I'm Thankful for Grandma Perry....

Okay bunnies...this was supposed to have posted the week of Thanksgiving, but it didn't for whatever reason.  It makes no matter....I'm still thankful.  


I love Thanksgiving -- mostly because in the face of Christmas, it's a slower holiday, a little less hectic, and there's more time for reflection.  And I'm thankful for all the "standard stuff" -- health, family, a roof over my head, a steady business, and this year, my beautiful granddaughter.

It goes without saying that I am thankful for quilts and quilters.  I've quilted with some women since 2001 and they're my "go to" gals.  When I have a prayer request, I call them.  When I'm rejoicing and doing the happy dance around the kitchen, they get a text.  They're my closest friends and most comfortable confidants.

But if wasn't for a happenstance years ago, I might have lived the rest of my life without knowing Dixie and Maylene, Judy and Theressa, Lisa and Gail...

My mother was cleaning out her house and gave me a quilt.  It was an old quilt, faded and worn.  I remembered playing on this quilt in Grandma Forbes yard.

It was made from feedsacks and tied with pearl cotton and was meant for everyday use.  I'm sure my mom gave it to me, thinking that I would let my kids (who were still fairly small then), use it as a play pallet in my yard.

But I couldn't.  That quilt spoke to me and rustled up a longing in me that to this day I can't explain.  As I listened to my mother talk about the fabrics --"My grandfather had a shirt made out of that fabric.  And look -- that yellow and black one over there?  My mother had a dress made out of that," I knew that Great-Grandma Perry's quilt wasn't a play thing, it was a treasure.  It was our family history, because from recognizing some of those fabrics, my mother began to tell me an oral history about her family.  Which led to more research, which led me to know the women on my mother's side.  They were quilters.  I found some of their obituaries and discovered that the quilt bee they belonged to was listed in the same line of print that held their church and Sunday School affiliation.

Which prompted me to learn to quilt.  It was a family tradition that spanned from Maryland and West Virginia to California.  Who was I to deny fate its rightful trek and not go with the pull of the needle and thread?

It's quilted not with batting and backing, but on a heavy duty blanket.  The quilt was probably made in Spray (now Eden), North Carolina and there was a Fieldcrest Blanket Factory across the street from where my grandmother lived.  The factory sold second-run blankets and blanket pieces.  More than likely my great-aunts and uncles may have worked at the factory and brought these home to Grandma Perry.  The blanket is still in good condition.

The quilt now loving resides in my bedroom, where it it taken off the quilt rack once a month and re-folded.  And on nights I'm missing my family, or it's really cold, it lays on top of me, like a hug from the past and "I love you" whispers from my family.