MUSCATINE, Iowa — Tears welled in Jean Logel’s eyes this week when she saw the quilt a friend made with scraps of fabric Logel had saved since childhood.

Logel and Nancy Shuler of Letts became friends when Shuler began helping Logel with some sewing projects a few years ago.

After Shuler learned that Logel had saved the hankies and scraps of fabric, Shuler turned them into keepsakes.

A handkerchief, or hanky, was a square of fabric, often embroidered, and carried by hand in years past as a decorative accessory. They have become heirloom keepsake gifts.

 Logel wanted the fabric scraps made into a quilt, but the quilt presented a special problem: Shuler didn’t know how to sew it by hand the way it would have been done when Logel was young.

Luckily for Shuler, her mother, Norma Abbott, 78, of Chillicothe, Mo., knows how to sew a quilt by hand. Shuler cut and sewed the fabric into flower shapes and then took the fabric to Missouri where her mother created the memory quilt.

As Logel, 84, examined the quilt, she pointed to a quilted flower made of green and pink fabric.

“This fabric is from a dress I wore a couple of times,” Logel said. “It faded after it was washed.”

A yellow fabric was used in a blouse that was trimmed with yellow rickrack.

“Mom sewed all my clothes,” Logel remembers. “We lived on Fourth Street and she worked at the Weber & Sons Button factory.”

Logel’s mother, Iva Schildberg Goetz, raised Jean alone after her husband left her. Much of their entertainment was walking to the river or to Weed Park or visiting family. Goetz had no car. It wasn’t easy to raise a child alone with a fourth-grade education. There was no such thing as sick leave in those

days. When Goetz was sick, Logel stayed with her grandfather.

Logel’s memory is sharp.

“I remember when the banks crashed in the 1930s,” Logel said. “People were walking up and down Iowa Avenue crying.”

Logel had a pink jumper that she wore with a belt and different blouses. Her mother made the jumper out of fabric that now is part of a variation of the Grandmother’s Garden Quilt pattern. The design uses six petals around a solid-color center and is sewn on white backing.

Several of the fabric pieces were from skirts Logel wore when she was young.

“I wore a lot of skirts and sweaters,” she said.

Logel said her mother was a self-taught seamstress and taught herself to crochet and to embroider.

“She wanted to learn to tat, but she just couldn’t do it.”

Goetz made hairpin lace and one example decorates a pillow Shuler made for Logel. A handkerchief Logel carried at her wedding to Abbie Logel decorates another pillow.

She remembers a blue prom dress she wore at the old Elks Lodge. The blue hanky she carried that night now decorates a pillow.

Handkerchiefs were popular when Logel was a girl.

“When my mother had a heart attack, friends sent get-well cards with handkerchiefs in them. There were also hanky showers,” Logel said. “People were poor in those days and couldn’t afford fancy gifts.”

The hankies had a second purpose. Like many young girls, Logel learned to iron with hankies and pillowcases.

Logel is grateful for Shuler’s friendship and her aptitude for sewing.

“She is so sweet and is good at everything she does,” Logel said of Shuler. “I’m glad she is my friend.”

Reporter contact information

Connie Street: 319-527-8164

ckcasey@louisacomm.net