My grandmother's crazy quilt won a prize sixty years after she made it

Y'all, I don't even know how to sit still right now.

Back in 1963 my grandmother made a crazy quilt, all those scraps, every shape you can think of, hand-stitched with that tiny perfect stitch she had. She used pieces from my mama's old school dresses, my uncle's Sunday shirt, a flour sack from a brand that don't even exist anymore. I grew up under that quilt. Slept under it when I was sick. Knew every patch like I knew every face at the dinner table.

She passed in '89 and I kept it in a cedar chest for years 'cause I couldn't bear to have it wear out.

Well, my granddaughter talked me into entering it in a show up in Atlanta. I sent it off with a prayer and tried not to think about it.

Called me yesterday. It won. First place in the heritage category.

I sat on the floor in the kitchen and cried. That's not like me. But I tell you what, my grandmother never got to see anybody call her work art. She just made beauty from what she had because that's what women did. And here's a room full of people sixty years later saying "yes ma'am, this matters."

I know it's just a show. But it ain't just a show to me. Somebody finally saw her. That's all I wanted.

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Kasia Nowak·4w

Oh, this is beautiful. My grandmother had a quilt too, not a crazy one, just a simple patchwork, but I remember the weight of it. There's something about fabric that holds people, isn't there? The way you can still see a dress you remember in a square, and suddenly it's not just a quilt, it's a whole room full of people who aren't here anymore.

I'm so glad your granddaughter pushed you to enter it. Sixty years is a long time for a prize to wait, but maybe it was waiting till the right person came along to submit it. Congratulations to your grandmother's hands, and to you for keeping her work alive all those years. 🙏

Lukas Brandt·4w

That's it exactly. The weight of it. I think about this with paintings sometimes, how much of what we're looking at isn't even on the surface. It's the years that passed across it, the rooms it hung in, the person who made it and what they were thinking while they worked. A quilt or a canvas, it's the same in that way. Not just an object, but a container.

Gloria Mae JacksonOP·4w

That's a kind way to put it, a container. I like that. You're right, it's the same with a painting or a quilt or even an old stirring spoon, if you think about it. The thing's just the thing. It's what got poured into it that makes you stop and look twice.

What kind of work do you make, honey? Sounds like you know what I'm talking about.

Gloria Mae JacksonOP·4w

Baby, you said it. "A whole room full of people who aren't here anymore", that's the whole truth of it right there. That's what I mean when I say every quilt's got a story stitched in. It's not just fabric and thread. It's folks who loved you, sitting right there in the room with you still.

I'm glad you remember the weight of your grandmother's quilt too. That weight ain't just the batting. It's something else entirely. 🙏

Lukas Brandt·4w

There's a show at the Museum der Dinge in Berlin, just objects, nothing special in themselves, but the stories attached to them. A worn shoe from a factory worker. A child's cup. I went years ago and I still think about it.

A quilt like that, sixty years, hand-stitched, pieces of actual lives in it, that's the same kind of thing. The prize is almost incidental. What matters is that somebody looked at it and understood what was in front of them. That doesn't always happen. I'm glad it did here.

Elin Holm·4w

I know that museum. It's small, easy to walk past. But that's sort of the point, isn't it.

The quilt and those objects sit the same way for me. Not because they're precious, but because someone kept them. That's the act that matters, the keeping. The prize is just a confirmation that the keeping was worth something.

Gloria Mae JacksonOP·4w

That's exactly right. The keeping. My grandmother wasn't trying to make something for a prize, she was just using what was at hand, what was already loved. The prize came along sixty years later like an echo. The keeping was always the point.

Gloria Mae JacksonOP·4w

A museum of things. Just things. Baby, that gets me.

My grandmother would've understood that. She'd pick up a chipped saucer or a button with no match and hold it like it was speaking to her. Everything had somebody attached to it.

You're right about the prize. It's nice, I won't pretend it ain't. But the thing that got me was the woman who came up after and said the quilt reminded her of her own grandmother's hands. She stood there crying a little and I stood there crying a little. That's the part that won't leave me.