Grandmother’s Flower Garden

As part of my semi-retired life, I have taken on a new kind of sewing: restoring and reinventing vintage textiles. I had studied quilting and embroidery for many years when one of my favorite clients began giving me Victorian crazy quilts to restore. These unusually extravagant quilts were made by privileged women who had access to a large selection of the very best silks, velvets and ribbons available. Though I was fascinated with all of the different forms of crazy quilts, the one I fell in love with was the traditional baby block pattern. Each block is made up of three diamonds, each one having its own light, dark, and half tone value. This simple unified pattern produces a landscape of cubes which becomes three dimensional because there appears to be a light source shining on the surface of the luminous silk. I have also delved into the spirit of other crazy quilts, having fun interpreting variations of the “fan” motif. I became so captivated by piecing silk that I made a collection large enough for an exhibition for my friends and family to celebrate my 75th birthday year.

But the project that has been occupying my interest for some time now is the restoration of a 1930s era Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilt. It was made by a woman I never met but for whom I have great respect, having to duplicate her design and sewing skills in order to restore her work, has put my skills and fortitude to one of their most difficult tests.

The first visual encounter with the quilt is striking as you find yourself joyfully looking at a colorful surface of flowers made of three concentric circles of hexagons. The center being one hexagon is surrounded by a circle of six hexagons, with an outer circle of twelve hexagons. The entire surface of the quilt is made up of three-quarter inch hexagons pieced together by hand and then hand quilted. The edges of the quilt are not the usual straight binding, but a hand finished folding in along the edges of the tiny hexagons.

When I began the project I tried to make a pattern I could duplicate. That is the usual way to begin, but I soon discovered that each hexagon was a little different, therefore making it necessary to shape each one individually. At first I thought the quilt was in fairly good condition, but as I looked at it more carefully I saw I was mistaken.

With this realization I sank into a state of anxiety about the amount of time and the cost to my clients, but they turned out to be generous and patient people. Then my concerns gravitated toward my fears that I just would not be able to stand working on something that was so difficult and would take so very long to complete.

Having reached the final examination of my concerns, I was left with only one thing before me: to restore the quilt and in doing so, give it a new life. What would I learn from this process where the only position I could take that would serve me well was to be content to work in the moment without expectations or deadlines? It was an effort I would fail at over and over again.

As I worked with the material under my hands I became very skilled at shaping tiny hexagons and sewing them by hand invisibly into place.

Working with the geometry of the quilt, I began to reflect upon the geometry of Einstein’s time, space and matter, the theory of relativity which he began to develop more than a hundred years ago. I was struck by how he reached an understanding of his theory through his ability to visualize, a skill I appreciate and call upon in my own work.

While working away at my task I was sometimes able to disengage from my daydreaming. Then I would have access to questions in some abstracted way related to the relativity of our lives lived through time and the awareness of ourselves in the moment. How can these two become one to make a whole? This awareness related also to the sense of myself separated from others in this solitary accomplishment which is, for the most part, incomprehensible and never experienced by others.

Over the six months that it took to restore the quilt, I would occasionally ask Janet and David to come and see my progress, before going on to the next phase. Welcoming them as they came through the front door they seemed to me like two benevolent spirits as we sat around the table to look at the quilt. Their genuine appreciation and generosity for my efforts was miraculously able to penetrate through my dense inner attitudes, leaving me with the impression that my fairy godmother and father were sitting there with me to tell me something about myself.

We forget that time is always with us. Our access to its procession resides in a dimension a notch beyond our perception. But we can find it in the mirror and in specific ways within our individual lives. In answer to the question, What did I learn from restoring the quilt?, I would reply I am fortunate to have the opportunity to make an effort, to ask a question, and to receive the gift of feeling from others