I call it a Legacy Quilt because it is made from a mix of squares left behind by my grandmother, sewn and finished by me on her machine. A neurodegenerative disease struck her suddenly and changed her from an energetic, strong person to a frail and lost shadow over the course of just a few months -- and then it took her away from us altogether. I was in college at the time, half way across the country.
That was more than ten years ago, and although my mom and I get teary sometimes when we talk about her, our loss has stepped into the background a little. But I think about her constantly while I am working on her quilts. I turn the squares over in my hand, marveling at the tiny, perfect seam allowances I will not be able to equal, smiling at the typical grandma color palette and fabric choices. Blue with orange, wow -- how am I going to make that work....this bit of velour looks like leftover from an upholstery project; that piece of thick, textured polyester was surely from a pantsuit... It's not even a collaborative process -- I have to finish the quilts her way, work with her color and fabric choices, or the project won't come together.
As a teenager, I used to roll my eyes at the clothes she'd bring home "from the washhouse" (i.e. scavenged from the laundromat lost and found) and give me to wear. But lately I've been collecting up the clothes my own family can't wear any more, and re-imagining them into new projects. Looking at the assortment of scraps she left, I'm sure many of her washhouse finds made their way into quilts as well. Her Great Depression-inspired thrift is no different than modern vintage, antiquing, recycling, crafting, and deconstruction fashion trends. Working my way through her partially-assembled squares, I am also reminded how her life was interrupted and cut short. Not only did she leave behind her quilting projects, but also a card ready to congratulate me on a graduation that was months away.
Piecing this small quilt with black thread, I am reminded of my innocent request for black thread in the last quilt she made for me. She did it without telling me that it's actually rather difficult and frustrating to use black thread on dark quilt squares -- although my mom later told me that she swore she'd never quilt in black thread again. At the time, I didn't really appreciate what she meant, but now I understand! And so I sew my way along, following this trail she left behind. All these little pieces, all these sweet beautiful mundane scraps of memory, are falling into place.
I used to think of her unfinished projects as sad things -- incomplete works in need of someone to complete the process and make them whole. I wanted to finish them all up, as quick as possible, as if that would somehow make things better. Lately, though, I have been thinking that it is better to pass away with at least some of your projects unfinished -- books unread, seams unsewn -- than to come to the end of your life with your hands folded neatly, with no anticipations or ambitions left on the table. This, of course, also makes for a nice rationalization of my stash-collecting habits! Given the size of my fabric pile and the stack of patterns in my sewing room, it seems almost inevitable that I will have a similar legacy to leave behind. I will surely come to the end of my grandma's scraps and squares someday -- unlike me, she was fairly practical in her collecting of treasures and projects. But I'm not in a hurry to get through it all; she may have more to teach me, and these lessons are taking me some time to learn.
Grandma made me several quilts over the course of my childhood, and several more hang on the walls in my mom's house. Even though she did not live to meet any of her great-grandchildren, I know she would have greeted each one of them with a unique and beautiful quilt -- one made from pantsuits, old aprons, and love.
