When I was in the seventh grade, my mother said I could have scraps from all the outfits that were made for my sisters and myself.  This was a lot of scraps because she sewed cloths for all four of us girls and she also sewed shirts for my brothers.

    I began making 9 patches on the sewing machine, such as you see in the illustration.  Mom let me use the treadle machine.  I made several blocks but not enough for a full size top.  So Mom also gave me scraps from my brother's shirts.  Now I have more, but not enough.  She searched through her fabrics again.  This time she came into my sewing area with several tobacco bags.  When the seams were opened up, they were about 8 inches square.  She showed me how to square them up, and I sewed them in between the nine patch blocks.  This was looking very good, I thought.

    She and I went shopping and got a batting for my quilt, and she helped me sandwich the top with cotton muslin for the back.  We measured so the back would also be the binding.  Next we worked on the quilting pattern.  She helped me draw a maple leaf template of cardboard.  I drew around the template in each 8 inch square. We chose the multi-colored tatting thread to quilt the maple leaf pattern in the 8 inch white blocks, and I quilted inside each square of the 9 patch block.  This was all by hand.  My quilt frame was two carpenters horses, and long 2 X 2 inch poles.  I took up a considerable amount of space in the living room with the quilt frame frame so Dad said it had to be done quickly.  I sat up nights trying to get done.

    I was proud of my quilt.  When I went to college, that quilt was on my bed and when I got married the quilt came with me to our new home.  For some reason,  I decided to put my quilt in my van as a quick cover up on trips.

    We were preparing to build our new home.  The van was often used to carry things to the house.  One of our trips was to New Lenox to a K-Mart that had Paneling.  It was the rough dark kind that we used in our family room of our new home.  Chuck moved the quilt out of the way so he could put the lumber in the van.  Unfortunately, he put it on the roof of the van...we drove off, forgetting the quilt and it wasn't until we were back home that we remembered it.

    We did drive back and try to find it, but it was no where to be seen.  I only hope someone gave my Maple leaf nine patch a good home...