My Quilt

Last night our children were snuggled under my quilt, ready to have a story read to them.  They asked me about my quilt.  I told them my mom had made it for me as a gift when I graduated from high school.  She'd given friends and family members a block and had them write or draw or sew something on it for me.  Then she sewed it all together, we quilted it and now I have it.

Braeden said, "Are you going to make us quilts when we graduate?"

I said no.  We all know about me and quilts.

I started telling them about each block and about each person that made the blocks.

I have photographs of me as a graduating senior that show what I looked like, but this quilt is a snapshot of who I was. 

It has signatures of a whole lot of people, classmates, teachers, the cooks in the cafeteria, the sixth graders in whose classroom I was a teacher's aide.  There are blocks from good friends, replete with inside jokes.  I remember most of them but some of them are more vague.  I remember there was a joke, I just don't remember the particulars.  There are blocks from my sisters (my kids finally understand why Olivia calls me "pard" and Adam said, "I didn't know that either") and from my brothers. (Which make me laugh:  Tabor included a paw print from his dog, Enoch drew a picture of him filling my car with gas...which was part of the deal.  If he'd put gas in the car, he could sit in the front and though older, Olivia had to sit in the back.) 

There's a block from my mom which includes several fabric scraps from clothes she'd made me while I was growing up. 

There's a block from my artistic dad.  He drew an earring he'd made for me when I was in my "southwest phase".

I love the quilt.

It reminds me of who I was.  Who I am.  And who loves me.

Maybe I need to learn to quilt for my children (Maybe my mom can help me?).