When my father passed away a year ago, I had to sift through years of living, deciding what to keep, what to sell, what to give away, and what to leave behind. Tucked way at the bottom of a hall closet, I found a ripped and stained quilt that I had never seen before. It was obviously handmade and had a maple leaf motif. I asked my aunts and uncles if they knew anything about the quilt, but none did. Anybody else looking at this quilt would through it away. Its batting was motley and it had not fared well the years. But I took it home.
I was fairly new in my sewing journey (and still am), but I wanted to honor that quilt and bring it back into use using my poor skills. I didn’t know anything about quilting and it looked pretty hard. But I could do a straight (mostly) running stitch and patch on scrap pieces of fabric. I had seen Japanese boro and Bengali kantha and loved utilitarian simplicity of it. I started with a few pieces of my father’s jeans, some colorful bits from my mom’s fabric stash that I was able to recover, and went from there.
The thing that I love about slow stitching and visible mending is that it embraces imperfection. It’s done by hand usually, and does not confirm to any deadline. You can work on it when you can and put it away when you can. It sits there until you are ready. The act of cutting thread, threading it on the needle, and working it back and forth over the patches brought me a sense of peace that helped me to process and mourn. It took me out, sometimes only a minute at a time, of the bustle and noise, the duties of being an executor, dealing with family infighting over very little things. It helped with bouts of anxiety and depression.
Is it the prettiest quilt? No. But I like it and it keeps me warm on the couch.
Is it done yet? No. It never will be. Hopefully my son will take it up after me and continue to add patches and warmth to it.
As I mend, patch, and darn it, there will always be new holes. And in a family with a young child, two dogs, and a cat, there will always be stains. Slap on another scrap from the pile and get to work. And in that work, know peace, even if it’s not perfect.
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