my mother's quilts
around the time that my younger brother started kindergarten, my mother decided she needed a creative outlet of her own, beyond meatloaf and bedtime stories. i remember coming home to find the downstairs bathtub filled with long, skinny sticks soaking in water to soften them so my mother could make baskets. there was also the collage period when the dining room table was covered in colored bits of paper from my mother’s art class. eventually, she volunteered to help make a raffle quilt to raise money for our elementary school. and that, i think, sealed the deal.
my mother grew up on a farm in southwestern iowa. she was surrounded by women who sewed well and made both clothing and quilts. she has memories of matching bibbed overalls my grandmother made for her and my uncles from feed sack fabrics. my mother’s pair was differentiated by a ruffle around the bib. (above) while quilts were in her home, she doesn’t remember when they were created or the women gathered for quilting bees to hand-stitch the patterns that attached the pieced tops, stuffing middles and fabric backs of quilts together. maybe until she started making her own quilts, she thought of quilting as a functional process, rather than a creative one. after that first raffle quilt, my mother began exploring the possibilities of quilting. she often takes a traditional quilt pattern and alters the blocks so that the pattern is unexpected, frequently unrecognizable. or sometimes she creates a new block pattern all together.
the quilt she made for my son's birth is a twist on a traditional baby block pattern. she was inspired by a rug pattern (below) and chose fabrics that make it appear to also have steps.
my daughter's heart quilt was born out of a block and sashing pattern (below.) she added positive/negative pieced hearts in the middle of the squares and chose festive, feminine fabrics.
the double wedding ring pattern in my bedroom has been changed so that the interlocking circles are different widths, emphasized by the dark fabrics chosen for the narrower loops.
she’s had different eras of influence… the japanese, the pennsylvania dutch, the european dutch. and now she is inspired by all kinds of things that have nothing to do with quilting: an art deco gate, a skyline, a political event, artists from other mediums.
what started as an obligation to help out her children’s school, turned into a fulfilling, creative passion for my mother. i love her quilts because they are more like fabric paintings, than mere bedding. for that reason, i have many of her quilts on my walls. they add so much warmth, color, dimension and comfort to my home. i love displaying this tradition that goes back generations and generations of women, using their hands and hearts to create something beautiful, on clean, modern walls.