The Security Blanket

September 2017:

I love quilts. In days gone by, women would make quilts and put them into cedar chests known as “Hope Chests” along with other special things — safely stored for the day they would make their home, after marriage. Quilts have always meant more than simply warmth. They were hope, security and love all pieced together.

Quilts are a patchwork of bits and pieces. They are leftover remnants of other projects or they are garments no longer useful, taken apart and remade. No scrap of cloth was ever wasted by women who sewed quilts back in the day. A wedding dress, a christening gown, an outgrown piece of clothing would be recycled into a quilt. Looking at a quilt, you could see a life. The bits and pieces of the past which made up a family. All held together with the love of the Master Seamstress.

My aunt would hand stitch quilts. Meticulously piecing together each section of cloth then stretching the whole thing on a quilting frame set up in her parlor. Ladies from the neighborhood and church would visit and sit around the quilt. Gossip would fly along with the needles as the quilt was sewn to the backing with batting in between.

When I was a kid, after my mother died, I would spend summers and weekends at my aunt’s farm. In the bedroom where I slept was a brass bed with a white and blue double wedding ring quilt.

I went to an antique show a while back and found a quilt that reminded me of the one from my aunt’s farm. I brought it home and I use it every summer. It remakes my bedroom into an image of refuge and security.

I am taken back to that room, on that farm. A safe haven from a life torn apart.

My cousin is currently making me a quilt. It’s sewn with love by the other Human who shared that bedroom with me all those decades ago. We were both subjected to my aunt’s wayward child rescue program. And lived so many of our best summer memories together on that farm. Safely under that quilt.

Back to why I love quilts so much — it’s more than the fact they literally represent a security blanket in my life. The first place I found quilts was when I landed, safely, at my aunt’s farm — numb with grief and my world completely upended. I returned to putting quilts on my bed after my divorce — numb with grief and my world completely upended.

Are you sensing the pattern here?

Soon I’ll have a quilt sewn by someone who is more sister to me than cousin. A gift so precious to my heart — words fail me. The ultimate security blanket.

Namaste.

Addendum: My beloved cousin finished that quilt. She is now currently working on a second, heavier one for me. Because one can never have too many Security Blankets. Or too much Love.

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