The Quilted Gift

The sun broke over the horizon as I made the final turn on Edisto Drive, to my childhood home, where my widowed father waited. The past two years had been a dramatic shift for us all since my mom passed way. My Dad, a retired eighty-eight year old fighter pilot, remained confused. Statistics proved he should have gone first.

I pulled into the driveway, parked, and went inside. Bacon cooked on the stove, coffee dripped in the pot, and reminders of times past penetrated my nostrils. The essence? A blend of roses, gun oil, newspapers, old books, and floral soap. I was home.

After breakfast, we exchanged Christmas gifts and my father said,

"I have one more gift for you from your grandmothers." I thought his mind had slipped.

"Dad, Grandma Wade and Grandma Cupp have been gone for twenty-plus years." I said.

His mother died in 1988 and my mom's mother, in 1998.

My Dad smiled his famous smirk of the Cheshire cat and pulled a cloth bag out of the hall closet and set it in front of me.

"Your grandmother's quilted their entire lives. Years ago a necessity, became their hobby in later years. They worked on joint quilting projects and entered contests at the county fair and won. Dozen's of blue ribbons lined their walls, but more important to them, they loved making them for the family as heirlooms." He said.

"Your mother inherited their piles of material and saved them. The dozen bags have been in the closet for years and I decided to do something with them."

The back room closet had been stacked with materials for years with dozens of bags of various cloth pieces, I remembered. My mother tended to save everything. Some would call her a pack rat but in truth she was a product of the great depression and didn't agree. In her generation you saved everything and found a use for it. Recycling was her way of life long before the modern concept began.

My father said, "A ladies quilting Club meets at the church community center every Tuesday morning. I gave them the materials to add to their stock pile. They went through the swatches to organize them and found a quilt design, hand drawn, on notebook paper that had never been quilted."

"Grandma Wade and Grandma Cupp’s sketch?" I asked.

"Yes." He said, "All the materials needed were in the bags, and they decided to finish the project for them."

My Dad pointed his finger at the bag.

"This is your present from you Grandmothers, thirty years late."

I pulled the quilt from the bag, unfolded it and spread it on the floor. The bright and beautiful blanket reflected light into the room. The attention to detailed, each with its own star design of colors and patterns artfully sewn together, amazed me.

Every square of unique clothe contained a multitude of triangles blended with precision to create a historical and personal artwork. The blue, pink, gold, brown, and purple swatches collected from the remnants of dresses, shirts, and other handmade clothes since the 1920s hewn with the precision of a neurosurgeon. I sat speechless as tears filled my eyes.

The quilt held remnants of my grandfather's shirts, my Uncles pants, my grandmother's dresses, my mom and aunt's blouses and skirts. The patches bore witness to the passage of their history.

Fragments of a dress worn to a wedding, a shirt to a town hall, pants to enlist in the army for WWII, or the clothes worn to celebrate a birthday. The threads of time from those I loved, and some I'd never met, were woven into this quilt.

This quilt represented the joy of my grandmother's hours spent together in a social setting with other woman and produced art. It represented their love for me.

On the back of the Quilt was stitched,

To

J. Scott Wade

From Grandmother's

Mary E Wade * Ruth Cupp.

The ladies in the Quilting Club, of the same mind, had completed the project that they couldn't.

In the bottom of the quilt bag lay two pairs of scissors with a note attached.

These scissors belonged to your grandmothers and should remain with your family. They are Fiskars, the only scissors any fine quilter would use as precision cuts are required to make seamless connections of the squares.

I held the scissors in my hand, the much older pair made of iron, and weighty, the Orange ones were lighter, yet strong. My grandmother's held and used these scissors over many years. Their energy and creativity used these tools to transition remnants of clothe into a timeless patchwork quilt.

I hugged my Dad and thanked him for the meaningful gift.

He said, "Thank your grandmother's and the woman like them, the quilters, who cut, stitch and sew the past into the present for preservation into the future."

Later in the day, as the sun set over the horizon, I made my way west and to my home. On the seat beside me, the quilt lay, a folded remnant of so many lives lived before. A reminder, we are but a thread of the whole and the past always connects to the future. I remain grateful to the artisans and generous hearted ladies of quilting that brought me joy.

I will join a Quilting Circle (Post-Covid) to learn the craft but already know I will learn much more. My grandmother's scissors are ready and able.