I'm in the early design stage for my next quilt (more about that some other day), and for me that means re-reading my old quilting books for new ideas & inspirations. One of my favorites* includes a passage from "Aunt Jane of Kentucky" by Eliza Calvert Hall. In this short snippet, "Aunt Jane" explains how life is like a patchwork quilt...
I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did:
"How much piecin'a quilt is like livin' a life! Many a time I've set and listened to Parson Page preachin' about predestination and free will, and I've said to myself, 'If I could jest git up there in the pulpit with one of my quilts, I could make life a heap plainer than parson's makin' it with his big words.'
You see, to make a quilt you start out with jest so much caliker; you don't go to the store and pick it out and buy it, but the neighbors give you a piece here and there and you'll find you have a piece left over every time you've cut out a dress, and you jest take whatever happens to come. That's the predestination.
But when it comes to cuttin' out the quilt, why, you're free to choose your own pattern. You give the same kind of pieces to two persons and one'll make a 'Nine-Patch' and the other one'll make a 'Wild-goose-Chase' and so there'll be two quilts made of the same kind of pieces but jest as different as can be. That's the way of livin'. The Lord sends us the pieces; we can cut 'em out and put 'em together pretty much to suit ourselves. There's a heap more in the cuttin' out and the sewin' than there is in the caliker."
I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did:
"How much piecin'a quilt is like livin' a life! Many a time I've set and listened to Parson Page preachin' about predestination and free will, and I've said to myself, 'If I could jest git up there in the pulpit with one of my quilts, I could make life a heap plainer than parson's makin' it with his big words.'
You see, to make a quilt you start out with jest so much caliker; you don't go to the store and pick it out and buy it, but the neighbors give you a piece here and there and you'll find you have a piece left over every time you've cut out a dress, and you jest take whatever happens to come. That's the predestination.
But when it comes to cuttin' out the quilt, why, you're free to choose your own pattern. You give the same kind of pieces to two persons and one'll make a 'Nine-Patch' and the other one'll make a 'Wild-goose-Chase' and so there'll be two quilts made of the same kind of pieces but jest as different as can be. That's the way of livin'. The Lord sends us the pieces; we can cut 'em out and put 'em together pretty much to suit ourselves. There's a heap more in the cuttin' out and the sewin' than there is in the caliker."
That about sums it all up, doesn't it?
*The Standard Book of Quilt Making and Collecting by Marguerite Ickis
photo: Bing Images
photo: Bing Images
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