I’ve never thought of my ninety-four-year-old Mom as an artist. She doesn’t use canvas, brushes, oils, or paints. With a needle, thread, and strips of cloth, she painted a beautiful red, white, and green wedding bouquet, stitched by hand.
The painting is called the Wedding Bouquet.
She is an artist. During her heyday, she quilted with the best of them in Greensboro.
Several of her quilted paintings are on beds in my home. These quilts are artistic creations that keep on giving, especially this time of the year. Her love and devotion live through them.
Many of the quits record milestones or special time periods for me and my siblings. My twelfth-grade prom dress dances in one or more quilts—bumping and doing the hustle from start to finish. The quilts are stitched memories of the times we left behind. They are the way we were.
Mom’s skill at repurposing the old to make something new was economical and artful. Snip, snip and an old dress, shirt, or pants became a part of our heritage to pass on to the next generation. Recycling old out-grown clothes into quilts for the family was a common practice in the South.
The quilts were the fabric of our lives.
Mom used quilting patterns she learned from my grandmother. And these patterns had names: The Double Wedding Ring, The Fish Tale, The Basket, The Star, The Ten million, The Bridal Bouquet, and others.
Hand quilting is a part of the historical South but may become a lost artform if the current generation fails to continue the art. I made two quilt tops during my younger days, which were used as bedspreads.
Quilting in America dates back to the 1800s as a common-sense method of providing protection from wintry weather. Many communities had quilting circles. The women would meet at each other’s house and quilt for hours. There was no such thing as a store-bought quilt.
Whole cloth quilts featured one uncut or pieces of the same fabric for the entire quilt top. The quilt has three layers: quilt top, filler, and backing. The three layers are stitched together by hand.
Many quilters sewed pieces together to form blocks. And the blocks sewed together became quilt tops. Often time stitched borders lengthen and widened the quilt tops to the required bed size.
A homemade quit is more than pieces of cloth and filler sewn together with thread—it’s art.
And Mom loved her craft in those days. Now, she admires her handiwork and gift.