Happy Mother’s Day

This Mother’s Day I’m not thinking exclusively of my mom (Sorry, Mom!) but more of my grandmothers. One grandmother taught me to sew and the other introduced me to quilts. Without them, there would not even be a Bags by April.

My grandmother that taught me to sew was my mom’s mother. She was German. Fierce and determined and often unyielding.  Note, I’m being kind by adding the “often.” But she was who she was and I loved her. This grandma didn’t quilt but she sewed. It took a lot of nagging and fighting but she did teach me sew. However, we all pretty much thought that I wouldn’t ever have a career as a seamstress—since I certainly couldn’t master following pattern directions or sewing zippers, armpits, and crotches. Maybe sewing crotches seems funny, but go ahead and try to wear a pair of pants where the crotch seam is all wonky. Good luck.

Due to location, I wasn’t very close to my other grandmother. Still, I remember the beautiful quilts that she made and that her mother made. I loved to look at them when we would visit. I had a favorite quilt that I always wanted to see and touch. I loved running my hands over it and feeling the seams and top stitching. The best times where when she had quilts processing. I loved looking at all the different colors and pieces and imagining what they would look like sewing together.

While I learned to sew as a child, it was as an adult that I learned to love to sew and that love came from quilting. Bags by April was actually born from my love to cut up perfectly good fabric into tiny pieces and then sew all those tiny pieces back together into something amazing.  The down side of quilting is expense and time. It takes a lot of fabric and a lot of time to make a quilt. While I love the process, I lean a little more towards instant gratification—not exactly instant, but quilts take a long time! Bags only take a few hours and the process is very similar.

So a big a thank you to Erika and Lorene! They were two completely different people but a bit of both of their creativity lives on in my bags.