Quilts

The Muleshoe Memorial Cemetery decided to hold a quilt raffle as a fundraiser to raise money to make improvements at the cemetery. The raffle is to be held November 11, Veteran’s Day, at the Oneita Wagnon Senior Center. The senior center is also having their own fundraisers that day with a Thanksgiving meal and auction.

Aurora Shipley made and donated these quilts for the raffle. They were on display at the holiday sale at the civic center this past Saturday, and Rosie Gonzales, Aurora’s sister, graciously held them up for me to take these pictures. She’s the person behind the quilts!

I won’t be able to tell you who won each quilt since I am sharing these pictures with you before the raffle will be held. But I can share some other quilts with you that are not to be raffled off. The Bailey County Historical Commission was meeting about this time and thought it would be appropriate to have a display of quilts, an art form that used to be a way to recycle, if you will, remnants of material while turning them into something useful as well as intricate and beautiful. Back in the day, these works of art were all meticulously pieced together by hand, but in more modern times many are now finished on sewing machines. Either way, they are labors of love. So, Rebecca Beall put the word out inviting people to bring some of their quilts for display. So here are the quilts brought by Pam Helton, Nelda Hunt, Virginia Bowers, Ruth Hall, Richard Warren, and  me; quilts made Gayle Sizemore, Nelda Hunt, Virginia Bowers, Dorothy Bowers, Birdie Warren, Carolyn Drum, Loreda Drum, church women, and friends who wanted to share a memory with other friends.

I took a few close-ups of the work on some of the quilts. Tiny, precise stitches that you really have to see in person to appreciate., like this one made by Nelda Hunt.

Quilts many times are made by giving friends and family pieces of material to be decorated and collected into a quilt for a friend as a keepsake as well as something to keep them warm on cold nights.

This quilt made by Birdie Warren has embroidery recording the Warren family tree, a nice family heirloom.

Other quilts have decorative embroidery on them, like this one made by a group of women from Gruver, Texas, and brought by Ruth Hall.

My aunt Loreda Drum was a quilter that I talked into making a quilt out of my collection of souvenir t-shirts. She also made one out of all those Muleshoe t-shirts I collected every year,  so the plan was to use it to stay warm at Mules’ football games. It never saw the lights of a football stadium because I didn’t want it to get dirty! But I’m glad I have it.

I don’t know about the other people who brought their family heirlooms to be shared, but I dug into my old trunk to find  the ones I wanted to share. The irony about quilts is that they are made to keep us warm, but many get tucked away like mine so they won’t get dirty or torn. I’m pretty sure my grandmother’s quilt, or perhaps it was actually my great-grandmother’s quilt that Grandmother wound up with it, is the oldest one in the display, going back to the early 1900s, maybe even the late 1800s. It’s worn in many places, and I would hate to use it now and see it get torn up. I think this is the wedding ring pattern, or something like that.

Those of you who live in Muleshoe or nearby, have time to visit the senior center and see the quits up close and personal, maybe even buy a raffle ticket. The display will come down on November 11. The center is open from 9 to 4. I hope you can see them in person. You might even be inspired to make one yourself!

Thank you to all of you who brought the quilts to share, and to all the women through time that made them.