Footnotes from my week #6

What's in a Quilt? Stitching up a story or two.

Over the last week I have been repairing, a quilt I had made perhaps twenty years ago. My young grandson looked doubtfully at my efforts, especially when I said I was fixing it so that it might last another twenty years or so. The quilt is special, not because I had made it, but because I had made it mostly from pieces of fabric left over from various garments I had sewn over the years.

His sister said she had her own story about the quilt, noting that she believed the triangular patterns of mismatched fabrics often moved around. She’d confirmed her theory by memorising where the different colours and textures of cottons and satins, chiffon and crepes, chenille and linen had been placed. Each time she walked her fingers around the edge and across the pattern she was sure something had changed. I wonder if it was the stories asking to be told.

Today I started with the soft pink stripe that I had chosen for a robe I gifted to their great-grandmother. She wore it on the hot days of summer after she’d showered. We’d often sit together at dusk, and chat over a final glass of wine before bed. I then slide back in time to a faded mauve cotton, to when a friend’s mum had taught me how make my first grown up dress for a party at their home. I also showed them the champagne satin from their aunty’s wedding dress that we complemented with black satin for the bridesmaids. I lovingly touched on the floral chiffon which I had used in a skirt for a friend who was quite ill; I never mentioned that she’d only worn it once before she died. Instead, I raced forward to the raw turquoise silk I had selected to go with wide band of organza dyed in dark shades of peacock blue and brown. I had to match something to a pair of shoes I bought first; it was for my daughter’s wedding.

I showed them how I’d replaced threadbare fabrics with newer pieces and where I had used offcuts from clothes I had once sewn for them. I pointed to the cream fabric with a tiny mouse print which I had used for a dress that just had to have a swirly skirt for the girl who liked to dance. And the Japanese indigo with its light blue fish and fluted tails which I used on a jinbei short set for my grandson when he was much smaller. They laughed at wonky bits of embroidery I had used in the hope of saving a singular piece of the design. ‘Never mind,’ I said, ‘they’ll need to be replaced one day.’

‘But who’ll do that Grandma?’ my grandson asked, ‘you know, like when you’re dead?’

‘Goodness, I hadn’t thought about that’ I answered, ‘maybe I’ll have to teach you!’