Quilting With Love

I had the benefit of growing up with both of my grandmothers and one of my great grandmothers at a time before the Internet. As a child of the 80s, I learned from them how to cook, bake, knit, crochet, and quilt.

Among my earliest memories are times spent at my great grandmother’s home. Grandma loved quilting. It was her passion and her gift to the world. She made quilts as gifts for everyone, and she made quilts for the craft fairs at church.

While many quilters make elaborate patterns and designs, Grandma used basic squares. Grandma would get all kinds of fabric, and we would make fun quilt patterns out of them.

I spent many weekends as a child at Grandma’s house cutting and laying out quilts. First, we would take cereal boxes and cut cardboard squares to use as patterns of different sizes. Depending on the type of quilt, it could be 4-inch, 5-inch, 6-inch, or 7-inch squares. But we had to make sure to use the right scissors. You never used Grandma’s fabric scissors on paper or cardboard.

Then, we cut out our quilting fabric squares. Since Grandma lived through the Great Depression, she had the “waste not, want not” motto, so every inch of the fabric got used. If there was a small section of fabric left after cutting 7-inch squares, we might cut out one or two 4-inch squares to not waste it. Those random mismatched squares made for some of the most colorful and creative quilts.

We would lay out the squares in multiple different ways until we found the pattern we loved. Then, we would pin them and sew them. I learned to sew on Grandma’s sewing machine. It was my joy to work with her on those quilts.

As years passed, Grandma got frailer and developed dementia. She was no longer able to do quilting, and visits became more about taking care of her needs. When I was 16, she passed away in a nursing home.

For the next ten years, I did very little quilting. Then, when I met my future husband and told him about my childhood, he bought me a sewing machine. I began making quilts for friends and family members, who were having babies.

When I was pregnant with my daughter, I spent hours choosing the fabrics, cutting, laying out and sewing my squares to make the perfect quilt. When we son was born, I made one for him as well.

As my children were growing up and grew out of their favorite clothing, I repurposed some of the fabrics into quilts. My favorite was a quilt that I made out of my son’s favorite shirts. He outgrew the Thomas the Tank Engine, Lightning McQueen, Pikachu, and dinosaur shirts, but he still got to use them in his blanket forts.

All of those quilts were fun to make and a way to connect with those who received them. However, it was not until I became a Nursing Home Administrator that my quilting journey came full circle.

In so many nursing homes, when a resident dies, they are taken out the back door and gone as if they were never there. The concern is that if other residents see a body bag, it will upset them. The reality is that when someone is just gone one day and no one sees or talks about them, it upsets other residents to think that they will be forgotten as well. I wanted my residents to have death with dignity, and a reverence and remembrance for the life that was lost. Trash goes out the back door. People go out the front door.

I made a quilt for my nursing home that was bright and beautiful. It was large enough to fully covered a body bag, and it created an image that was peaceful. When a resident died, they went out the front door draped in a beautiful quilt for other residents to see that we cared about them even when someone passed away. In my heart, it was not just a gift to my residents, it was a remembrance of my great grandmother. This quilt was my final gift to my great grandmother who taught me to quilt, but went out the back door of a nursing home.