This is my first quilt, my very first. Whether I can really call it a quilt is debatable – it isn’t quilted, just stitched together at the edges. It’s ugly, the fabrics are mismatched and faded. In places the stitches have unravelled leaving holes. It isn’t a quilt that I would use with pride on a guest bed. But if I could only keep one quilt out of all those I have made, I’m not sure that this one would win, but it would certainly be in the running.

When I was about twelve years old and at a very strict and academic girls’ school in Newcastle in England, we learned to do English paper piecing in needlework lessons. As I remember, the goal was to piece enough hexagons to make a cushion cover. Most of my friends were bored rigid and hated it. I was enchanted. When it came to stopping and finishing the cushion cover I couldn’t or wouldn’t make myself do it. I’m really not sure how I got away with it (rebellion of any sort really wasn’t tolerated and this was the mid 1970’s where nice girls really did what the teacher asked), but somehow I was allowed to take my project home and work further on it.

Throughout the late 1970’s and early 1980’s I begged for fabric scraps from any unfortunate who was foolish enough to admit to doing any dressmaking. I recognize many of the fabrics from my own creations: blouses, nightdresses, a school summer dress. They are all in there. At some point a friend of my mother gave me a bag of crimplene scraps. I can still remember the joy I felt at this unexpected bounty! (However the fact that they were synthetic and crease resistant made me realize eventually that they really weren’t a good idea and at some point in the early 80’s I took them all out again and replaced them with cotton). I spent my free time listening to BBC Radio 4 – specializing in current affairs and plays – and stitching away.

I remember scouring local libraries looking for books on patchwork, but although NE England has a huge tradition of quilting, this was not a time when it was fashionable and I remember being very disappointed  at the meagre offering that I came across. (All in all, I think I must actually have been quite a strange teenager – when I compare myself to my daughters now!)

Just before I went to university in 1982 I decided that the project was big enough. From somewhere I found batting and begged an old linen sheet from my mother and sewed the three layers together at the sides. My ‘Quilt’ went with me to university and to London and then Guildford when I started to work and train to be a chartered accountant. When I went to work in San Francisco in 1989,  it was left behind at my mother’s house because I took only two suitcases with me and there just wasn’t space. It was retrieved when I came to Zürich two years later, but for the last 15 years or so has been taking up an inordinate amount of space in my wardrobe.

As those of you who read regularly know, I’m gradually clearing out my home. Yesterday the wardrobe with the quilt in finally came under scrutiny and I realized that it was time to make a decision about the quilt.

So, I’ve decided to rehabilitate it – I’ve unpicked the old backing and batting and washed the quilt top in the bath. Here it is on the washing line drying. (Please don’t ask what colour the water in the bath was – suffice to say that I was shocked and appalled!!!)

I think I’m going to repair it and machine quilt it. It will never be beautiful but it is so full of memories that I really can’t bear to part with it. The only proviso is that the super thick batting has to go and it has to take up less space – and have the potential to be used without falling apart. Sentimental I know, but my teenage years are in that quilt and it waked in me the love of quilts and quilting that has been a constant through my life.

One day I will be old and ugly too!

Helen

This entry was posted on Friday, July 2nd, 2010 at 10:15 am and is filed under Quilting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.