2 Board Alley

Thursday, Two Sides of The Same Quilt

Here's a quilt that I purchased in Cambridge, years ago when I was visiting my sister in grad school.  It's a beautiful quilt and one that I use when I need cheering up of an old-fashioned, Boston and Roses kind.  It's also the only quilt that I've bought newly made, without provenance.  I guess I am the provenance. 

Second Quilt of of the Season

I bought this at a second-hand store in Takoma Park sometime in the early nineties.  During the seventies, Takoma Park was an artsy hippie town , and the fabrics in this loud discordant quilt speak to me (well, they scream at me, to be honest!) of that time.  These days, the old Victorian houses and Sears cottages cost a great deal and have been refurbished, and the town is a bit, but only a bit, more upscale than it was.  It still has a nuclear weapon ban, from what I hear, and you can still find a shop that stores incense sticks behind long strands of beads.

First Quilt of the Season

Timna has posted some of her beautiful handmade quilts on her site, which has reminded me that I promised her about a year ago that I'd post some of mine.  Because of the move, I've been able to gather all my quilts in one place, and I think I'll post photos of them from time to time and tell the stories behind them.  I'm no quilter, though, despite coming from a long line of quilters (even my thesis adviser in grad school made quilts!)--instead, I have spent the last twenty years buying quilts, and I think that my collection shows that my tastes have varied. 

I bought this quilt several years ago along with its twin, a yellow and tan design.  The orange and aqua colors seemed an unusual combination, and the pattern reminded me of the quilts that my aunt created for my mother years ago.  Sadly, or maybe not so sadly, we used those quilts until they fell apart, so none remain.  Buying quilts over the years has helped continue the tradition, though my spin on the quilting process has been through my writing--my poems, my thesis, my posts--particularly through my creative process, which has always seemed akin to my aunt's quilting process in that it is something that I work on intermittently, and I follow my own path, just as she refused to use a quilt frame and hung her work on the clothesline when she was ready to put the pieces together.  I don't write about quilting and writing very much anymore--but I am still fascinated with all of the permutations of "text," be it textile, texture, textbook, all suggest craft and sensory appeal.