Monday, July 7

What's on the line? It's the 70's and double knits!

Good Monday morning! Sunshine was in abundance this past weekend so I took a little lap quilt out to the line to get a photo.................
Two other items were in "abundance" on Sunday afternoon when I took this photo..........wind...........

and gnats! Oh, my, it was all I could do to hang the quilt and quickly snap some photos and get back in the house! The mosquitos are pretty abundant, too, but they must have been sleeping at the time I took the quilt out to the line. The windy conditions kept me from getting a good photo of the quilt "on the line" so I brought it inside and laid it on the living room floor. This lap quilt was made by my mother, Mary, sometime in the late 1970's. It's almost all polyester double-knits so basically indestructible. ;-)  The fabrics came from an interesting source. From 1972-1974, we lived in Dumont, New Jersey in a nice little brick apartment complex. I became friends with my neighbor, Barbara, who was also the building Superintendent. Her husband's job was driving a garbage truck and two of his main stops were these stores.....Two Guys and White Modell. If you are reading and are from the East Coast of the U.S., you may be familiar with these stores. Don't know if they still exist. Anyway, he often came home with "finds" and he knew I liked fabric so when he saw that "tons" of polyester double-knits had been tossed, he brought home at least a "half-a-ton" to me. LOL! When we moved back to Iowa, I shared my stash of double-knits with my mom. This is one of the projects she made with those fabrics. and it's funny how things go because when the quilt is "on the line", you don't notice the pattern as much as when you lay the quilt out on the floor. There was clearly a pattern here and I like it. I can tell just how she assembled this .......... top two rows and bottom two rows are identical, so are rows three and four/eight and nine. Rows five and six are the same and only the center row is different. Her squares didn't always match but that's okay. This was a lap quilt that was used a lot.
 The back of the lap quilt is this pretty flannel and the inside of the quilt? It's an old, soft red blanket.
So, is there a polyester, double-knit quilt at your house?  I have a couple of them. More to come on another day.
Currently working on Christmas blocks, wooly projects, pincushions and more. I have set up some groups on Facebook. There are already plenty of fun quilty groups there but I added a couple of my own. Here's the link to my pincushion group - Pincushions and Pretties. If you are on Facebook, check it out. :-)
Have a good Monday, a great start to a great week!
Sandi

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

That brings back so many memories!!! I don't own a poly quilt but back "in the day" I helped many a church group put them together for 'missions'. Interesting pattern, too!!!

Beth said...

My cousins talk about Grandma's poly quilts. I wasn't quilting yet when all that poly was out there. Fun to see the quilt on the line.And it looks good.

Karen said...

Oh how well I remember double knits. Especially the double knit pants. My mother wore them right up until the end because hers never wore out. We had no quilts made from them though.

Needled Mom said...

We did a lot of clothing with double knits, but never tried a quilt. I'll bet it is comfortable with that backing.

Sarah or Semmy said...

I still have a large plastic bin of knits and people still give them to me. They mae great floor quilts to give to new mothers for the child to play on. My dogs love them to suggle on in cold weather and all the kids and grands have them to carry in their car trunks. Like you say they last forever. The thread will rot way before the fabric! Thanks for the memories of the sixties. Remember the double knit "leiesure Suits?

Colleen M said...

We have a queen sized polyester quilt on our bed. I made it when I was a kid. I used scraps left over from fabrics my mom used to make pants, etc for my grandma. Most from the 70's since my grandma died when I was a junior in HS back in 1980. Yikes! I'm dating myself. I also used an old blanket in the middle. Thanks for sharing:)

Cheryl's Teapots2Quilting said...

I have an old double knit lap quilt that we used at soccer games. Couldn't hurt that quilt. I also have 2 other double knit tops, from family members, that I need to quilt one day. One of them is double knit hexies.

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