Years ago, she and I would quilt together, before the rotary cutters and modern quilting innovations. We would have lunch and spend and afternoon chatting and cutting quilt blocks, simple diamond squares or nine squares. We always made rescue quilts, meaning using up salvageable material from old clothing. We didn’t buy new material unless we needed muslin to applique on. Backing material for me was almost always an old sheet. Then I’d make a quilt or she would make a quilt from the blocks. I designed this one for my oldest daughter who was young and single and a runner at the time. The blocks we made were divided into earth and sky. The quilting reads run,run,run on the background pieces.
It isn’t an expert quilt like quilt guilds specialize in today where they nearly mass produce perfect quilts. I think they miss a lot of what I liked about quilting. Maybe not. I shouldn’t judge. But when I examine my quilts and take a few minutes to really look at them, memories of a certain dress I loved, now preserved in a tiny square, delight me. I’m looking at a square dance dress Anne and I made when we served on the design committee one year; a piece of my son’s shirt, a square from my daughter’s blouse. I must have spent a half hour enjoying this quilt. My friends Pam and Russ own a store called Stories In Stones. Quilts are stories too, each one unique.
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