Attitude of Gratitude: Quilting
I have a deep love and appreciation for quilts. Mainly, the quilts that my great-grandmother made. Ma Patra would sit and sew regularly. This has become a part of my life that is really a background memory. I do not recall ever helping much with the quilting progress. But I know that she was diligent about completing the quilts.
Fun fact: My family is very territorial about their Ma Patra quilts. We all have more than one that was hand-stitched by her. As I was growing up, she would give me a quilt on special occasions. I would also get them just because, but I looked forward to receiving a quilt from her on the really big days in my life.
Since Ma Patra has been gone, I have dabbled in and out of the quilting world. Before Sweet Baby was born, Tomica, Aunt Linda, and I gathered at my mom’s house to try our hand out at quilting. We were going to sew a beautiful quilt for Sweet Baby. Not by hand…we were too modern for that. Aunt Linda brought her sewing machine. Tomica and I brought our quilting pieces. The sewing machine brought absolutely nothing because it wouldn’t work. We put that project on the back burner and moved on to other crafting ventures.
In 2020, we had conversations about starting a quilting club. I created a Pinterest page. Looked at beginner quilts. Discussed ways to get our family quilting club off the ground. We were going to do it. We pushed it off until the new year. We felt like we would have more time once 2021 rolled around.
Spoiler alert: 2021 dropped some bombs on us. And in the midst of the sadness, we got an awesome surprise. A new baby was on the way. This was one of those really big days that Ma Patra would celebrate with a new quilt. I considered it a great opportunity to pull out my own sewing machine and get to work.
I rolled into Hobby Lobby and was immediately overwhelmed by my fabric options. I am quite confident that I looked like an amateur trying to be the best designer on Project Runway. You know when they are pulling reams of fabric out when they go to the fabric store? Honey, I was lining up fabrics and comparing and contrasting like you wouldn’t believe. True to form, I did the most and purchased enough fabric for five or six quilts.
Shopping was the easy part. I got home and got busy cutting my fabric into perfect squares. Listen, they were perfect to me. I laid out my pattern, wound the bobbin, threaded my needle, and put the pedal to the metal. And finally, the quilt was complete.
By no means is it a perfect quilt, but it helped me feel closer to people that have gone on. It is crooked. And I am okay with that because my life is a little crooked right now. Most importantly, it was made with love. Man, after making one quilt for a tiny baby WITH a sewing machine, I have a better understanding of just how much Ma Patra loved us. It was a lot of work, but it made my heart smile to know that even after I am gone that quilt can still warm up the people that I love. And for that I am grateful. #wepreach
