GRANDMOTHER'S QUILT

 

I have this quilt.

Well yes, I have several quilts, but this is the one I want to talk about today because I've been thinking about it.

I hear that my grandgirl wants to learn to sew. 

That makes me quite very happy and I wish I lived near enough to her to be able to be one of her teachers. 

Instead I will one day take this quilt to her and tell her about it. 

This quilt here, I will say, was put together by my Grandmother.  You know GeeGee, right?  Well she's my mom, and this was made by HER mom, way back when.  The person who made this quilt is your great-great grandmother.  There's you, and your mom, and me who is HER mom (your grandmother), and GeeGee who is MY mom (your great-grandmother), and then Grandma Johnnie as we call her who is GeeGee's mom (your great-great grandmother!).  The line goes on back and back and back, because Grandma Johnnie had a mom too, and so did SHE and ... it just goes right on and on and on.

The quilt, I will say, is made up of many many small pieces, all stitched together to make one big piece, something useful and beautiful. 

This Grandmother's Quilt has many many triangles. 

My grandmother used pieces of the old clothes of people in her family  for the triangles and so each piece has a special meaning.  One piece might be from a shirt that belonged to her husband, or her son; one might be from the favorite skirt of a daughter; another might be from one of her own favorite blouses.  She knew each piece of this quilt and stitched it together with love and care. 

So you see that making a quilt is an important thing. 

Even if you don't use bits of your own family's things to make your quilt, still your quilt will mean something important. 

Look at these triangles.  You know that triangles have three sides each but are still one triangle.  Just so do each of us have three sides to our selves. 

Our three sides are body, mind, and soul. 

So too does God have three but is still one.  Father, Son, Holy Spirit.  Do you see how it's the same? 

And this quilt which has many many triangles can show you lots of things that you might one day be glad to know about. 

Like what? 

Well, like ... look how the triangles are stitched together. 

Each triangle is connected to the others around it, like you are connected to your mom and your dad and your brother. 

And look, see how those four triangles make another triangle?  Every triangle in this quilt, every single one of the many many triangles in this quilt, is the beginning of a bigger triangle; and each of those bigger triangles is the beginning of yet bigger ones.  No matter which little triangle you choose to begin with, it is part of MANY triangles, and part of the whole big quilt.

If you wanted to you could show how every single triangle in this big quilt is connected to every other one. 

Say you want to start way down here in this corner.  This one small triangle is connected to every other one;  you can track the connections clear up to that one up there in the most far away corner, see?  And to that one over on the other side, and so to ALL of them. 

In one sense it's like looking at the way a family might be like a quilt. 

In another way, it's like seeing that each triangle of this quilt might represent something about YOU.  Say this triangle is a reminder of the day you lost your first tooth, and that one over there might be the day your brother was born, and that one up there maybe could be all the hugs from your mom and dad rolled into one (although I reckon each of these pieces has those too).  These two side by side ones could be times you were kind right alongside of times you lost your temper. 

Every time you look at your quilt you can see many different things and no two times will be exactly the same.  The thing is that they are all connected and every single solitary last one of them is a part of bigger and bigger triangles that all blend together and overlap each other to make one whole quilt. 

I see this Grandmother's Quilt, and I can see her own self in it.  I can imagine that this one triangle is the day she married my grandfather.  I can see that these others might be the days her children were born.  I can see that this one might be the moment she got her first kiss.  I can see that one over there and think maybe it's a time she was afraid.  So may triangles, so many moments they could tell about.

To me, and even more so to YOU, this quilt here is pretty darned OLD.  It IS old.  See how the edges are frayed?  See how some of the pieces are worn and thin and torn? 

But they are still part of this quilt here.  They are each important.  If I took one piece out, the quilt would have an empty space in it, wouldn't it?  It wouldn't look the same and it certainly wouldn't look the way it's supposed to look.  It would have that space where something or someone is supposed to be.  And so the space still marks where the bit of fabric was.

Just so are the moments in your life, and in mine; just so are the people in a family; just so are the people we meet; just so are all the people we will NEVER meet but who are still their own little triangles in the quilt of our world. 

When my grandmother built this quilt, maybe she was thinking about each of the people who matched up with all the little pieces of fabric she was using.  Maybe she used her quilting time to remember special things about each of them.  Knowing her, I'm pretty sure she did exactly that, and that she totally loved making this quilt. 

Knowing her, I'm also pretty sure she had other things on her mind as well, while she stitched. 

Like what? 

Well, like how this quilt needed to look pretty to her, and how she wanted it to be balanced with color so she scattered the pieces that were the same all over the place instead of just lumping them together in a blotch. 

And what else? 

Beyond a shadow of a doubt she was thinking that this quilt was going to keep someone warm and comfortable.  Because generally that's why she was making it in the first place, for someone to snuggle into. 

Did she stop to think that maybe one of her grandgirls would someday be talking with one of HER grandgirls about this old quilt?  I doubt it, but maybe.  You never know.  I happen to think it's a FINE idea to think about you, MY grandgirl, someday talking with one of your OWN grandgirls about this old quilt!

Anyway, all these little triangles here fit together to make patterns inside of patterns inside of patterns, there's that.  AND the whole basic bottom line reason behind making a quilt is to keep someone comfortable, safe, and warm when they need it. 

But, you know, all those little triangles aren't all there is to it.  They're NECESSARY of course, because without them there would be no quilt at all. 

However, just as important are the stitches that hold them all together.  There are even more of those tiny little stitches than there are triangles, a LOT more, MANY times more! 

And, just as the triangles are connected side by side, the lines of stitches connect together AND hold the whole thing together. 

Can you think what thost tiny stitches might mean, what they might represent?  They go all the way through the whole quilt from the front to the back and then all over again and again and again, countless tiny stitches.

Me, I like to think of them as lines of the love and caring that keep everything from falling apart, and keep the pattern in place; God's love for us and His caring about and for us; and our own for one another. 

You see how tiny they are?  They're so little that unless you look close you don't even really see them. 

But you know darned well that they're there because without them there would be no quilt!  It would be nothing more than a pile of little triangles that wouldn't be able to keep ANYONE warm, let alone be pretty to look at. 

Ah yes, what else is there to a quilt besides bits of fabric and countless stitches? 

Yep.  There's the insides. 

Behind that pretty design is a plain ordinary-looking filling.  The designed part, the front of the quilt, might possibly be used for a cover, but it wouldn't be a very warm one.  You need the filling to make a warm quilt, one that will do what it's supposed to do. 

Nobody ever sees the inside of a quilt except the one who makes it, and unless something happens to damage part of the cover.  But of course it's in there. 

So what might the filling of the quilt be like? 

I can't say for you or for anyone else, but me I think the inside of the quilt is like all the hidden things that we don't think about or really notice as we go about our lives from day to day.  It's the jobs we do, and the small moments of our days that we just go on through and do all the time until we don't think they're really all that much to write home about any more. 

I think the filling might be made up of all the smiles we don't even realize we're gifting others with, all the nice little things we do just as a matter of course. 

I also think that the filling is a conglomeration of all the nice things anyone associated with any piece of the quilt has ever done, all the fibers blended into one big warmly amazing piece by the overall kindness of God who loves us His children and provides the filling that warms us, knowing all the while that probably nobody will ever ever see it or think much about it - we'll just take it for granted unless something happens to the cover pieces. 

See, the pretty cover has wonderful designs and is fun to look at, but the filling is what actually does the work of a quilt, which is keeping someone warm. 

It might not be fancy, but it's always there, always. 

The back of the quilt comes next of course.  Usually it's just a plain thing and that's fine.  It's supposed to be plain.  The front needs to be as pretty as you can make it but the back, not so much.  Not that you want to have it be ugly, and you do NOT want it to clash with anything, but it's main function is to hold the filling to the front of the quilt and to protect it.   

I don't have a deep philosophical comparison for the back of a quilt right now, except that it's a part of the quilt and is necessary.  Maybe it's like an overview of history or something.  I'll have to think on that for a while. 

The binding around the edge is the finishing touch and is again a part of the design, an establishing of boundaries, and a protection for the whole of the quilt.  When the edges get frayed, the stitching is at risk, the piecing is at risk, and if the edges go the whole thing might just fall apart before too long.  Besides, without the edging the quilt just LOOKS un-finished and not as pretty. 

When it comes right down to it, I can put this quilt away and not think about it for a long time.  There have been times I've stashed it in a trunk or on a shelf for years on end, but if ever I'm cold, or lonely, and want something warm and strong to wrap myself up in, there it is. 

Again, that's like a family, and like good friends, and like a neighborhood, or a town, or a county, or a state, or a nation, or a world - and most of all, over everything else all put together, it's like God.

My other grandmother, my dad's mom, made quilts too.  Your mom has one of them that she made for my dad, and then it was mine, and now it's your mom's.  That was my Grandma Helen for whom your mom is named.  Grandma Helen told us flat out that the quilts she made were for us to USE, not for us to put away to protect them or for us to hang on our walls so we could look at them.  She made those quilts to help keep us warm when we needed warming up.  When I got that quilt from my dad it was sort of like getting warm loving hugs from my grandmother even after she couldn't give them to me in person any more.  And so those warm hugs from Grandma Helen go on and on, to my dad, to me, to your mom, to you, and one day to your children and grandchildren. 

Quilts are like that.  They kind of absorb all those hugs, keep them safe, and pass them on down the line to younglings not even BORN yet who will most certainly need to be warmed up now and again. 

Even so, for the time being I DO have this particular quilt hanging on a wall in my house.  One of the reasons is that for this moment in my life I WANT to look at it, to think about it and what it means, the people and memories it reminds me of. 

So when I look at my Grandmother's Quilt, there's a lot more to think about than just how cold I am at the moment. 

Not that, as a general rule, I DO think a lot about much more than how cold I might be at any given moment - but this one time I HAVE thought about more. 

Maybe I'll never think about it again - but maybe I will. 

And maybe so will YOU!