Whispers from the Past

I quilt for a lot of reasons.

Sanity is the primary one.  I work with numbers and men. 

All. Day. Long.

Demolition and environmental work isn’t exactly heavy with female workers.  I deal with primarily male workers and executives and then Quickbooks every day. 

And I’m married to the boss.

So yes, sanity is my primary reason I keep quilting.  When I come home and am able to hole up in my quilting room even for 45 minutes, I find I’m a lot calmer person and have much more clarity. 

Creativity is the second reason I quilt.  When I was younger, I was always drawing and creating with paint and paper.  Eventually this translated over to fabric and a sewing machine.  Quilting gives me a creative voice in my life.  Choosing fabrics and patterns uses parts of my brain that numbers don’t use.  And I love changing patterns up to suit what I want to say or even designing my own.

But there’s another, even more subtle, reason I quilt. 

According to what I can find researching my mother’s side of the family, I am at least a fifth generation quilter.  I’m an Ancestry.com junkie and I have traced my mother’s side of the family back for many years.  When I come across some of these women’s obituaries, I find the quilting bee they belonged to listed right alongside the Sunday School class they attended.  Putting needle to fabric lets me hear the whispers of voices from the past: Cora Perry Forbes.  Annie Elizabeth Wolfe Perry. Susie A. Holaway.  Isabella Nelson Perry.  Celia Hatfield Perry (yes…those Hatfields who are forever linked in a feud with the McCoys). Susie Holaway even lived in the same town I now reside in.  I pass the street her house was on almost every day driving home from work.

Is quilting in my DNA?  Maybe.  Is it something I just naturally had an inclination to do because I saw a lot of my female relatives do it?

The answer to that would be no.  I don’t ever remember seeing my grandmother quilt.  I have watched my mother quilt, but that was after I had started quilting myself.  I do have a quilt in my possession that my great-grandmother made.  It was that quilt that started the process in me. 

The burden…the need… to continue an art that has not only supplied my ancestors with warmth, but the women with an ability to express themselves during a time when that was somewhat frowned upon, is another real reason I keep needle to fabric in my spare time.  It’s my fervent hope, that as my daughter’s and my daughter’s-in-law lives progress,  that they will also turn to quilting.  And that their daughters do, too.

An art such as quilting is always and only just one generation away from extinction.

If I could go back in time and talk to my grandmothers, I would ask they value their work.  Preserve those quilts.  Put a label on them with dates and tell who they were made for and why.  Hand them down to family members that would love and respect the quilts and take care of them.  So much love, sweat, and even tears go into a quilt.  It pains me to see them carelessly discarded and overlooked.

I think that as we are piecing and quilting, we need to remember those that have done it before us.  I’m sure if Susie Holaway could visit me today, she would be amazed at rotary cutters and mats and all these computerized sewing machines.  She used scissors and templates and a treadle machine.  But I’m also pretty sure that she’d encourage me to keep the art moving ahead, even if though I’m using drastically different methods and have the money to purchase fabric specifically for a quilt and no other reason.

This week, I encourage you to keep the past a part of your present.

Love and Stitches,

Sherri

• 
•                               Susie Holaway

 

               

                               

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