The Quilt Inn Country Cookbook

Aliske Webb

Who Will Pick Up My Stitches When I’m Gone?

We went to a funeral today. A woman in the Quilt Guild passed away from

cancer. She left a grief-stricken husband and a bereft teenage daughter. She had been

an active quilter for many years and an important member of the Guild. Her death was

so sudden it caught everyone by surprise, including her, I think. Her last quilt was still

in the frame in a corner of the living room. Where the quilt extended past the area held

by the frame, there were many lengths of thread hanging loose, ready to be rethreaded

and continued along the pencilled quilt lines. I was filled with eerie tingles as I looked

at the now-unfinished quilt. Surely Carol would return at any time now and sit down at

the frame.

Carol’s daughter left the frame standing and as the Guild members came by the

house, she welcomed them in and softly asked each of us if we would put a few

stitches in her Mom’s last quilt. Each of us in turn picked up Carol’s needles and thread

and carefully matched our stitches to hers. It felt somehow like an intrusion into

somebody else’s work and at the same time felt like a connection, a final communion

with Carol.

Carol’s daughter, a modern teenager, had never bothered to learn how to quilt.

She didn’t need to. Her mother would make her anything she wanted. Today, however,

she asked us to show her how and she sat with us for a long time struggling with the

unfamiliar stitching technique. She is determined now to finish her mother’s quilt. The

members offered to help. We are going to take over a full size quilt frame next week

and put Carol’s quilt in it. That will allow several women to sit and quilt at the same

time, instead of just one. Quilting should be a communal activity. Every Tuesday

evening, whoever is available will go over and quilt with her. There is a teenage

daughter who needs to find her mother, and we, her mother’s friends, will sit by her as

she does so.

When I think about picking up the stitchesthat Carol left unsown, I wonder who

will pick up my own unfinished stitches when I’m gone.

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Country Cooking