When we had our theft in October...and my laptop walked away, I didn't see anything else missing. This morning, while making a bed for Milo, my grandson, I looked for the handmade quilt, just his size. I can't find it anywhere. I looked in all the usual places, then unusual places. It's gone, like my laptop. Now I'm imagining the thief wrapping my laptop with o so many hours of hard poetry work with the only quilt I've made for myself, hours of hand stitching all walking away from the house to become...a dog bed, a gift for a girlfriend, a disguise on the street...
The pattern is called 'birds in flight'. Fitting, don't you think?
I topstitch my quilts by hand. I know, I know, all those fancy sewing machines can stitch on quilts now. I see them all the time. They're cheating. The pleasure of quilting is quilting, holding the quilt on your lap and making each stitch by hand, thimble on your middle finger to push through the layers and pricking your fingers under the quilt to know you're all the way through. I've ended up with scarred fingers on my left hand after a long quilt making.
All my children have quilts I've made. I wanted one for myself. It's so many hours...
I have a partially made quilt waiting for me. Guess I'll get it out and begin again.
Sometime, visit a quilt show with quilts from long ago. Marvel at the hours and miles of thread. In the day, women quilted 12 stitches-10 stitches to the inch. A lot of stitches. And many spools of thread. Quilts were made at 'bees'. Quilts were made alone. Women would make a quilt with clothes from someone who died. To mourn. To remember.
5 comments:
I'm sure the person who took it had no idea what they were taking because if they did, I would like to think they wouldn't have had the audacity to steal it. It's sad this happened.
I'd never heard of making a quilt to mourn. That sounds like a very good way to grieve.
Turning grief into something useful.
When my brother came back he gave me my grandmother's quilt. She was 90 when she made it and at one point put the needle through her eyelid. I never met her she died in childbirth giving birth to my mother. The quilt is a Texas Star pattern and it's an antique but I sleep with it anyway. I'm so sorry your son's quilt went missing. I hope it's being loved somewhere.
Merry Christmas my dear Beth.
love,
Rebecca
My mother's mother made quilts. She made me one when I was born--yellow with dogs on it. The dogs were all different, from different material. I love it very, very much and it is my best gift from her. She tried to teach me to crochet but I couldn't. She made the best fried chicken, pecan pie, iced tea and the strongest coffee in the world. She gave birth to my mother at home with a midwife in 1937--I always thought on the kitchen table--but that couldn't have been true?! My mother didn't have a birth certificate because that costs money. The doctor came by weeks after her birth and signed one but took that original to be filed with the state. She finally got one when she started school.
Thank you for making these memories close to me tonight.
Birds in Flight. One of my questions without an answer is how can we be expected to let go of what and whom we lose. If we are very lucky, loss creates a version of texture, nooks where small nests can be built, craters to fill with water for dry days ahead. There is no way to come through this without grief. We begin again. Belated and heart-felt wishes for these days of particular light. xo
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