Stitch by Stitch

Susie's quilt frame is as constant as a piece of furniture in her living room. Every quilt she'd ever made had spent time there. Each quilt is worked on as she watches TV, listens to her grandchildren play or simply enjoys a quiet night as her husband reads a book a few feet away. 

Each quilt, is a piece of art, weaving in stories and memories in each unique pattern. Starting with baby blankets, every newborn is wrapped in a quilt made with love and ends with quilts made to protect the new couple from cold nights. She made quilts for graduation, with pieces of fabric from different points in their life. She’d even made a quilt after a great tragedy to share with someone she'd never met. Each one, unique and special.

Susie takes time with her quilts, they are not to be rushed. After all, there's nothing more special than a Grammy quilt. Or at least that's what her grandchildren say. People asked her to pay her for her quilts but her quilts were always gifts, and she couldn’t afford to charge for them.

It’s her favourite pastime, her favourite hobby. She takes time to plan each one out. Inevitably, when mistakes are made, she finds a way to make it work. She'd laugh and claim,  “I never said, I was good at math.” 

She takes time to teach your granddaughters who took an interest in this skill set of hers. Her daughter claims “This trait must have skipped a generation.” 

Eventually one or two of her grandkids came to her with well-loved quilts. If the quilts are doomed, and if making a new one simply wasn't a good enough option. She would find a way to use the old quilt in the new one. Not wanting any memory to feel insignificant. 

She’d even restored a quilt or two for a friend, copying someone else’s style to help keep their memory alive. 

After all those memories could not be lost. 

In her cozy, little sewing room scraps of quilts gone by were everywhere. She cuts them into smaller squares to make a patchwork quilt. 

She can’t help but remember all the memories of quilts and clothes made in this room from slings for a broken arm to matching dresses and matching quilts to help ease moving into big girl rooms. Quilts made for weddings, babies, and graduation, it has all happened here. Her little room feels warm and safe. She tucks away pieces of her grandchildren's lives, fabric from her children's days gone by. 

She smiles and runs her hand over the fabric, “Someday, if my memory goes, I hope you'll hold all my memories for me.” Pulling the thread creating another pattern in and around the squares, “Pass them on to the kids.” Pausing her stitches she pulls out her phone and flips through her photos; photos of each kid receiving their quilts. “I hope they know, just how much love I stitched in.”