My life as a quiltmaker (for chronological order, read oldest post to newest)

Friday, February 16, 2007

2. Beginnings


Looking back, I see that I never could have resisted the siren call of fabric. Though there were no hand-made quilts and no quilting grandmothers in my childhood, fabric images figure largely in early memories: I can still see in my three-year-old mind's eye a dress with pink rosebuds and green leaves, with green velvet ribbon around my waist. In first grade there was a red/blue pleated wool skirt my mother made me, and then the white cotton voile of my first communion dress, later dyed a robin's egg blue. With warm weather came a pink plaid seersucker skirt and blouse, and a white piqué sundress with green pea pods printed on it. Winter nights featured a purple satin puff that wrapped around my brothers and me as we watched t.v. in the dark...I could go on and on.

All these memories and associations were there to be invoked when, as a second-year college student, I was awed by the quilt my friend's mother had made for him when he was about 13 years old. She had since died, but he had brought this treasured possession to college with him. Instantly captivated by its multiple small strips of fabric and its tiny stitches, I didn't realize at the time that I had just seen my first hand-quilted rail fence patchwork. I didn't realize at the time that I had just seen my future.

A chord had been struck, and it echoed when I had my first son in 1974. While I'd always loved working with my hands, every craft had served up its limitations—or mine. I had knitted sweaters and not gotten around to the arms. I had completed one motif out of four on an embroidered tablecloth, and a few flowers out of many on a crewel bouquet. As a young wife I'd made a ripple stitch afghan that rippled in ways entirely foreign to the intentions of the pattern writer, and I'd completed a crocheted sweater for my husband that fitted him—and restricted his motion—like a suit of armor; it was probably bulletproof. And though I enthusiastically made many of my clothes, I began to think it wasn't a good thing that people always asked, “Did you make that?”

Now I had a perfect little son, and he deserved a perfect quilt that would be as treasured as my friend's. As it turned out, I'm the one who treasures that first quilt, the more so because it may well be the most imperfect quilt I've ever made and is certainly one of the richest in the lessons it taught me. As I travel to give trunk show/lectures about my quilts, this is the one that people remember—never mind that I've made national award-winners since. This is my “calling card.”

Pictured here is the first quilt of a person who simply took the plunge into a craft about which she knew nothing. I had sewn before and I had seen one quilt: that was the extent of my credentials. Jumping in feet first is an excellent strategy if you want to learn a lot, learn it fast, and are willing to sacrifice quality. This quilt started its life as a rectangle made of patchwork squares. As you can see from the picture, that configuration did not endure. Lesson 1 was learned at the first washing: cotton shrinks maybe a little, poly/cotton blends shrink not at all, but wool really shrinks a lot. And that wasn't the only lesson I learned, only the most obvious.

I knew that quilts were used like blankets, so they had to be warm. I had gleaned that layers were involved but didn't really understand how to accomplish that. I wanted it to be warm for my little son, though, and believe me, it was: the inside layer of that first quilt is a navy-blue pin-dot quilted bathrobe that I had cut up. Sandwiched between the patchwork top and an old light green sheet, it did the trick. Blanket binding finished the job. This quilt includes fabrics that my very first junior high school students brought me when they discovered I liked to sew, as well as fabrics from maternity dresses I made. For all of its mistakes, I doubt that I could ever bear to throw it away. It brings a smile to my face as it tells of a quilter that was a little “off.” Off and running.

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