My Christmas Quilt

 “If Christmas is a universally comprehensive and keenly clandestine rescue mission strategically crafted by God Himself eons before the rescue was necessary, it would naturally follow that if it is doomed to anything, it is doomed to incontestable success.” 
― Craig D. Lounsbrough, An Intimate Collision

 MY CHRISTMAS QUILT

 Couple of years ago I wanted to make a new Christmas Quilt, but not one with elves and santas and candy canes driving across  it. Something a bit more.Something that would be more timeless....

 I had in a drawer, long forgotten, a piece of crocheted lace.  Actually a large panel of lace that I had never finished. For years it wandered from drawer to box, and back again. 

 At one point I almost threw it out. And then one day I got this idea. The idea of making a quilt panel, wall quilt,  where I could attach all sorts of things. Including the lace panel.

 The lace had been crocheted my myself and my mother, when I was a teenager. We spent  many summer days in the garden, crocheting lace into motifs. I had great expectations that it would be  tablecloth at some point.  But it never did. It ended up in a drawer.

 I sewed that panel of lace to the quilt. But it still seemed empty.Kind of reminded me of that story of the stone soup........

 So I attached a couple of pairs of my mothers old earrings. Old earrings. One set of dark blue Lapis Lazuli. Lazuli stands for wisdom and truth.  And I had another pair of earrings of brass love birds,  which my dad gave to my mother. Jewelry from the 40's. Both stuffed  in a drawer. She used to wear them when my dad was alive. When I was little I would attach the brass doves to my ears , put on her high heeled shoes and  wrap myself in netting and pretend I was a movie star. Or maybe it was Cinderella....

 “Christmas isn't a parade or concert but a piece of home you keep in your heart wherever you go.” ― Donna VanLiere, The Christmas Town

 But the quilt seemed to be empty still...... 

 I found ancient lace hankies, bits of pearl neckalaces,  a Cairngorm kilt pin that belonged to my grandfather...a clawed foot of a grouse with a huge orange stone in the centre.  A necklace of square amber , a twisted fork pendant with jewels , no longer worn, just hiding in a drawer, waiting to see the light of day again.

 And then I found  a strip of old pale net.  From my mother's bridal bouquet from Nov 21 1936. The last strip that had wound around her flowers. She had kept it in a trunk in the basement, with the last pieces of her wedding dress, gathering rust and mould over the years.  Only one strip was perfect..

I strung it  across the middle of the quilt, fastening it with a purple kilt pin  she had given me  for a Robbie Burns Night long ago.That was a magical night. Scores of people dancing in white dresses and kilts.....bagpipes blaring.My mother tapping her feet  and loving it.

 “She dug into one of the boxes, finding clay angels she’d made in art class when she was seven years old. She found plastic swans on strings and red crystal cardinals. She found that she couldn’t figure out where the  time had gone.” 
― Rebecca McNutt, Mandy and Alecto: The Collected Smog City Book Series

 When others saw my quilt in progress I got  surprising responses. People stopping by with bits and pieces, odds and ends that could be part of the  fabric, part of the era. Small hankerchiefs, pieces of gold leaf from dresses in the fifties, pearl collars worn with sweaters in the 40's, that I stitched on painstakingly . Their memories added to mine.

 A faded garter belt, saved from a wedding,  a baby's rattle , dented plastic, I tied into the lace and linen. Then in a shell jewel box I came across my mother's cross, hung on a huge chain. 

 I had bought that for her one Christmas. It cost $25 back then. She wore it sometimes. But mostly it hung on the old radio in her room where she could see it.Her favourite Christmas gift.

The quilt is a product  of Christmas, and ongoing project, that I am constantly adding to.

 And I am still surprised by people who want to see it and add to it. The latest  is a group of pearl earrings that were given by a friend. She even attached  them to the panel of lace and then stood back to see the effect.

 I'm not sure if my mother would approve. I wonder if she would enjoy it.

 And now my eyes can see it every day.....and wonder where the quilt will grow and change with  more memories added to it.  Just like a pot of stone soup.....it gets better with time. 

 “This is the wonder of Christmas, that in the solitary form of an impoverished infant God has handed me everything that I could never create so that I can be everything that I could never be.” ― Craig D. Lounsbrough

 Photographs 2017