My grandmothers were both very skilled at sewing, knitting, and quilting – the “grandmother arts” as I call them. I believe that gene skipped a couple of generations in my family – my mother did not enjoy those activities and I didn’t take to them either. I don’t really consider myself a “crafty” person at all – I don’t draw, knit, sew or quilt. As I say, I think that gene is somewhat deficient in the more recent branch of my family tree. My artistic sense is expressed through my writing of poetry, but I seem to lack the visual artistic talents. That doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate those arts. Perhaps I just admire them from the perspective of someone who doesn’t practice that particular artistic skill but happily recognizes the time, effort, creativity and resulting beauty.
About 30 years ago when I was living in the Bellevue area, I saw a notice of an upcoming quilt show to be held at one of the Bellevue high schools. That sounded like an interesting excursion, so on the day of the display, I drove to the high school and followed the signs into the gymnasium. It was filled with quilts – quilts hanging on rods, quilts stretched across tables, quilts piled onto shelves, photos of quilts in various booths throughout the entire main floor of the gym as well as the mezzanine. The quilts were crafted by many different artists, each having her own booth, but one quilter in particular was featured. I do not remember her name, but she was from Oregon and about 1/4 of the gym’s main floor was reserved exclusively for her quilt display.
I’m familiar with what I think are generally called patchwork quilts – quilts made from scraps of various fabrics and may or may not be sewn in a pattern. I know there are various patterns that can be done using differing color palettes – Log Cabin pattern, Wedding Ring, Pinwheel, 8-pointed Star, etc. But the ones I found most fascinating were quilts that looked like pictures – scenes usually.
After admiring the many colorful quilts on the mezzanine and most of the main floor, I came to that portion of the gym which was filled entirely by quilts of various sizes made by the featured artist. I was in awe. I saw quilts ranging in size from 12”x18” to king size bed quilts. The smaller ones could be used as wall hangings – one or several could be featured on a wall. I came to a series of this small size quilt hung on the wall, and each one was a playing card designed creatively. For example, the Nine of Diamonds card had a 9 up in the corner as playing cards do and featured a baseball diamond with a player in each of the nine positions on the field. Another card was the Queen of Hearts and was represented by a picture of Princess Diana with red hearts on her dress. All the cards were made with small squares of patterned fabric. I continued to look at each and every card and was told by the organizer of the show – a skilled and fairly well known quilter from Washington – that very few quilters even attempt to make the 52 card deck. And here I was seeing this unique and beautiful representation of a deck of cards made into hanging quilts. Truly awesome!
Then I strolled along another row of her smaller quilts and found one quite unique. I studied it for a minute or two, but couldn’t quite figure it out. It was a picture of a lot of people sitting in rows in a room but there were white lines criss-crossing the entire quilt. After a few minutes, I looked at the 3×5 card pinned to the wall beside the quilt – it identified the quilt by name and artist, and the title of the quilt was “Looking through the Bridal Veil.” Then I realized that the viewer of the quilt was the bride looking through her veil at all the people in the church who came to witness the marriage between her and her groom.
Later when I was decorating my own residence, I began thinking that a quilt above my bed in the master bedroom would be ideal. Considering we live in an earthquake-prone area, I did not want to experience an earthquake at night and have a wood framed picture, for example, fall off the wall during the shaking. I figured something soft that wouldn’t break, or hurt anything it fell on, would be most appropriate for that space. I have always enjoyed going to craft fairs and admiring the creativity of the artists, and I found a local quilter whose quilts I really liked. I frequented her booth whenever she displayed her wares at a local craft fair. One day she displayed a quilt of the appropriate size for my bedroom wall. The quilt appeared to be a nine-pane glass window through which you could view a scene of sailboats on a lake, a large rocky cliff with a lighthouse on it to guide the sailors, and in the foreground some trees and a garden with many blooming flowers. If you looked closely at the small individual quilt squares, you could find some bunnies, various birds, a kitten and a duck in the fabrics used to create the garden scene. I bought it then and there, have it on my bedroom wall to this day, and I still love it.
My grandmothers made some beautiful hand-sewn patchwork quilts, but my compelling interest in quilts originated with that first very memorable exhibit in Bellevue. I continue to be fascinated by quilts and if I’m not careful I would be tempted to purchase more than I could possibly use or display.
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