I’m so ready for it to get cold! I’m ready to curl up in a good blanket in front of a movie with hot chocolate. In Texas, we get that chance for maybe a month or two of this wonderful weather - give or take a 70 degree day thrown in now and again. I can’t wait for it!
If you are like me, each year I acquire more blankets and throws. And, each year I will gather them up, decide which ones I want to keep and which ones I will get rid of and donate to a charity or an animal shelter. However, there are some blankets and quilts I will never depart with - they are made with love!
Both my grandmothers handmade things. My dad’s mom, “Grandma” crocheted each grandchild a blanket. Mine was hunter green and super soft! My other grandma, my “GRAM,” was a seamstress and she made everything. Thus, my mother grew up sewing as well and continued the tradition. Mom made my sister and me clothes with tags on them that said “Made with love by MOM.”
It didn’t bother me when I was little, but as I grew older I wanted designer things. I wanted an alligator (IZOD) on my shirt, but we got dragons because they were cheaper. You could get 3 dragons for the price of 1 alligator shirt! I totally get that now! Mom made many of my formal homecoming and holiday dresses. I remember going into stores and looking at dresses, not buying any and then going to a fabric store to pick out the pattern and fabric.I didn’t realize the love or appreciate the effort that was going into all of this until I was 16.
On my 16th birthday I opened a large box with a tag on it displaying my name. I started to cry. I pulled out a very large quilt with ballet shoes (I was a dancer for many years) all over it. Each shoe had different fabric in it. I realized that each shoe represented something mom had made me. We spent a long time looking at it and saying things like, “Oh there's my sophomore homecoming dress!” and “Look! There is a dress you made for me and Karen when we were little!” It was AMAZING! The best part of the quilt was the tag at the bottom that said MADE WITH LOVE BY MOM! She had spent two years working on it. She said she would pull it out when I left to go to school or to a friend’s house and do a little at a time. Really, the more I think about it now…. She had been working on it my whole life!
As I look at it now, I realize what my quilt represents. Our lives are patchwork quilts. We all have people that work on us a little at a time. We have all different fabric pieces made up from our life experiences. Some of the people and experiences are good and others are challenging, but that is what makes us who we are - the pieces that are sewn into us throughout our lifetime. No two people on this earth have the same quilt! Hopefully, when looking back on your life, you will see that whomever and whatever circumstances that make up your life “quilt,” that it is uniquely yours and was MADE WITH LOVE.
KELI’S CORNER - What people and experiences have been the biggest pieces of fabric sewn into your life?