A Stitch in Time

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Beginning

There's no other way to put it: I am a quilt junkie. New quilts, old quits, hidden quilts, wall quilts, objects made of quilts -- I see them, I turn into a pile of Jell-O.

My obsession with quilts started with a double wedding ring quilt, made by my great-grandmother, which I slept under for most of my childhood. The quilt had a pastel blue background and patchwork rings, the latter probably made from scraps of g-grandma's dressmaking. In her day, nearly every woman made her own clothes.

I could sit and stare at the patches on that old quilt for hours, wondering where they'd come from and why she chose those colors. Looking back with the knowledge I have now, I know it wasn't a particularly well-made quilt, and the sewing and quilting strayed more to the primitive side, but I loved it, and kid love is blind.

After I grew up and left home, I asked my mother to send me that old quilt. That was when she informed me that it had grown so ragged over the years that she had thrown it away. I've lost lovers who didn't cause me as much anguish as knowing the quilt of my childhood was gone forever.

That was when I decided to become a quiltmaker, and remake the quilt of my childhood.