Finding Wood I – Native US Wood

Every good quilter knows that a project can start with one of two ideas:  a quilt pattern that grabs your attention, or a piece of fabric (or several pieces) that speaks to you.   Wooden quilting is much the same, except first you need to make the piece in which you will inlay the pattern.  (See making the blanks.)

To do that, you’ve got to have the wood.  And a variety of wood makes for a greater variety of projects. 

I started with boxes.  Now I make–besides boxes, cutting boards, clocks, key holders, napkin holders, plaques, and other simple household items.  All of my pieces, the stuff I inlay the quilt patterns in, are made of native Indiana hardwoods (with the exception of red cedar, which is technically not a hardwood).  However, I never go to a lumber yard or home center for my native lumber.  There are other, much better sources.

My best native lumber source is a local sawmill. It’s not a great big commercial operation, just a guy who likes to saw and dry wood, and make a little money doing so. My sawmill guy built his part-time business enough over several years he was able retire from his day job recently and work his wood business full-time. He also kiln dries the lumber and skip planes it to 15/16″ thickness. That’s perfect for me, since I can resaw that to get two 3/8″ box sides. We have 6-1/4 acres, and much of that is woods. A couple of years ago, he came to our place and cut a few trees. We split the wood out of those trees, so I got a supply with no outlay of cash, and he had some to sell to others.

Like all quilters, I have a stash. It’s just not quilt fabric, but wood. Some are native hardwoods, many are imported exotics. (At last count, I have used over 100 different kinds of wood.) Again, like other quilters, I have taken years to collect all that, and I am always looking for more.
We also have a very active woodworkers’ club in our county. Once a year, the club has a sawmill day. People donate logs, and on sawmill day a few of the guys who have portable sawmills bring them and saw the logs. We pay a small price for the wood we get, and the proceeds go to buy beginners tools for kids who are doing woodworking projects for 4-H. Of course, you have to stack the wood on spacers to let it dry, but that is a really good source of wood. (If you live close to west-central Indiana, drop me an email, and I can get you the details about the next sawmill day.)

Sometimes, the wood will find you. If you sell often to the public, people will come to you, wanting to sell you wood, or giving you a piece or two, or telling you of a good source. My greatest such find was a few years ago. At an arts and craft fair, a man asked if I was interested in some exotic wood. He had bought at auction the wood stash of a man whose age and health had ended his woodworking. He thought his girlfriend would use it in her rustic crafts business, but she did not. He was tired of paying for a large storage locker, so he wanted to sell it all.

When I met him to see the wood, I found a locker, at least ten by twelve feet, so full of wood when he opened the door we could not get inside. In addition to the usual oak, walnut and cherry, there was ebony, tulipwood, padauk, mahogany, plus many other woods I had never heard of. Some of those—like southern Australia silky oak, soon became some of my favorites. I’m still finding gems among that stash.

I’ve had other chances to buy wood that had belonged to fathers or grandfathers or others too old to continue their hobbies, or now dead, with no family who wanted the wood. None of the others even begin to rival the locker full, but opportunities continue to come up.
If you want to make wooden quilts, or do any other woodworking, for that matter, I suggest that you try to find alternative sources of wood. Don’t just depend on the local lumberyard. They don’t usually have many choices, and they are expensive. Ask around. You may be pleasantly surprised at what you find, especially if you live in a small town or rural area where there are a good number of trees. If you have the space and patience to dry your own wood, and the tools to plane it smooth, you will not only save some money, you will find you are making much more interesting projects.