family and fabric

"Passage Quilt"

In the midst of the excitement/stress/self-inflicted anxiety of planning our fall wedding (yes, we're thinking THIS fall) - I am missing my grandmother a whole lot right now. Well into her 80s when she passed away a few years ago  - up until the very end she still lived independently in her neat as a pin apartment and had more energy than any of us. Though the anchor and center of my family - my mother's mother was also its engine in how she loved us into our choices and helped us make the hard decisions. She was also darn fun to be around.

A year or so after my grandmother passed away, I learned that my friend Evelyn's mother was a talented maker of quilts and so, thinking it'd make a great Christmas present for my mother, I asked Evelyn if her mother could take my grandmother's collection of housecoats (which we could never part with) and make a quilt out of them. She could and she did, and it was beautiful. Evelyn's mother also made two pillows, as gifts, out of the same materials for myself and my sister. To see all those familiar little patterns of flowers and dots sewn together with such care and craftsmanship was overwhelming for me. My mother loved her quilt too.

And so in thinking of that beautiful quilt and my grandmother and how happy she would be about this wedding - I've asked Evelyn's mother to make just one more pillow. She is going to make the pillow that my sweet four year old nephew will carry up the aisle in his role as ring bearer. It will have my and my husband to be's initials stitched into it, but it will be so much more than ours. With that fabric belonging to my grandmother, in my godson's hands, surrounded by our family - it will so much more than our little ring pillow. I get weepy just thinking about that image. But, to tell you the truth, this is actually the kind of thing that made me want to have a wedding... despite all of these silly tears that come with it. :)

"Passage Quilt"

P.S. These images are all by Sherri Lynn Wood who also thought to make quilts "from the clothing of the  deceased and the intimate materials of every day life." You need to see more of them so be sure to go to her "Passage Quilts" flickr page.