There are so many sentimental things about this quilt. Many of the ties came from Dad’s collection and I clearly remember many of them. The extra ones are from Pat’s collection and, again, they are very familiar. I started this quilt when Stacia, Deloise and I met to quilt late in the fall of 2012. It went together quite quickly and I was able to finish it by the quilt show.

There is a lot of quilting on this piece. I traced templates for the fancier stitching, and used cross-hatching for the center.

While I was stitching at the demo table at the quilt show I overheard a gentleman talking to one of the other Guild members saying, “I’m here to look at the tie quilt”. I smiled (hopefully to myself) and carried on. About ten minutes later one of the hostesses came to me and said someone wanted to talk to me about my tie quilt. It was the same man. He has collected over 2500 ties and didn’t know what to do with them (clearly he can do a lot with that many ties). He said he can pretty much date ties by their appearance so I put him to the test by asking him about some of the ties I used. He was able to date the older ties to the 1950s, some of the later ones that I remember Dad wearing to the late 60’s and early 70’s. He was also able to date most of Pat’s ties correctly.

From the Quilt Show:

 This pattern is called ‘Ties of a Lifetime’ by Shirley Botsford. It was made using a collection of my father’s ties, as well as some from my partner. Dad was a farmer and he wore a tie to Church on Sundays, to weddings and funerals. It is machine quilted.