HOW I ACCIDENTALLY BECAME A QUILTER

I'm not sure I can tell you how or when the box of fabric came into my possession but it has moved with me from house to house, city to city, for many years. I think when we helped my mother move into a retirement home she must have decided it was my turn to be the keeper of the box.

The story I've been told is that my grandmother started making a quilt from the Flower Garden Path quilt pattern long ago with all the small hexagon pieces hand-cut and hand-pieced together. She became ill with cancer before she could finish piecing the quilt so my mother, already an adult, a nurse, and an accomplished seamstress herself, moved back to her childhood home to care for her mother. They filled much of their days working on the quilt pieces together. My grandmother passed away from that illness before I was born so I never got to know her but every time I opened the box I felt I could sense her presence and could almost picture myself sitting with them at their sewing table. It gave me a sense of connection to touch the pieces, knowing that they had been lovingly touched before by my grandmother's and my mother's hands.

Even though I learned to sew from my mother, I was not a quilter. I considered many times donating the contents of the box of seventy-one completed vintage flower blocks and all the assorted left over fabric scraps to someone who would enjoy finishing the quilt. I knew the good Lord had not given me enough patience to carry on with this hand-stitched project as it was, but something kept me from giving it away every time. So, each time I retrieved it from the storage area to look at it and contemplate what to do with it, I again packed it away to move with me to the next phase of my life.

My life hit a real speed bump three years ago when I learned my younger (and only) sister was diagnosed with breast cancer. I had just read an article about someone who had made a 'chemo quilt' for a friend and decided I could do this for my sister. Her favorite holiday is Halloween and I saw some cute Halloween fabric so how hard could this be? (Remember, I don't quilt.) Not as hard as I'd feared, I discovered. I joined a local quilt club and received lots and lots of support, help and education from the other accomplished members - and I was introduced to a rotary cutter. After buying one, I thought maybe I could become a quilter after all. I wondered how I had never owned one of these time-saving, hand-saving precision tools before. The Halloween quilt was a hit, the first of several that I have since completed and the best part, my sister's cancer is in remission!

I've also now become what some people would call an old woman. I don't see it that way, but still.....I knew it was time to get the box out again and seriously tackle what to do with it. There are still three living direct descendant granddaughters and two great-granddaughters from my grandmother but I knew there were not enough pieces to complete a quilt for each of us so I prayed and silently asked my grandmother and my mother for suggestions on how best to share our grandmother's legacy with them and possibly continue to pass that legacy to our family's future children and grandchildren. I believe they answered me. Table runners, they'd said.

Laying out the design was challenging but fun. I machine appliqued three of the completed flower blocks to three white background panels for each of the five runners. The machine stitching actually looked like it was hand appliqued. I then added a solid black sashing around each of the three white blocks.

The next step was acccomplished with the rotary cutter by cutting the fabic scraps into two and one-half inch wide strips, sewing them together as sets and then cutting them into one-inch by two-inch (finished size) strips to form a border on all four sides.There were enough saved scraps in the inherited box to coordinate the borders matching them to the appliqued flowers on each table runner. (I don't think these old hands could have accomplished all that cutting even with the collection of sicssors that I already have.)

In the meantime, I've completed several other quilts, gone on bus trips to quilt shops with the quilting club girls, and because of the recent Covid stay-at-home orders, I have found way too many on-line fabric stores and made friends with other quilters who understand you can never have too much fabric. "You'll definitely find a place to use it someday", they said. And if I am left with only one quilting tool, I would have to choose my rotary cutter.

I've learned scraps are called a stash in a quilter's world and I have already built a stash that has taken on a life of its own. I started quilting by setting up my sewing machine in a corner of the guest room - now guests sleep in the sewing room. But they all understand. I have officially become a quilter.

I'm now a grandmother myself and at a stage of my life that I know I am no longer invincible. I have accepted that I will eventually run out of my allotted days sooner or later. I'm still hoping for the latter because I have way too much stash and way too many projects to finish before I go.

I guess if I must, I could pass 'the box' on to my daughter but she doesn't quilt.

(I wonder if my mother anticipated how this was going to end up.....)