley and Simi Valley quilt associations worked with project members to gather information about each quilt and whatever could be learned about the quilt makers. The quilts were then measured, carefully hung from rods for full-length display and photographed.

The most significant quilt at each Quilt Day is awarded a $100 prize. The quilts shown Saturday will be judged in about a week, Hjalmarson said.

But the prize does not necessarily go to the oldest or most beautiful quilt. The stories attached to the quilts are of equal or greater importance, officials said.

Some are fascinating, Horvatos said.

One Family Reluctant

For instance, one family had an exquisitely designed, executed and preserved quilt that they were ashamed to bring out at an earlier show. After coaxing, the story finally emerged that a family ancestor serving in the Union Army had stolen the quilt from a Southern home during the Civil War.

The name of the Southern family from whom the quilt was stolen was sewn on the quilt. The descendants of the thief returned the quilt to the descendants of the Southern family, Horvatos said.

Stories at the Saturday event were perhaps less striking, but varied and interesting nonetheless, Hjalmarson said.

A Granada Hills woman brought in a quilt made by her husband’s grandmother in the late 1870s as she traveled in a covered wagon from Springfield, Ill., to Montana. The quilt’s pattern is called hole-in-the-barn-door because of the square in the middle, Hjalmarson said.

Another woman brought in a quilt given her by her grandmother, who told her the quilt was made by Gen. George Armstrong Custer’s aunt.

A third woman Saturday brought in a quilt that was a wedding present to her parents, but it contained more than personal history. The woman told project directors that the quilt was made with fabric scraps left over from dresses made for several early Hollywood stars.

Stories Authenticated

Efforts are made to authenticate the stories of the quilts considered for inclusion in the book or exhibitions, Hjalmarson said.

Richard Rosenbloom, 33, a Van Nuys construction supervisor, brought a multicolored, multifabric crazy quilt he found in a trunk to the church Saturday seeking to learn its value.

Rosenbloom said he doesn’t know quilts “from gym socks.” While driving by a Van Nuys house in his pickup truck, he saw a discarded trunk. Members of a cleaning crew told him the trunk’s owner had died and left the trunk and other items. All were to be thrown away. They invited Rosenbloom to take the trunk, Rosenbloom said.

Inside the trunk, along with the quilt, Rosenbloom found a wedding dress, a box of pictures, love letters and several Bibles filled with family trees. The earliest entry in the Bibles was 1865, he said.

Rosenbloom said the quilt is being represented by a quilt broker. He is uncertain whether he will try to trace the history of its maker.

Quilt brokers are an indication of the growing value of quilts.

‘Quilting Popular Today’

“Quilting is very, very popular today. It’s become a $1-billion industry,” Horvatos said.

Hannah Meottel, a quilt association member, attributes this to “a growing interest in country things. People are interested in their heritage.”

“It’s the hottest thing going in the craft world today. It’s a definite art form and the medium is fabric, not oils or acrylic,” Meottel said.

“What I’m finding so exciting about the quilts today is that so many of them are used and loved, which is what they should be. Some people make quilts and put them in a drawer and never use them. One woman made a quilt 100 years ago and it sat in a trunk all this time.”