Sunday, November 27, 2011

Bricks and Quilts


While tearing out an old foundation of the small house that was built on the farm, I found some unusual bricks.  They are clay bricks but the structures are different that what I am use to seeing.

The  small single story farm house was built for my wife's parents to live in while her dad worked the farm for his dad.. It was like a hired hand house.  The family lived there until my wife's dad bought the family farm.  They then moved into the big four by four house.


I have brick that look like ceramic tile in my basement  that was put in during the 1940's.  This brick reminded me of that from the farm house, but I have never seen the internal structure configured like this.  It actually is a double thick brick compared to mine and would have made the making of the foundation go faster.  It doesn't have a glaze on it like mine does. 

The house itself that sat on this foundation was accidentally burned down by my father in law during one of his burning sessions that he liked to do in the fall. The foundation had to be ripped out and buried into the basement area and then fill dirt was put on top of it.


This brick came from southern Iowa and it was a paving brick for a street.  It has the grooves in it to help the bonding material to hold on to it.  The material probably was cement or an asphalt like material.


While shooting photos of this quilt I could see squares of different projects that my mom and grandmother had going on in their lives.  My grandmother made stuffed chicken figures from cloth.  There were two sizes but the material is scattered throughout this quilt.  My mom made photo albums that were covered with padded material and the leftovers from that project are also in there.  One of the pieces is actually a scrap from which my mom made for me many years ago. 



Just another shot of the quilt.  I gave it to my son and his wife when they were back from Thanksgiving.  They were very glad to receive it.

I am an office worker today but will probably teach tomorrow.  The staff came back with bad colds or with flu in their families so I am sure I will be subbing a lot more than in the past.

Thanks for stopping by my blog.


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I had worried that flu season would start as folks traveled for Thanksgiving. Hope you stay healthy.
That is really unusual brick from your fil's basement.
That is wonderful that you recognize the different fabrics in the quilt from other projects.
My 89 yr old friend, Lillie, has a quilt her mom made out of Lillie's childhood dresses!

LoieJ said...

Traditional quilting combined resourcefulness with creativity and utility. Imagine the precise geometry needed to cut the shapes in the circles. That quilt appears to be completely hand made. Very likely the pieces were from leftovers of hand made clothing or other household items. Probably the chickens were also from scraps. I wonder if they are anything like the chickens I've made. Some are here: http://sewladysew.blogspot.com/2008/07/blog-post.html
I'm not sure why some of the pictures don't show up, but enough do so you could get the idea. I really had fun taking my chickens on a tour of my yard.

Gardener on Sherlock Street said...

Those bricks are very interesting and look nice in the garden.
I love quilts. It is great to be able to share them and pass the love down the generations.

Beatrice P. Boyd said...

This was an interesting comparison between the old bricks and the quilts, Larry. Hope your son will treasure this lovely quilt. Also hope you don't catch what's going around in the schools.