Quilting

Auntie’s mother-in-law, Mrs. B. quilted this quilt to fit a ‘full-sized’ (double bed) sometime either before or during WWII. Every bit of it is hand-stitched, though she would have had a machine, it is hard to say if it would have handled the thickness of such a project.

At some point, Auntie, my grand aunt on my mother’s side, apparently had washed sheets – white sheets – with a red blanket and vast amounts of pink bedding followed. The white flowers in this close-up shows that the error in the washing was before the construction of this quilt. Auntie, was a hired ‘girl’ at the Buchanan farm at the time, and not yet married to Mrs. B’s only son – Uncle – or Unck. as we lovingly called him.

I took this quilt into my class a few weeks ago to show the craftsmanship, the skill and fortitude.  “Look,” I said, showing the quilt from table to table, student to student, “each stitch you see, is by hand.” and they replied with the appropriate, “oh!” And then I assigned them the task of quilting their own ’30 cm square,’ with a pattern or image addressing their own relationship with nature, the environment, the earth. I told them, I would do this with them as well. We’re in it together. Then, we would loosely attach all of our squares to create a temporary quilt, before each would take their samples home.  Here is my sample:

This 30 cm square, is a trip back through time, reminding me of the patterns and mix style of the 1970s. when I was a young child. A quick search to Nasa (NOAA data) shows the radical change of global GHGs over time. I selected 1972 and 2018 as two years to compare. We are going off the charts with our current CO2 output. Less consumption, less energy can only help this significant challenge we together face.

A week passed, and we were back in the textile lab. “How did your quilt squares turn out?” I asked, knowing that they were clearly still working on them. “Can we have more time?” one asked. Given that the day was set aside as an open studio day, either for group work and for completing other textile work, it was fine to keep working. My only reminder to them, was, remember the quilt I showed you last week? It was not one square – one foot in size – but big enough to cover a bed for two people, and when I was a child visiting at the farm, I had a stack of these quilts on me to keep me warm on a winter night. I am lucky to have one of them myself now.

“How did anyone every make them?” I was asked. Good question – I thought.

These small samples we make together are a reminder to a simpler and harder time, when if you wanted or needed something, you made it yourself. Here we are learning the value of some basic self-reliance, creative exploration, growth in self-confidence with textile arts and artisanship.