While I was working last night, something clicked in my head that brought a memory back of a lady that I worked with when I was a young mother. A lady who was on the verge of retirement and who trained me in the job that I held at Eaton's Warehouse in Winnipeg.
Margaret Forester. I did not know her for a long time -- at most perhaps a year that we worked together, but I think in my series of people who influenced me in my hobby and art of quilting, I should not leave Margaret out.
Margaret was born early in the 20th century, or maybe a few years before even. When I knew her she was well past the regular retirement age of 65 but she said that her life was work so why sit at home complaining about aches and pains. I don't think she actually had any, though!
Margaret was a crafty person, mostly she did embroidery. When I knew her in the mid-1970's there were still alot of the older generation who did their own embellishments on towels, and pillowcases, on the corners of kitchen curtains, and on handkerchiefs for the "menfolk". Margaret also made quilts. She made them completely by hand, hand sewing all the pieces and then hand basting the layers together and finally hand quilting the layers.
It was from Margaret that I learned to baste the layers of a quilt together. Most of my days and evening were taken up with either working at Eatons, or looking after my grade school age boys, but quiltmaking had caught hold of me even then and I was eager to learn. Eager to Learn, especially when invited over to see how it was done!
Margaret had a small apartment in an older block on Sargent Ave, almost a studio -- a combined kitchen and living area, a bathroom and a bedroom. When I first went to visit her in her home I realized that Margaret LOVED her hobbies -- she did not have the kind of living room that was meant for sitting and watching TV, or for visiting with groups of people. She had a small "bistro" type of table near her kitchen with two mis-matched kitchen chairs. She had no television. She had a floor model radio - the kind with tubes in it, and a record player on the side -- the kind of radio made in the 1950's!
The rest of the main room was linoleum flooring with very little furniture. She had a treadle sewing machine over near the window and dressing type of table with her scissors and wood ruler and a box with threads in it. Nothing at all fancy.
While I was there the first time, she pulled out a sort of folding "saw horse" -- actually 4 of them -- I had never seen anything like it and have never seen it since. She set up these 4 contraptions and then pulled out 2 long boards that had been laying on the floor along one wall. These boards she laid on top of the contraptions so that it formed a large rectangle. Then with my help she laid on top of the boards the backing of her next quilt -- I held one side while she clamped (using C clamps) down the other side.
The whole project, just getting the layers onto that frame, and making sure it was straight and even took all afternoon -- with a break for tea of course.
We talked of many different things, things that if asked now what they were, I would have to make up a story just to keep you interested in Margaret and to keep you wanting to hear more about her.
One of the things that I do remember so very clearly about Margaret was that she told me that she was born out on the north prairie somewhere between Winnipeg and the Peace River District in Northern Alberta. She said that her parents had come from Scotland and landed in Boston, Mass in 1897. Her father was looking for his own land to farm and he had applied for a homestead in the Peace River. She said that her parents had travelled by train to Winnipeg, and from the stories that her older siblings had told her, they travelled the rest of the way in two covered wagons. She said the followed the Yellowhead Trail and it took the family almost two years from Scotland to the Peace River!
The idea of her being born out in the middle of nowhere returns in my memories of her fairly often. The whole idea of hand quilting and hand piecing a quilt is done by very few -- in fact Applique seems to be becoming less and less on quilts today. When I compare the life of children born in recent years with no knowledge of what people did to achieve then what seems so easily done now.
Today, I don't know much more about Margaret except that she did embroidery and made quilts, and I imagine she is no longer on this earth as she would be into her second century if that were so. She was one of the people who have influenced my journey in quiltmaking and even in other crafts that I do...
Do You think about those who have helped you to learn the things you want to know more about?
