Quilt Quality Control Cat

I remember that first day so well. The last day was a blur.

It was a warm August morning when I set out to bring a small, fluffy bundle of blue-grey fur home. I held a piece of paper over you to protect you from the sun as we came down that winding mountain road. You refused to stay in the carrier and would only settle down when you were sitting on my lap.

Just 12-weeks old and you’d stolen my heart. Vladimir – my soulmate in cat form. My shadow, my sewing buddy and supurrvisor.

Little did I know that day as we sat in my craft-room working on this quilt that very soon you would be gone and my world would be turned upside-down.

That day was my worst nightmare. You’d been with me through everything – my surgery and diagnosis, my relationship break-up, so many moves and quality control on dozens of magazine quilts – I didn’t know how to live without you.

It hurt so much that I just stopped doing everything – everything that I loved – because you were so intrinsically tied into every aspect of the life that I had created. It hurt to look at my craft-room, to see all my creative spaces just empty and cold without you there.

When I opened the door again it was not the same creative space that I loved. It was strange and distant. Not only had you gone but now Dad was gone too. It was the worst few months of my life.

I took my time. My customers and my work knew that I needed time. But I railed against my grief – because my stubborn nature of needing to do something, needing to not sit idle, would not let me be. So from the depths of whatever reserves I had left I found a way back to the place that had brought me so much happiness, so much sanity and so much comfort.

I started small, making projects that I could do from start to finish without over-stretching my fragile emotional state – a wallet, a small wall-hanging. And then I decided that I needed to finish that quilt, the last one you sat on before you died, the last quilt that you worked on with me, scattering pieces on the floor, messing up my layout as the sounds of the scissors snipping through fabric and bobbin-winding filled the air. The hum of my sewing machine was the background music to my life.

Vladimir’s Garden. I love everything about this quilt. From the fabrics by one of my favourite designers – Jason Yenter – to the fussy-cut details of some of the triangles and my favourite quilting designs. I love that it’s your quilt, that it was published with an introduction that details your memory as the inspiration behind it. I love that it’s our quilt and will never leave my possession.

Making this quilt was one of the most bittersweet processes I’ve ever been through. It was grief and love and a whirlwind of other emotions that I needed time to experience.

It was a challenge and closure. It was a hurdle and a pleasure.

I was almost sad to actually finish making this quilt, as by still being in the process of making it kept you in limbo – of not truly being gone, but not here either. You didn’t get to quality control this one but I promise it’s up to my usual standard. Only the best for you, my little gentleman.

Quilting is my happy place. It’s my quiet place and my zone-out space. It’s different than it was before Vladimir left but it is one of my life’s true passions and one that will never change no matter where life takes me.

Quilting is something I found in the midst of an odd time in my life but it drew me in close and gave me the satisfaction of creating things that I was missing. Other hobbies had fallen by the wayside and I needed something that was structured and would put my skills to the test and to good use. I felt like everything had come together when I discovered quilting. I belonged. It just fitted me perfectly in a way that nothing had before.

My quilting colour choices are juxtaposed with my style of dress, and my dark façade belies the rainbow that lives inside my brain. Many find it funny that such things come out of my hands; my brain is always a flurry of activity and the compulsion is intense and overriding. Even though my persona is not affectionate, those who own one of my quilts know how I feel about them.

I will admit I probably own too many gadgets and a fabric stash that will outlive me but every time I enter that room the weight of the world lifts from my shoulders. Nothing matters while I’m in there creating, living in a world of colour and texture.

Every stitch helps me reconnect with my happy memories of a small blue-grey cat that lives in my heart.