In 2019 I set out to make a quilt for my then 16 year old son. I’ve been quilting for 10 years now and hadn’t yet made quilts specifically for my kids. Maybe it felt like too much pressure to choose a design? I don’t know why it took me so long but I was finally ready. the bars were floating in a background of various corals (I asked my son what colors he liked and he was not forthcoming— we eventually settled on the color of his current store-bought blanket, a beautiful coral). I included lots of personal fabrics in this one, lots of my son’s old t-shirts, scraps from other projects, and four embroidered portraits.

then/now/always, completed 2019, measures 92”x80”

I had stitched a couple portraits of my kids years ago. My plan was to make a couple more, then create a little display of them all on the wall. When my daughter came out to us and transitioned, it no longer felt right to hang old images of her up around the house. But I struggled with the idea of getting rid of those stitched portraits, or even of them sitting in a drawer, forgotten. I asked my daughter if she would be okay with me piecing them into a quilt. In her even-keel way, she said, “sure, that’s fine, but could you add some new ones too?” Of course I obliged. There are two old portraits pieced into the quilt, and two new. Two from before we knew my daughter as she is, and two from after.

That’s how this quilt for my son became a quilt about my son and my daughter. A document and a celebration of how love can transcend time, age, and gender. The portrait subjects have evolved over time. What hasn't changed is the close bond between siblings, and the love and pride I feel for both of my children.

Since this quilt is so big I used wool batting to keep it light and fluffy. I handquilted it with Perle cotton. There’s a quote from our favorite podcast on the back, just for fun, which I made out of paper and then had printed on Spoonflower. Final pictures by Mitch Hopper. Measures 92”x80”.

back of quilt detail, MBMBAM quote made from paper and printed onto fabric

I tried something new for the label on this quilt. I printed this whole story onto fabric via Spoonflower. But instead of having a block of text exposed on the back of the quilt, I decided to tuck it away into a fabric envelope. I found a beautiful silk envelope on etsy and stitched it onto the quilt’s back. Then I tucked the longer story label into the envelope, after securing it with beaded strings so it won’t get lost or separated from the quilt. I am quite happy with this technique , and could definitely see myself using it again. For me, this ensures the story of this quilt won’t get lost. Wherever this quilt goes in its lifetime, its story will go along with it.

additional label, when taken out of fabric envelope

additional label , tucked into fabric envelope

My last living grandparent passed away in early 2016. My dad's mom lived to be 90, and lived independently very nearly until the end. She was wonderful in many ways. She was sweet and funny, crafty and thrifty, made THE BEST scrambled eggs, popcorn, and lasagna, and had the greatest stories about her life as a young woman.

When I was a little girl (around 6 years old, I think), I spent 3 weeks at her house during the summer. It was much too long for a kid that age, and I was a homesick wreck by the end. Still, I have a lot of great memories from that trip. We took walks, put coins on the train tracks, picked Queen Anne's lace which we then put in a cup of food colored water. We made seed bead bracelets and I repeatedly spilled the bowl of beads we were working from. We would patiently pick them up together. Once I spilled an entire bottle of Calamine lotion on her carpet. Again she surprised me with her calm reaction. Coming back from one of our walks one evening, I ran ahead and locked the back door and the front door and then ran out again. I had locked us out of the house. I think I thought it would be funny, but I was soon in tears realizing it was not actually a good joke at all. Grandma took it all in stride, again, and calmly found a neighbor to help us pick one of the locks and get back into the house.

I think because of the good experience of staying with her that summer, I always felt close to her. When I graduated high school, instead of staying home and enrolling in community college, I decided to move in with her and attend one near her. I was a terrible roommate, self centered and inconsiderate. I know she must have been irritated with me much of the time but once again I felt so close to her because of the time we spent together. We watched the first season of The Bachelor together and had to hide our eyes and giggle when things got too sexy in the last few episodes (same thing when we watched Coming Home with Jane Fonda). I was vegetarian at the time and she went out of her way to cook things completely foreign to her so that I could eat. We spent countless hours chatting in the kitchen as she washed dishes and I dried. She beat me at Scrabble many times. She was still playing with and beating my parents until a few weeks before she died. I wish I had recorded some of her stories somehow, and I wish I hadn't waited so long to make her a quilt. She only got to use the one I made her for a few weeks.

One of grandma's garments I included in the quilt

My parents and sister did most of the work of cleaning out her house after she was gone. I asked them to set aside some things I could use to make a quilt. They delivered a large box full of clothes and bed linens, and also lots of my grandma's own craft projects, like doilies, or table runners she had embroidered. These items sat in my house for over a year before I was ready to cut into them and make this quilt. They carried the smell of my grandma's house so strongly. It was an emotional experience just to open the box. After a couple false starts, I finally got going.

I decided to make these oval shapes to represent the pennies we used to smoosh on the train tracks behind Grandma's house. I used the six-minute circle method to piece them, and was happy to discover the technique also works for shapes that aren't perfect circles. Once the ovals were made I cut some into halves and some into quarters and mixed them all up. I felt inspired to include another design element... I had always been fascinated by notebooks full of Gregg shorthand that my Grandma used for practice during her time in secretarial school. The secret-codedness of it all was intriguing to me and I thought the lines were beautiful. I decided to applique shorthand symbols over the top of the flattened penny shapes, and I chose words that describe the attributes I most admired in my Grandma. Patience, generosity, love, curiosity, humor, service, fortitude, and neatness.

shorthand symbols applied with a bias tape machine applique technique

This quilt was emotionally challenging at first. Then it developed into a technical challenge. I've never worked with so many different types of fabrics before. There are silks and polyesters in here, along with cottons of all different weights. There are thick fuzzy blankets, and nubby hobnail bedspreads. I put interfacing behind the stretchy fabrics and forged ahead. It's extremely thick in some spots but my Juki handled all the different fabrics beautifully. I quilted this one myself. I was proud to have it hang in the juried show at QuiltCon 2018. Thanks to Mitch Hopper for taking final photos for me, the last four images here are by him.

quilting detail

back of quilt. I used a flannel sheet found in my grandma's house, new in its packaging.

then/now/always (a quilt for my son)

Train Track Pennies