Into the Light

I've been on a clean-up-the-stuff kick lately.  That includes finding the very lost and finishing them somehow.
   

    Back in 2004 when I went to guild meetings there was something called a block exchange.  I took the instructions for these cherries, cut most of them out, planned it, and then put it down. Everything was there, cut and ready but I just tucked them away.  I found them this week.  One had been pinned, none of them appliqued.  So, simple as they are, I worked them up in one evening and today, an unexpectedly snowy day, I'll add the checkered border and they will make a nice little summer table top. 

And 16 years after the fact, they'll be something other than scraps in a box.

 There were also these antique squares floating around in a box.  What do you do with independent antique blocks?  How long will I continue to move them from place to place?   One afternoon last week I layered them and while watching tv in the evenings I've begun to just quilt them independent of each other.   When old pillowcases wear out, the ones others have thrown out or I find in estate sales all raggedy and forgotten, I cut the crocheted edges off and save those hand worked edges.  I added a little piece to the bottom of the square on the lower right.  Two pieces seeing the light of day once more.

I've left the edges raw,  just tucked the backing over the batting and stitched it down.  I'm not overthinking this, I'm just bringing little things out into the open once again.

 I don't know what I'll do with them. 

Maybe a little gallery on the wall?  Maybe, but they won't be in a box anymore, either.  They'll be remembered as someone's work.

     Lately when I get together with quilt friends the conversation wanders to wondering what will happen to our quilts when we die. None of us is getting any younger and we are entering the decade where today is as good as it gets. Arthritis and eyesight and mobility are making things seem real and urgent.  We are talking about who to will our stashes to.  Whoever is left is usually the answer.

 

      Some of us have found treasures in estate sales, some beauties.  If a quilt makes it to a shelf in a garage at an estate sale it means the family has picked over the deceased relative's belongings and rejected the quilt.  Notice that gorgeous star quilt hanging from the balcony.  That was found by a friend at a garage sale with a  $20 price tag.  No one in the family wanted it.  Linda grabbed it.  When she gave it to me for the quilt exhibit at church last summer I gave it pride of place and made sure it was noticed when I showed people around the exhibit.  Someone put a tremendous amount of work in this quilt.  It is completely hand pieced and quilted, and the family rejected it in the end. 

      I feel confident that when it's my turn my daughter and daughter-in-law will not let my quilts end up in the sale of my life.  There are enough grandchildren who will want them, and maybe, hopefully, great-grandchildren.  I hope.