Hidden Threads

After I started quilting, I began to notice quilts . . . everywhere. There was one in the reading room of my local library, in the showroom of the local bedding store, in my favorite episode of Friends, and there is a quilt in at least one of every five movies I watch. Sometimes they are hanging on walls, or draped over the backs of couches. Sometimes they are tablecloths, or parts of decorative window treatments.

After the revelation that the old adage is true: Once you recognize something or learn a new word, you’ll discover it all over the place, I started to pay closer attention. These placements aren’t random. The quilts are creating a homey atmosphere, a kind of shorthand for, “Welcome home” or “This is a nice place to sit a spell”. Quilts are part of our collective consciousness, I guess, and they stand for something pretty nice, warm and solid. I feel proud to be a part of this traditional American art form and what it represents – home, hearth, care giving, making due, prevailing over adversity.

I have a couple of thimbles and some old needles in a little leather pouch that belonged to my grandmother.  I have very few things that belonged to her, so they are important me. It gives me a little frisson of wonder to think of us both, separated by so many years, sharing and enjoying the same pastime, putting needle to fabric.

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