A Different Approach

Day 312: As I mentioned two days ago, my mother took an entirely different approach to quilting. She preferred to make crazy quilts, in which the fabrics are individually stitched to blocks of plain material. Although crazy quilts are often quilted in the standard way, an alternate method is to apply decorative embroidery to cover the seams before the backing and batting is added. My mother preferred this method. This quilt is a small lap robe, the only example of her work which I still have, and for a reason which it rather shames me to admit: George (as most of her family and friends knew her) had the worst taste in patterns and combinations of colours of any person I have ever known. At least this quilt has a tartan theme to hold it together, unlike another hideous quilt top I almost wish I had retained for posterity. It was pieced from dozens of mismatched hippie-era psychedelic print cottons so bright that her skillful embroidery was almost completely camouflaged by the garish purples, oranges and day-glo greens of rainbows and peacocks, paisleys and daisies, mandalas and magic mushrooms. It was so painful to the eyes that I sold it at a yard sale just to get it out of my sight. If ever there was a "period piece," that quilt top was surely definitive of the Age of Aquarius, and I hope the person who bought it recognized it as a work of history.