Quilts - I get it!

The tentative beginnings of a quilt. The centre panel is an old pillow slip I bought from Ikea, that is bordered by leftover fabric from my new curtains. The rest will be made up of bits and pieces of old fabric, never used. It's from old skirts of mine, tablecloths, pieces from Tricia and a couple of metres of blue tones bought specially for this project.

I'm a quilter! I never thought I'd ever utter those words and if the truth be know, I'm only on my second quilt. Ummm, and there is a gap of 27 years between the first one and what I'm doing now. LOL My first quilt was made using precut Laura Ashley squares. I made a single bed quilt so that my baby Shane could sit on something soft on the floor. All I did was sew the squares together, attach some wadding and a backing and that was my quilt. I still have it somewhere, I think Hanno has it packed in a box in the shed. Shane is now 27 years old.

My sister has been a quilter for many years and has made some beautiful quilts, one of which I use on my bed in winter. But I never really understood the quilt mentality - when my brother-in-law asked Tricia "why are you cutting up fabric and sewing it back together again?" I listened closely for the answer because I didn't know. Of course, Tricia didn't answer her husband because she thought he was teasing her. Maybe he was, but I wanted to know what her answer would be. Now I know.

Or think I do.

Making a quilt from pieces of fabric left over from other projects, or gifted to me, is the essence of simple living. It's the ability to make something functional, beautiful and necessary using the frugal remains of other projects. It's the motivation to use what we have, to make what we need.

I arrived at this pleasant rethinking of patchwork because three things worked together to convince me of the worth of a patchwork quilt. One was that I now have enough fabric - Tricia's overflowing basket full of scraps gave me the means. Secondly, I realised that what I made didn't have to be perfect. This was galvanised into my head when Tricia was here and I told her that I couldn't get my patchwork squares to line up exactly on their seams. "So?" was her answer. I loved that. I love knowing perfection isn't required. If it is, I always fall short. The third thing was after seeing Tricia's quilt I finally knew where my starting point was. I never knew that before and for someone as craft-dumb as I am, that is a really important step.

About a year ago when Tricia visited, she cut out a lot of squares for me in preparation for the quilt I'm now making. Over the months, I sewed lengths of them together (hence my shock when they didn't all line up) but I didn't really know what I was supposed to be doing with the strips. I am an intelligent woman, but I can also be very stupid with things unknown to me. I could write a creditable magazine article in an hour, I could explain to you the life cycle of the worm or make a speech to a thousand people, but give me strips of fabric and I'm dumbfounded. Completely dumbfounded. Tricia's quilt showed me the way, I start from the middle and work out, that makes sense to me!

This quilt, like my first quilt, is for Shane, I plan to make Kerry's for his birthday in July. The symbolism of a handmade quilt can be quite powerful and it can echo meaning to family members over generations. I will weave several messages to my sons in their quilts, there will be symbols of their Australian, German, Irish and Swedish heritage, as well as secret messages from me to them, some they're recognise, some they won't. I hope the quilts show my sons their uniqueness, my unconventional nature, some of my humour and grace, as well as the values I've come to live by, and I hope they discover too - thrift, generosity, kindness and acceptance. I hope my sons recognise all the idiosyncratic elements stitched in piece by piece, because I want them to know their quilts are meaningful. But most of all I want them to feel the love I've stitched for them, and to be wrapped in that love as they sleep.