The Past Becomes the Future

When I was expecting my first child, Erik, my mother gave me a stack of embroidered muslin squares that she'd held onto for decades.  She embroidered them when she was a teenager.  She would have looked like this then.  This is her high school graduation picture. 

She was 17 when she graduated from high school.  The family story is that when her older brother (my Uncle Willard) started school, she wanted to go too.  At age 4, and without telling anyone, she got on her pony and rode to school to be with him.  The school sent her home because she was too young to start.  The next day, the same thing happened, and the school relented and let her stay.  That's how she ended up graduating a year younger than her peers.  But I digress . . . again.  (If you could peer into my brain, each thought would have a spider web radiating out from the center, indicating how tangential I tend to be.)

In any case, the stack of embroidered squares she gave me were all different Mother Goose nursery rhyme characters.  There were 27 in all, plus two blank muslin squares.  I'll never know what she had in mind for them when she started what had to have been a long project.  At some point, she put them away never to be seen again until she handed them to me shortly before Erik's birth.  I was thrilled to get them.

It was an interesting glimpse into her past that I'd not known before.  My mother was a wonderful seamstress.  Her mother was a fabulous quilter.  In fact, her mother did all sorts of needlework, but I'd never seen my mother do anything but garment-sewing.  It's funny how these little things we don't know about our parents can be so fascinating.

So, while I hadn't started quilting yet (and wouldn't for a long, long time), I had made comforters out of flat sheets.  Immediately, I got it into my head to make a little comforter out of these embroidered blocks.  I sewed them together 5 blocks wide and 5 blocks long.  I used the extra two embroidered blocks and the two blanks to make a pillow.  I made a quilt sandwich using two layers of batting so that it was nice and warm, and a solid turquoise blue for the backing.  It would be a long time before I would make my first quilt binding, and so I used double fold seam binding that I bought at JoAnn to bind my little comforter, and I tied it with blue variegated knit cro sheen crochet thread.

There was a time when newspapers published applique patterns, quilt patterns, and embroidery patterns.  I tried to find some information about it on the internet, and the only thing I could find that was particularly relevant was this article about an exhibit currently under way at the LaConner Quilt & Textile Museum in LaConner, Washington.  When I realized this exhibit was going on right now, I got excited until I realized it was a full day's drive away.  Bummer.  I have an idea that these designs were probably published in the newspaper that my mother's family read.

I'm somewhat in awe of her impeccable embroidery now that I've been doing so much embroidery myself.  It looks as if these were done with perle cotton thread, which I've never used.  (I might have to start.)

So what does this have to do with anything?  Well, this little baby comforter has been stored away in a cedar chest for years.  My two sons outgrew it long ago, and I put it away and forgot about it.  Then recently when I was putting away some items I inherited from my aunt, I found it again.  As I looked at it, I got the idea to take it apart and make a real quilt out of it.  I'd like to put sashing between the blocks, give it some new, better quality batting, quilt it, and give it a proper binding.  I've just been waiting for the right time to come along.  The right time is defined as:  when my first grandchild is conceived.

Well.  I haven't received any word that my first grandchild has been conceived.  But it's no secret to anyone that I keep hoping, hoping, hoping.  If hoping can make it happen, then it will happen, because I've hoped really hard.  Then last night I got the strongest urging to take it out and get started on it.  This morning, I ripped out the first side of the binding.

I've been known to have a sixth sense about things like this.  It would be wonderful if my sixth sense has kicked in just now.  I'm marking the date on my calendar, just . . . in . . . case.  And in the meantime, remaking this quilt will give me something to do while I'm hoping.

January 5, 2016 Addendum: There still are no grandchildren. There probably won't be, and that's just fine with this mother. My two sons bring me joy beyond imagining, and what more could anyone want in life? You can find followups to this post at this link. You can see the finished quilt right here.