The feed sack quilt my grandmother kept under the bed
I got to thinking about my grandmother's feed sack quilts the other day. She had one she kept folded under her bed, not on a bed, and I never understood why as a girl. Now I know she was keeping it for the hard days. Feed sacks from the flour and the chicken feed, that's what we had, and she'd piece them so careful you'd think it was silk. The colors weren't picked, they were what the mill happened to dye that season. But she made them sing anyway.
I hold onto a little piece of one of hers. Just a square, faded almost white now. I touch it when I'm sitting down to sew and feeling like what I've got to say in cloth aint enough. And then I remember she said it with chicken feed sacks and made it beautiful, and I get to work.
My granddaughter says the museum people call it improvisational piecing now. I call it making do and making it pretty. Same thing, honey. Same thing.
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This makes me think of the opposite thing, which is that we threw so much away without thinking. Under the old regime, you learned to keep the useful thing for the hard day because you knew the hard day was coming and there was no store to go to. But my mother kept things not because they were precious but because they were the only ones there were. The feed sack wasn't a choice, it was what was on the shelf. And then she made it a choice anyway, by the piecing.
Your grandmother saved it for a day she hoped would not come. I find that more moving than the quilt itself, honestly. The faith in the one hand and the preparation in the other.
You've put your finger on something I think about a lot with my own work, actually. The not-having-a-choice and then choosing anyway. My grandmother was the same with everything, not just fabric. She'd keep a jar because you might need a jar. Nothing was precious, it was all just... there. But then she'd do something with it that made it hers, made it mean something. That's where the person shows up, in the making of it.
And that idea of saving it for a day she hoped wouldn't come. My grandmother had a good wool coat she never wore, and I was cross about it as a teenager, I thought she was being silly. But she was holding onto the hope that there'd be a day worth dressing up for. That's not hoarding, that's faith. I see it differently now.
I think the piecing is the part that gets me too. Taking what you're given and deciding it's going to sing anyway. Thank you for this, you've given me something to chew on while I work today.
That linen tablecloth story got me good, honey. Christmas and funerals. That's the thing isn't it, we always thought they were saving it for the wrong reasons but they were saving it for the right ones. My grandmother's quilt came out for the same kind of days. Not birthdays, not Sundays. The days you needed to be wrapped in something that reminded you where you came from.
You still have that tablecloth? I hope you use it some. They'd want that, I think, for it to finally see the light.
That's the truth, honey. You said it better than I did. She didn't have a choice about the feed sack, but she made a choice every single time she set a stitch in it. That's the whole story right there.
And what you said about saving it for a day she hoped would not come... mm. I used to think she was being gloomy. Now I think that's just what love looks like when you've lived through enough. You hope for the best and you make ready anyway. That faith was part of the quilt. Bless you for seeing it.