Every Quilt is an Heirloom

I started quilting because my mom made me a t-shirt quilt that I didn’t really like. It wasn’t the craftsmanship, the quilt was flawless. Every t-shirt was interfaced and perfectly cut to exact measurements, sewn with straight seams to colorful strips of sashing and pieced together in a visually appealing design. The quilting was professionally done on a long-arm sewing machine and I’m certain it will hold up for many decades.

It was the content of the quilt that I found so troubling. She made the quilt when I was eighteen, just entering college and ready to get rid of a whole pile of t-shirts I had worn through my adolescence. By eighteen, I had so thoroughly outgrown seventeen that there were no misgivings about seeing fifteen or twenty of my high school t-shirts get cut up.

It’s a rare person that adjusts well to adolescence, but it’s often harder for LGBT kids. I spent most of high school in the closet, terrified that anybody should discover who I truly am, and too scared to admit to being that person. The high school experience that we saw on TV, full of parties and friends and bonfires and first kisses... was out of reach to many of us, certainly to me. I spent most of high school trying not to get clocked for being gay. It didn't help that I didn't know even one single other gay person to talk to about any of this.

I felt that pain imbedded in the quilt itself. The marching band t-shirts… marching band, where I spent less time learning to play the trombone properly and more time worrying about trying to make people like me (and mostly failing). The YMCA t-shirts, from when my parents sent me to day-camp in the summer because I was too anxious to be alone with my thoughts for long periods. T-shirts from church youth group events and bible camp, where my youth leaders and Sunday school teachers told us that the Bible is quite clear on this matter: homosexuality is wrong. And no less than seven t-shirts featuring Charlie Brown, a childhood obsession. I now believe I liked Charlie Brown so much because he was the only person willing to admit that being a child can suck. The whole quilt is fraught with gay teenage angst. My t-shirt quilt brings to light the central problem with memory quilts: not all memories are good.

I entered college in 2009, when the world was becoming more and more welcome to LGBT people; that was particularly true on college campuses. I was out of the closet, I marched in the band, made like-minded friends, went on trips, drank, studied abroad in Europe, rode my bike across The United States, ran marathons, and found my first boyfriend. It didn’t last but I at least learned that it was possible. Like every college experience there was drama and sadness and loneliness, but I have more good memories than bad. I graduated after five years (that stint in Europe set me back a year) and I left the country to teach English in China, where I stayed for two years.

Then I was 25 and I got teaching out of my system; I needed to think of something else to do. I couldn’t stand the thought of making a resume and job hunting and sitting for interviews and I didn’t even know where I should apply. I joined the military instead.

From the day I went to the recruiters office until I would actually leave took about six months. There I was, six years of adventures behind me and a stack of t-shirts to show for it, and nowhere to be for six months. There were the race shirts I got from all the marathons and ultra-marathons I ran, my fraternity letters, uniforms from the schools I taught at in China, team jerseys from my cross-country bike ride, Marriage Equality t-shirts from when we fought for (and won) marriage equality in Pennsylvania, a full year before the rest of the country, and many other shirts I got along the way. I was a different person, and my newfound confidence completely erased all the anxiety I felt in adolescence. I needed a new t-shirt quilt, one with the good memories.

I asked my mom to make the quilt because I didn't know how and she’d been sewing for over forty years. Slightly incensed that I had cast away the first one she made me, my mother was not terribly enthused about making another one. I thought maybe if I helped her along a little bit, she’d get it done faster. So first I used scissors to cut the t-shirts into flat panels that contained the designs I wanted. Then I ironed an interfacing to the back of each panel. The interfacing prevents the t-shirt material from stretching or curling up at the raw edge and makes it much easier to piece together.

After each step I’d ask my mom what the next step was, thinking I’d just take care of that one step and then she’d do the rest. I used graph paper to design a layout for her to sew. I cut strips of fabric for her to use as the sashing, which goes between each t-shirt block. I cut the t-shirts to the exact size and shape she would need according to the design I came up with. My mom taught me to use the sewing machine and I pieced the t-shirts to the sashing, and then to each other, and the quilt top got bigger and bigger until it was finally done. Next I laid out a big piece of fabric right-side down, unrolled a piece of cotton batting onto it, and carefully laid out my quilt top right-side up on top: the quilt sandwich! I tied the sandwich together with yarn, a beginner or “hack” way of quilting, and sewed the binding around the edge (poorly) to finish the quilt. Without intending to, I made the entire quilt myself.

After that first quilt, I took the scraps of t-shirt and added some thrifted neckties and I made them into a crazy quilt. I machine-quilted that one and my mom entered it into a quilt show for me. Next I took 48 scraps of fabric and I blanket-stitched them onto a large panel, each into the shape of one of the 48 continental united states. I sewed over it a black line in the shape of the route I took on my bike in the summer of 2013 and made a quilt to commemorate that experience. That was the first quilt I hand-quilted with a needle and thread: my new preferred method.

I awakened a new obsession just as I was shipped off to basic training. I spent eight weeks marching around base and going to class and doing laundry for fifty other guys and aligning my shoes just right under my bed and making sure each uniform was hung up so perfectly in my locker… and the whole time I was thinking about the quilts I wanted to make. I spent the next couple of years living in a dormitory, unable to fully realize my quilting ambitions.

But I didn’t waste that time either. That first year I ordered supplies and fabric online and had them sent to my parent’s house. When I went home for the holidays I made my next quilt, also hand quilting it. I made it out of t-shirts from my favorite band and then took that one back to base with me and laid it on my dormitory bed. During that trip home I looked back at my first t-shirt quilt knowing what I would have to do: I took the ties out and re-quilted it, this time using a needle and thread and quilting by hand. I had perfected the skill by that point.

Back to my military life, eventually I made higher rank, moved out of the dorms and into my own house. Even before I had furniture in the living room, I was laying out fabric to piece together on my sewing machine at the kitchen table. I’ve been in the military for five years now; I’ve expanded my operation and turned my garage into a quilting workshop with a fabulous design wall. Anytime Ive been asked to do tasks that scared or intimidated me, I could sit up, put something on the TV and sip wine while I pieced together fabric or hand-quilted a finished quilt top with a needle and thread. It relaxes me and ultimately, whatever I was so scared of never turned out to be that scary. I still call my mom at least twice per quilt asking her how to accomplish a new technique.

I’ve made a memory quilt out of marathon t-shirts for a runner friend; she said it reminds her of all the fun she had running those races. I made a quilt out of military uniforms and squadron t-shirts for a friend that was getting out of the military, to remember that time in her life. When my grandfather passed away, I took his clothing and made throw quilts for all the members of my family, carefully hand-quilting each one. Piecing fabric together brings order to my life and organizes all of my feelings into a way that I can process. It can also strengthen the bonds of friendship and family. Any time that teenage angst creeps back into my life, quilting heals. I no longer feel anxiety when I look at that first quilt my mom made me as a teenager; instead I think about how far I’ve come and how fantastically fierce my life has been.