Telling you how to quilt is almost as impossible to write in words as to describe an accordion without moving your hands. One quilter says use a short needle, another holds out for a long needle, nicely curved! After trying it and observing experts it seems to me that the trick is in sewing clear around and back again like your hand could roll about the small curved units, sort of a standing on your head effect. Aye, this is the rub that may keep the quilts of today from really rivaling the ones of yester-year.

The authentic way to quilt is to have a large frame into which the whole coverlet is stretched. The frame itself is so simply constructed that every household used to have its own. Four smoothed pine strips 2 inches wide by 3/4 inch or 1 inch thick are cut in two lengths. Two long ones are possibly 9 feet long while the width pair may be 90 inches or only four feet.

Maybe this should be “compartment” quilting, but still it was originated for the woman who lives in tiny rooms, efficiency all over, even to finishing her full-sized quilt therein, to its last lovely stitch. This may be done in an apartment that can’t accommodate a large picture frame, to say nothing of quilting frames! One young thing wrote, “We even have collapsible tooth brushes, and yet, I am quilting mine own quilt.”

We have carried our story of quilt information through several chapters to help you decide on material, and patterns for piecing and quilting. We have told you how to cut and make up the blocks, and fit them together into a top. That is as far as most modern quilt makers care to go. It is usually the wisest thing here to call upon a professional quilter or your church “aid society” to complete the task-especially if you are inexperienced and the quilt top handsome.