May 25, 2010 118/365

Martha's Biscuits

We met with Uncle Charles and Aunt Martha for an afternoon. We walked into their apartment, (which is bigger than my house) and immediately, my eyes fell upon this lovely treasure. I didn't say anything at first, but after we chatted a little while, I did ask Martha if she created it.

She asked me, "Do you know what this is?"

I said, "Oh yes! It's a biscuit quilt!"

She, then, told me about how each of the little puffs was made of her father's neckties and blouses and skirt linings from her mother.

Martha went on to tell me that she started the quilt when her husband, Charles, was a young soldier in the Army had been shipped off to Germany. He was instructed to find housing for his lovely wife and children. Then, they could join him there. To pass the time while she waited, she made these biscuits. When she would write letters to Charles, she would scrawl numbers on the envelope. He'd get the letters and would notice the number on the envelope would get bigger with each letter. He didn't know what the numbers were. When they finally reunited, Martha explained to him that she was telling him how many biscuits she'd made. That was in 1973. There were 743 biscuits in the quilt.