Ora Watson and The Log Cabin Quilt
Hi. How are you today?
Ora: Pretty good.
Looks like you are working on a pretty fancy quilt there. You wanna tell us a little bit about it.
Ora: Yeah, this is a log cabin I’m working on now.
And what are you doing to it?
Ora: I’m hemming it.
Can you tell us a little bit about how you got started quilting?
Ora: Well, I make quilts for my own family. I just picked it up myself. I used to see my grandmother and them make ‘em and so I just, uh, started making some for my family, and when my family got grown, I wen to makin’ them to sell.
And did the grandmother teach you how to do it, or was it more or less a family project?
Ora: No, it was more or less a family project. I made the quilts, you know, to keep us warm. Then I just listened to see how she put ‘em together. She never did try to teach me nothing, just done it on my own.
What is the quilt behind you called?
Ora: It’s called a melon patchwork.
Can you tell us a little bit about the steps you have to go through to make a quilt?
Ora: Well, you have to take your pattern, and uh, cut your pieces out, and then you piece them up, you sew them together, and then you uh, when you get the top finished you put you a backing on it, and uh, put it up in the frames and uh, you put your padding in it, then you put your top on it, and then, some of the patterns you piece around the patterns and some you just quilt in ______.
Do you have somebody help you with this? Or do you do most of it by yourself?
Ora: No, I do most all of it by myself.
I know that you told me the other day that it hurt your fingers to do it.
Ora: Yeah, your fingers get sore. You have to let them rest when you get to quilting, uh.
(Video closes up on Ora’s hands)
How long have you been doing this? Since you were a girl?
Ora: Yeah, since I was about 16 or 17 years old.
Did you make quilts for your children? Do you still make quilts for your grandchildren?
Ora: Yeah, I’ve made a few of ‘em. I’ve got so many grandchildren I can’t make for all of ‘em now. But I made some for all my children when the got married, but all three of my girls, I learnt them how, they can make their own.
How many children do you have?
Ora: I have six: three boys and three girls.
I guess it was pretty hard raising six children back up here in the mountains.
Ora: Yeah, it was. It was pretty hard. You had to learn _______ how to work.
What kinds of things did you do to make a living as your children were growing up?
Ora: Well, my husband, he always worked most times on public works, and me and the children always farmed and made the biggest end of the food.
So you grew your own food?
Ora: Yeah. We used to dig roots and gather ____ to make a living to buy the clothes.
How long have you lived in the mountains?
Ora: Uh, I’ve been here, be 51 years in October.
Were you born and raised here?
Ora: No, I was born and raised over here at Tipton.
Tipton, North Carolina?
Ora: Yeah.
How far is that from Big Gap?
Ora: I guess about ten mile.
And how did you and Willard meet?
Ora: Well, he used to come down there whenever he was a boy growed up, and we used to go to church and places together and meet one another.
How long does it take you to make a quilt like this, like the log cabin.
Ora: Well it takes me about three weeks to get the top pieced up and then I can uh, finish it then and get it quilted in a little over a week.
Who do you sell them to mostly?
Ora: Well different people, they come from everywheres always a buyin’ ‘em.
And how did the find out about your quilting?
Ora: Well I’ve been to a lot of these festivals, folk festivals and met a lot of people. And I’ve been on television shows different times, and uh, a lot of people see’d me on there and come and hunt me up.
It looks like a really relaxing thing to do. You seem to enjoy it.
Ora: Yeah, I enjoy it, but uh, it gets tiresome.
Can I get you to show us some of your other quilts?
Ora: Yeah, I can show you some. I’ve got made. My oldest sister made this one. This is called the Bethlehem Star. This is a real hard one to get pieced up.
Your sister?
Ora: Yeah, my oldest sister. She’s 74 year old.
Can we hold it out some and kind of get an idea of what the whole thing looks like?
Ora: Yeah.
Now, how do you piece this?
Ora: Well, you cut all of these little pieces out here (points to the star), and then you uh, you piece four of them right there that way, four of each one of them, and then you piece four of them right here together, and then uh, you press them out on a board, and then uh, you sew them all together, but you have to lay ‘em out so you can get these colors here all the same, so the star will be right, it’s really hard to piece this there’s so many different shapes and pieces and it goes (points).
And your backing, what’s that made out of?
Ora: It is made out of the same material that this here is made out of (points to the square on the front).
What about the quilting material, the padding?
Ora: Polyester filling and cotton.
Do you get that from a store now?
Ora: No, I get that from uh, Johnson City ain’t it? no, it’s from Asheville. A man brings it to me from other there. They make it over there somers now.
Now when you started making quilts for your family, when your children were small, where did you get your material and your padding for the quilts then?
Ora: I got it from the dry good store. It was real cheap then. This calico here was 39 cents a yard and some 25 cents, and some 15, but now hit’s gone up to, the same material whenever you can find it, hit’s gone up to a dollar and 49 and some a dollar and 79 a yard.
I guess you saved your scraps from any sewing that you did, too.
Ora: Yeah, from some of the children’s clothes that I used to make but that’s been a long time I hain’t got none of them now.
Can we look at another one?
Ora: Yeah. Let see you might want to…you keep putting a stick of wood in there
I’m watching it
Ora: Yeah. Keep watching it.
Now what’s the name of this pattern.
Ora: This is a double wedding ring.
And do you know where the pattern originated?
Ora: No, I don’t know where it originated from ‘cause it’s in all the quilt patter books mostly.
Do you have any patterns that were handed down from people in your family?
Ora: Well, I’ve got one of an old rail fence that my sister saved. I don’t know where she got it but it’s a real old pattern. I ain’t never seen nobody else have it.
Do all the women in the family quilt?
Ora: No, most all of my sister’s quilt?
Did they learn from your mother or your grandmother?
Ora: No, my mother died when I was just two year old, but no, we just picked it up I reckon. It must have just kinda been born in us.
I guess it was pretty much a necessity.
Ora: I guess.
The winters get cold here, don’t they?
Ora: Yeah, they sure do. And then the houses are a lot warmer now, they build them a lot warmer than they used to.
You all heat your house with wood, don’t you?
Ora: Yeah and coal.
Can you tell us a little bit about how you put this one together?
Ora: Yeah, well, you have to cut all these little pieces out here and then you have to piece this here square right there, and then you have to piece the right hand and left one of these each way (points to the joining of the circles) and then cut this piece right in here in four different pieces, (points to the middle) and fit it together that way. This is a pretty hard one, too to get pieced up.
How do you know where the quilt lines are supposed to go on this, just from doing it so long?
Ora: Yeah, I reckon. But if you get all your pieces cut out to match together like they’re supposed to it fits real good but if you don’t get them all cut right it don’t fit.
What about your stitches here?
Ora: Yeah, well you just have to piece them from around the pattern.
So, on this one you would go by the circles?
Ora: Yeah.
You just connect them up?
Ora: Yeah. You just go around the circles. Now some of ‘em is quilted down through them little pieces, too, but I ain’t quilted it through them. I thought it was enough quiltin’.
Does it matter how much you sew one? How much quilting you do?
Ora: No. it don’t matter how much that you want to put on it.
I heard that the more stitches you put in it, that the warmer it would be. Is there any truth to that?
Ora: No. They ain’t no truth to that. No.
Can we look at your uh, rail fence?
Ora: Yeah….out of cloth and I lay it down on my other material and cut that and sometimes the paper, the cloth, you can cut ‘em better.
Now this is a...
Ora: An old rail fence.
And where did you say the pattern was from?
Ora: My oldest sister. ___________She saved it from a way back from which she was just a young girl from somers, I don’t know where.
Can you tell us how this is put together?
Ora: Yeah. This is covering these shapes and pieces right here, put them pieces one of each color there, and then these little pieces in here, there’s one of each one of them, and when you sew these little pieces in there then that makes the stick, and you put one of each color on it and that’s the way that it goes, you see you make these little strips all the way through, you cut these and fit them in right there, and take the little strips and sew ‘em and that makes…
And where do the quilting lines go?
Ora: They go around the fabric.
Just around the outside edge?
Ora: Yeah around the outside edges.
How long has this pattern been in your family?
Ora: Well, ever since I can remember, I guess it’s been 50 years or longer.
Could we get you to show one of the tops that hasn’t been quilted yet so we can get some idea of how it’s put together on the bottom?
Ora: Yeah, this is the front of it.
Can we turn it over and look at the back? And you do the, put this together by machine?
Ora: Yeah, I piece ‘em all up on the machine and then quilt ‘em by hand.
When you first started, did you have a machine to do it with then, or did you do it all by hand?
Ora: Well, when I first started I done it all by hand, but then I found me a machine and got hit, I got an ole second hand and learned how to piece up on it, and I’ve pieced up on a machine ever since, but it ain’t no ‘lectric machine it’s a peddle machine.
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