I found a quilt top in my fabric stash. It had made it through several "destashings" but I have no memory of buying it. It must have been an estate sale years ago. It has been pieced by hand and some by machine and it is all together charming. It does need a few repairs though as you can see from above. A perfect opportunity for me to indulge my visible mending habit.
Here's some images of the old quilt pieces I plan to use to get the fabric patches from.
They are bits and pieces of old quilts I've picked up over the years and managed to keep. In fact one little bit is a pieced top tacked onto at least two older quilts. Look at what I found in the very center of the wooly mess.
That once cherished quilt made with the tiniest stitches buried deep but still there at the center.
Stay with me. I will, I think, get to the metaphor part I hope.
As I work to separate the layers of the quilt I was going to use to patch the "new" old quilt, I thought about how it seemed to reflect so much of what was going on around me in the world. The layers of history. The damaged and useless bits. The mistakes stitched in and buried deep. Instead of fixing the surface and attaching it to a damaged and disintegrating core, I will do the work and find the pieces that were worth keeping. The pieces that would serve the new quilt well. They would reflect what I value. The new quilt would be stitched with the best bits of the old. The bits that are wrong, broken, and no longer part of a quilt of beautiful different pieces joining and coming together as a whole, with a common purpose of comfort, art and honor? They aren't welcome in my life.
There are good things to keep but much more that no longer works and no parts of that need to be kept.
I hope you and yours are keeping well. Wear your masks. Wash your hands. Make sure you're keeping the good parts of your quilt and getting rid of the rotten bits.
Thank you friend,
