I made this quilt probably 7 or 8 years ago. Where it is now I have no idea...I hope whoever has it cares for it well. I gave it to someone I barely knew, just because it felt like it was the right thing to do at the time. They had done a job well for me, and at the same time expressed a desire to buy a quilt for a family member, although they could never afford what a quilt is worth. I love that quilt, but have no regrets in giving it away......just hope it stays in ONE piece.
Who Would Tear an Antique Quilt Asunder for Jackets and Skirts?
(Erma Bombeck 1983)Bet you never figured me for a "quilter," did you?
My image brings to mind such phrases as "Connect-a-dot," "Paint-by-number" and "Drop pouch in boiling water."
Well, you're wrong.
I have always been in awe of anything that a 2-year-old cannot dismantle in 10 minutes.
Right now, there is a battle raging between the "purist" quilters and the style-makers as to whether or not antique quilts should be dissected and made as wearing apparel or left in their original state on beds and walls.
I'm with the purists.
If anyone approached one of my quilts with a pair of scissors and a pattern for a vest, I would personally charge them with assault with a deadly weapon. Would Betsy Ross let you make underwear out of her flag?
Only people who have done handicraft really know what goes into it. When I was expecting my third child, I decided to cross-stitch quilts for twin beds. For nine months, I did nothing but grow and sew. Dishes sat in the sink. Beds became nests. Laundry spilled out of the hampers.
When the nurse said, "Would you like to see your son?" she patiently held the baby while I finished up the tree on the last square.
A finished quilt represents my personal marathon--my Miss America victory--my Nobel Prize. It's an achievement that ranks right up there with writing your name legibly on the Christmas cards all the way to the names beginning with W.
I read where Bonnie Lehman, editor of the Quilter's Newsletter magazine, was enraged when a leading designer cut up antique quilts for skirts and jackets for his collection. "Vests, pillows indeed!" she said. "Quilts are made to be used on beds where primal events in life took place . . . conception, birth, illness, death."
I'm finishing up a celebrity quilt where each square carries a sketch-drawing-bit of wisdom-signature of someone I admire. Art Buchwald's square says it all: "Whoever sleeps under this quilt better have a good reason."
That's what quilts are all about.
I wonder too sometimes! I have made & given hundreds of quilts, most to people I have never met, the wounded warriors and families of our fallen heroes. I too hope they are being used for the purpose for which they were created, to warm and comfort but my Mum told me once, "dear, when you give something it is no longer yours" she meant no longer mine to be concerned about, gone! So I try to live by that!
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