The lovely ugly quilt

I am making a quilt and it is ugly.

It is not ugly on purpose. It is ugly because I do not have the gift of fabric foresight. The gift that some quilters and crafters have that allows them to know in advance how their project will turn out. Me, I am cotton blind. I make my best guess and cross my fingers and just like playing a hand of poker, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. Often, I lose. Often, I make ugly quilts.

I stood in my sewing room and stared down my fabric stash with glee in my heart. I have a place to send a quilt, oh joy, a reason to make one, because I can't make one unless there is a reason to. A home for it. No orphan quilts!

I grabbed this piece of fabric, this gold, this blue, this pale yellow, this pink swirl, this deep raspberry floral with glints of green sheen. I cruised simple patterns on youtube and found one I had never done before, it looked simple. Quick. A lovely little lap quilt to whip up. Cut, cut, cut, sew,sew, sew. Yuck. What a mess!

I felt sick. Should I quit? Abandon project? Shove all that cut fabric in a pile and forget about it? What a letdown to do all that cutting and sewing to hate what I have produced. And then, I felt a spirit. A short, kind spirit wearing a floral house dress and slippers, with a round tummy and laughing blue eyes. It was my sweet Grandmother. My beloved Grandma who taught me how to quilt. Of all her 43 Grandchildren, I think I spent the most time with her, time I cherished. Just her and I sitting in her quilt room, a quilt stretched on the frame before us, the slick almost impossible sound of waxed thread pulling through taught cotton. The wince as one of us, usually me, jabbed the needle deep into a finger. Don't bleed on the quilt! The sprit of Grandma put her hand on my shoulder and said, keep sewing child, this quilt is fine.

And over the days, I began to love this homely quilt. Grandma did not quilt for beauty, she quilted to keep you warm. She did not go to the fabric store and spend hours over yardage. She went to the thrift store and got bags of old clothing and made lifelong quilts of wool and fortrel. Some of her quilts were works of art, but most of them were not. However, each of us Grandchildren loved our quilt and do you know why? Because we loved our Grandma. Every inch of her was love, every stitch she made was love, and your quilt was given to you with love. Stay warm, my child, sleep well, I love you.

I make this quilt for someone so they can feel love. It did not meet my idea of a beautiful quilt. I do want my quilts to be beautiful, lovely to behold, a decoration to bring joy. But in my heart I hear the wise voice of Grandma, I hear the cold winds of her childhood home in Siberia swirling as she speaks from far away. She tells me we sleep in the dark, with our eyes closed and we will not care how a quilt looks, just that it warms us and holds us in the night. An embrace made of love. All quilts are beautiful.

Oh Uno, you move people, and I am one that you always move. As I read your prose about your dear and beloved Grandmother, those goose bimples began at the tip of my toes and moved up my body, to my nose, which at that point got that feeling of moisture, knowing full well that in a moment the tears in my eyes would well, I sniffle....

You made a post about an ugly quilt, you think it ugly, but oh your dear Gramma. She is so right, we close our eyes at night, we snuggle these treasures that someone has made for us, and it matters nary for a second, what it looks like. Your little ugly quilt (to you only) will sit on someone's lap and they will treasure that little quilt. Make it, allow that to shine, it will, maybe not to you, but to someone for surely.

I must get a picture of a very ugly quilt that my Husband's Mother made and gave to me. It is made out of odd fabrics, fortrel being some of them. It is gawdy, it is loud, it is actually very, very colourful. Not colours that I particularly like, but it is a thing of beauty. It is not a quilt that was probably stretched and sewn with waxed thread, but just one sewn together on a lap....I don't know, but it is ugly. My youngest Grandson, at the age of about 5, took over this quilt as his own quilt for sleeping with when they moved back from Alberta and he spent so much time living with us. He calls it his Chinese blanket. Don't know why, but has gone down in history as his Chinese blanket. He loves this quilt. At the age of 14 now in a month, when he comes over, he still wants to sleep with his Chinese quilt. The one that he knows his Great Grandmother, whom he can barely remember I am sure, as she passed a few years ago. But this quilt is cherished. Uno, when my Grandson grows up and becomes wed, this will be a wedding gift I will gift to him and her. She may hate it, but he will still love it. And I believe from the bottom of my heart, that he will use it for his children. I know the children will one day come, and they will have a quilt made, oh so long ago, something that their pappa used as a child, this quilt will be living on forever. I just hope that he is not so attached that he could not pass it forward   . If I remember I will try to get a picture to show you this most incredibly colourful quilt ever!! Make that ugly little quilt, Uno, and pass it forward, this will be a treasure to someone, and they will think it beautiful, and you will shine, again, and again, and again. Have a most beautiful day, CynthiaM.

Cynthia, that was a beautiful post. Thank you. Do post a pic, I want to see this Chinese quilt!

My favourite quilts are the ones my great grandmother(s) made out of old clothes and scraps and love.

I am saving up a big bag of old clothes and scraps from other quilts, so I can make an ugly quilt just like they did. The seams don't match, the squares aren't all the same size, and they are things of beauty. I love them.

As a teen, one of the sewing projects I did with my mom was to repair an old quilt that one of my great grandmas made. We removed the worn patches (so worn that they were threadbare and hole-y) and replaced them with new fabric.

I like tradition, I like old things. My home is mostly furnished with antiques and vintage pieces.

Who's to say the ugly quilts won't be the most loved? I let my daughter choose the fabrics for the quilt I made her - she calls it her love blanket. None of them would be fabrics I would have chosen, but she loves it. When she is sick or sad, she cuddles under it and knows that she is loved.