The Family Quilt

My dining room looks like an entire  luggage cart exploded, and not in the good way.

In  a futile attempt to sort for laundering, there are  piles of clothes everywhere.  Combining swimsuits,  linen shirts, wool socks, cotton tank tops, wool sweaters,  sandal socks and long-sleeved heavy wovens into compatible loads presents a unique laundry challenge.  I also have all kinds of keepsake treasures, sympathy cards, a guest book, a tie that belonged to Dad, and over in the corner laid over a chair -  the family quilt.  It did not start out being called that, but has become that as a result of life (and death) just….  happening.

The double wedding ring quilt was originally a gift to my parents on their 45th wedding anniversary in 1995.   My sister Pat pieced the top and she mailed it to me for the hand quilting.  I had it spread out on my dining room table for what seemed like an eternity (I was new to quilting at the time) and when I finished my part  I mailed it to my sister Peg who did the binding. (Note to Peg  – We still all believe you farmed it out to someone else to do the beautiful, turned edge binding.  I’m just sayin’….) We gave it to them on their anniversary and they had it on their bed for many years.

In 2001 we lost Mom to pancreatic cancer.  Shell shocked and grieving, we at least had the presence of mind to know her casket should be draped with a quilt – but which one?  She had made so many beautiful quilts.  We decided on this one and it looked just beautiful.  Our plan was to cut the quilt in to 3 pieces (for each of the 3 daughters who made it) and call it good.  Thankfully, as we stood there with a scissors in hand we realized that if we cut up that quilt we would have the unholy wrath of our mother upon our heads for all eternity.  So we left it with Dad. He put it back on his bed and for the next almost-10 years he kept it as a keepsake of her.

Those ten years were a tremendous gift.  Mom always said, “When you call home, if a man answers – hang up.”  Mom wanted to be the first on any scoop.  Consequently,  Dad always played back-up to Mom so those first visits home post-Mom were a little strange.  We actually had long,  terrific  conversations.  I learned so much about him, his youth, his life, just everything – and it was wonderful.  Bonus – we had some seriously great laughs. I always took a hand sewing project home with me, I think he liked watching me sew and it removed the necessity of feeling like I always had to have something to say.  I have great memories of watching football and baseball games with Dad, chatting, silent, commenting, silent, sewing, silent……. redefining “quality time” in a way I hope you are all lucky enough to realize in your lifetimes.

In the past few years his health plummeted, the Parkinsons ramped up and was joined by dementia and a host of other issues.  He moved from assisted living to nursing home to skilled nursing care.  His death is a most conflicted mess of emotions – I cry for both grief at losing him and relief that his suffering was finally and  mercifully at an end.

Out came the family quilt, placed lovingly on his casket.  It looked so right. The other half of that wedding-ring couple was reunited  and things just seemed to be back in balance.  As a family we have decided that the quilt will be placed on all of our caskets (or urns placed on top of it) when we leave this earth.  I like the eternity of the linking circles in the quilt, the connection with our parents that it represents, and the fact that it is a physical, touchable reminder of the power of  love  – the love of our family, and especially the love of the two people who gave us life.

Sidebar:  When  Grandma Major (Dad’s mother) was in the nursing home, my mother made her a lap quilt out of scraps of our old dresses and pantsuits.  This was so long ago that most of the squares were polyester double knit (eeessh).   We still have the precious keepsake and it was covering Dad when he left us. The hospice worker on the final  night vigil had with her a Methodist hymnal.   While baptized a Catholic when he married my mother, he was born and raised as a Methodist.

How is that for interlocking bands coming into full-circle perfection?

A Visit to the Mothership

Two weeks ago we left for what  (we thought) was going to be a week-long vacation on Key Largo.  Since Joe and I carry the dubious distinction of being the oldest people from Gloucester that have never been to Florida  it was kind of a big deal.  We had a wonderful time, realized that the ocean in Florida was just like Gloucester (only warmer and with palm trees) and managed to be spoiled rotten by our wonderful host and bestest-buddy ever.  Things came to a screeching halt about four days in to the trip when we got the call that my darling Dad had joined my mother in eternal rest. (That is about all I can say about that right now…. I need some time…..)

We found ourselves at the mercy of American Airlines  ( FYI – they HAVE no mercy) and flew back to Gloucester, dumped all the summer clothes in the dining room, repacked the late-winter clothes and flew off the next day (on Delta, thankyouverymuch)  to Lincoln, Nebraska.  The next few days are a bit of a blur (again,  I need some time here……) but on the day before we flew back to Massachusetts my sister-in-law and I made a visit to the International Quilt Study Center (AKA “THE MOTHERSHIP”) in Lincoln.  I always go when I am home  and it never disappoints.  With luck (and the divine intervention of my quilting mother) the Marseille: White Corded Quilting  exhibit was there to give us a fall-down-on-the-floor,  shut-my-mouth-wide-open look into the stunningly beautiful art of French quilted and corded needlework.  I was so blown away I forgot to get the exhibition catalog.  RATS.  (I’ll order it from the IQSC because they need the funds much more than Amazon and for pete’s sake  you have got to SUPPORT these places, people.)

As luck would also have it, the other exhibit was Nebraska Quilts and Quiltmakers. We have covered (at great length) my goobering admiration of the quilts of  “Amazing” Grace Snyder.  My personal favorite, Mrs. McGill’s Cherries, was there hanging in all it’s glory:

IMPORTANT NOTE:  The IQSC allows photography (no flash) in the galleries.  It is very important to take note of and respect ALL  museum photography policies.  I’m just sayin’……  These are grainy because they were done on my phone, sorry.

It was so nice to have another  up-close  look at Grace’s fantastic quilt.  It reminded me that my attempt at copying it has languished, needs to be revived,  and put on the very top of my list.   This was all made very clear to me by the fact that not only was I standing in front of it (duh), but 24 hours prior I was putting flowers on the grave of my Grandpa and Grandma (wait for it……) McGill.  It also marked the 100th anniversary of her arrival on Ellis Island on board the RMS Campania.   How great is all of that?   Jack and Mac are back together and Mrs. McGill’s cherries (in the form of her children, grandchildren, great and great-great grandchildren)  were all there in the ultimate celebration of life, love and the Resurrection.

A blessed Easter to you and all you love.

Pot Holder Quilts? Seriously?

Thankfully, not  so much.   About a year and a half ago at a staff meeting (I work at the New England Quilt Museum)  we were discussing upcoming exhibits when the topic of “pot holder quilts” came up as one of our future exhibitions.  I was appalled – POT HOLDERS?  Seriously?  That sounds like a Ronco / Ron Popeil Pocket Fisherman Gadget Making Thingie.  And talk about tacky – POT HOLDER QUILTS? Sheesh. It is hard enough to get respect as a quilter without people thinking we make  quilts out of sewing potholders together.  Further discussion revealed that they were NOT made out of potholders, but utilized the same technique as in  making pot holders.  Each individual block was  about one foot square, quilted, then bound.  (The binding is what sets them apart from the quilt-as-you-go quilts that have the back and front seams joined without binding.)  Who knew?  I sure did not.

by Emily (Wiley) Munroe, c. 1865 Collection of the New England Quilt Museum

You can imagine my delight when I realized one of my favorite quilts in the entire NEQM collection  (the Emily Munroe quilt, pictured here) is  – wait for it – a potholder quilt!  It is actually a pretty intriguing idea, certainly portable, and SO much easier (as a hand quilter) to get up close and personal with your blocks when there isn’t an armload of  fabric to wrestle in and out of a frame.  (I’m sure I could quilt 15 stitches to the inch if I could get that close to my needle…  or not.) The quilts that have arrived have been much older (starting in 1837) than I would have ever believed possible.  One quilt has small, stamped signature blocks with elegant, inked calligraphy.  I haven’t seen the  more contemporary ones yet, they are set up in the workroom undergoing prep and condition reports before the exhibit goes up later this week.  I love sneaking in there for a peek.  It’s a job perk.

Thankfully, we are not calling it “Yee Haw, Pot Holder Quilts – Come and Get Your Dinner!”

One Foot Square, Quilted and Bound opens at the New England Quilt Museum on April 14 and runs through July 10, 2011.   LOADS of Civil War references and stories in the older quilts. I’ll include a link to the website because there are  lectures and even a demo of  techniques scheduled for later this month.  If you live far away and cannot visit in person I encourage you to  look in to this interesting technique.  It offers some intriguing possibilities.  On the down side,  my #1 job hazard is that every time we open a new show  I become utterly convinced I MUST MAKE ONE  of whatever type of quilt the show is featuring.  It’s exhausting.  This time, however, if I lose interest I can always use them as …….potholders.  #WINNING !