Friday, February 15, 2013

Quilts Someone Loved



Rescuing quilts


Over the years since I have fallen in love with quilting and discovered the world of technology, I have bought more than my share of incomplete quilts. I have purchased blocks and tops from eBay and antique shops.  There is always something about the blocks or tops that speaks to me to make we want to take it home.




I still have blocks of my own making waiting for me to be inspired on a setting and I still have tops waiting for me to be inspired to quilt them.  Someday I will get to them.




Some day may have been the excuse of many of the people who did not finish the projects I have attracted to myself.  I feel most of the tops I have bought is the result of someone having projects left at the end of their life.  That reason above all other reasons is why I am compelled to gather them up.




I feel especially bad for the tops that go in estate sales.  They were unloved by the people who inherited the leftovers of the home.  Did they not see the love that went into each hand stitched seam?  Did they not feel the peace the person felt while sitting at rest working on something they had an idea for?  Maybe that particular quilt was for a special grand child or daughter getting married.  It just seems sad the pieces of someone’s life slipping out the door.


I have felt the presence of many such people as I take a finished piece off my quilt frame.  I know someone is up in heaven clapping her hands and feeling joy for her project finally being done, and being loved.


I am especially enamored by the tops that look ugly because the fabrics may be gaudy colors, but they have been put together with a plan.  You can see the design the maker had in mind and it all makes sense to me.  I have been inspired enough by a work I purchase that I will reproduce it myself from more current fabrics.

2 comments:

  1. I understand that feeling - it is the way I feel about well-worn and ragged old books, especially handwritten old recipe books.

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  2. That bottom one is a pretty piece. I like old handwritten recipe books too, or even old ones found in secondhand shops with hand written notes written by the recipes.

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